Santa Fe NM, anyone else disenchanted?

Parent Cafe
61

So many opinions!

I grew up in the burbs of a major east coast city (so did my husband, but it was different city than I grew up in), spent a decade in the midwest, and actually cried the night my husband first brought me to New Mexico for his new job. (It was so brown and barren! In retrospect, it was the end of August–which is perhaps the ugliest time of year here.) But the place grows on you. Maybe it’s the lack of pretentiousness, maybe it’s the warmth & friendliness of the people, maybe it’s the smell of chile roasting in the fall and piñon burning in the winter. Or the taste of a green chile cheeseburger on summer’s afternoon or a bowl of posole on a cold December’s evening. There is an emptiness and a haunting, rugged beauty to the land. I can travel 25 minutes from house and see the Milky Way in the night sky. I can sit on my front porch & watch thunderstorms rise up & spit their lightning 100 miles away. I can smell the rain on the breeze long before it arrives and can bask under the double rainbows it leaves in its wake.

New Mexico is home. I can’t imagine moving.

62

Very poetic @WayOutWestMom. Your comments really paint a portrait of the place. :slight_smile:

63

@WayOutWestMom And that is why D would love to move out your way! And may very well some day. (Me? Give me the Maine coastline!)

64

@doschicos Thanks!

And I have one more recommendation that I almost forgot about–

The Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad. It’s an authentic, restored 1880s narrow gauge railroad that travels between Chama, NM and Antonio, CO. Lots of gorgeous scenery, especially in the fall when the aspens are in full color.


And there are down sides to living in New Mexico--we have a number of self-deprecating unofficial state mottos that reflect that:

New Mexico: Home of the flea, Land of the plague (because we have bubonic plague, hanta virus and Valley fever--diseases you won't catch anywhere else in the US. And yes, there are cases of all 3 each & every year.) 

New Mexico: Land of Manaña (because everything will get done tomorrow)

New Mexico: thank god for Mississippi (because no matter how badly we rank on "worst of" lists, Mississippi comes in lower)

~~~

@zobroward 

It's not the bugs in New Mexico that are scary--it's the rodentia.  Because they carry hanta and plague.

I bet there's no where else in the US where disposing of a dead mouse require double gloving, a filter mask and a doubled baggie filled with bleach. I am constantly horrified whenever I see a children's petting zoos featuring prairie dogs-- because around here they're nothing but disease vectors.
65

@WayOutWestMom, are you living in Santa Fe? Most of the year-round residents we chatted with were indeed unpretentious and friendly. Even the two security guards in the Capitol building went out of their way to ask about our visit and recommend what we should see in the building. We went to a breakfast place, Wecks, that felt like the Cheers tavern. Everyone knew each other and the waitresses treated them like family. But there seemed to be an undercurrent of resentment about the ‘gentrification’ of Santa Fe and the influx of wealthy visitors among the people we spoke with.

Even after two days in Santa Fe I was still having some trouble with the altitude. I’m usually fine up to 10,000 feet so I was surprised to have that swimming in molasses feeling at 7000 feet. The beer probably didn’t help matters, and the days were pretty hot. I assume people eventually adapt to altitude, but the bad feeling and trouble sleeping may have colored my general impression.

66

Yes, altitude has made it difficult for me to spend time in NM. We visited friends in Los Alamos when my lungs were healthier and I was fine. Now that my lungs aren’t as healthy, we meet at lower elevations. Even Denver is lower than most of New Mexico, which I had no idea of until my friend let me know. It’s very dry heat. You sure can see the night sky well!

67

I was at the Museum of International Folk Art. It’s one of the four or five museums on Museum Hill (I mentioned it upstream but couldn’t remember thr name). It was great.

68

No, I live in ABQ. My house in the Far NE Heights at about 7000 ft above sea level. But I’ve traveled over the state and my kidlets spend/have spent a lot of time in Taos, Espanola and varous parts of northern NM.

I know many people have trouble with the altitude. Even D2 had some (mild) problems adjusting when she came home on breaks from her sea level college. Normal O2 sats in healthy people here are only around 96% so anyone with impaired lung or heart function will have difficulty. And all babies in NM are born “blue” (it take about 5 minutes for them to pink up)–which freaks the heck out OB residents who are from lower altitudes.

New Mexico is basically all one big small town. Even though there are over 650,000 people in ABQ, no matter where you go, you will run into someone you know. And Santa Fe really is a small town. The city’s population is only around 85,000.

And there is some resentment about the influx of higher income home buyers in Santa Fe because until fairly recently zoning was so restrictive that very little new housing stock was being built and lower income, long-time residents were getting pushed out by insane housing prices. Also the new vistors caused taxes to go up and started to change the cultural complexion/composition of the city --which is much very old time Spanish Hispanic. (Only in New Mexico is there a distinction between “Spanish”–those who date their families’ arrival in the New World to the 1600s and hold Land Grants from the King of Spain-- and “Mexican”-- all those who arrived later.)

All in all, New Mexico is an odd place. We have more PhDs per capita than any other state. We have more professional artists per capita than any other state. And our state’s economy is most similar to a 3rd world country since the primary sources of employment are tourism and extractive industries (mining & drilling).

69

Yes, in Los Alamos, most of the volunteer school bus drivers have PhDs and can help students with calculus, physics and lots of other subjects. :slight_smile: when we visited, it felt like it was in many ways a simpler time and place. People seemed very friendly and neighbors knew one another and caught by the school bus together.

70

@WayOutWestMom I’m a Jersey girl. My favorite Aunt’s family moved from Philadelphia to Albuquerque many years ago, and what a change in lifestyle! They embraced it as you did, and we’ve been lucky to visit your beautiful, quirky, mystical state! My cousins have moved to Colorado and Oklahoma for business reasons, but one cousin remains working for an Albuquerque radio station,

71

@HImom
Yes, Los Alamos where “gifted” is not a part of special education curriculum because 30-35% of the students have IQs above the 130.

(BTW, the TV series Eureka is loosely based on Los Alamos, NM.)

Beside Los Alamos, there is Sandia National Laboratory in ABQ (where Edward Teller took his plutonium when the mean LANL scientists wouldn’t let him build his hydrogen bomb). White Sands, the VLA and various state universities also contribute to the PhD count.

72

WayoutwestMom, you nailed it. But of course you did, because you live there.

I lived in Santa Fe for several years, before having my kids. I managed a gallery on Canyon Road. Santa Fe and its surroundings, was/ is a magical place. There is no way you can get the feel of the place in 3 days.

Each season has its own unique aspect. In the spring the desert comes alive with blooms. Especially if it was a wet winter. I had my first allergic symptoms as an an adult in the Santa Fe desert. Summer is always sunny, warm but not too hot and not humid. Georgeous actually. Autumn has the aspens in the mountains. Santa Fe is in the Sangre de Cristo mountains. Lower part of the Rockies. The aspens all turn bright yellow making the mountains glowing or looking like on fire.

And then there is the holiday season. The city fills with farolitos and luminaries. It is totally magical. Places all over the rest of the country have tried to copy this. But this place is unique.

And, as others have said, surrounding areas and places are beautiful, unique and one of a kind.

I miss it and want to go back. I owned 5 acres there and knew I would always be sorry I sold it. But it was part of a break up.

I find that all tourist areas have become the same in this country. I went to Sedona, Arizona this summer. Last summer, Jackson Hole, Wyoming and I live near Cooperstown, NY. They are all so different yet so similar. D2’s BF, visiting recently, said Cooperstown gave him a Newport, RI vibe,close to where he is from,

All have many “gift” shops selling, actually, the same stuff made outside of the US. All have “quaint” restaurants and places selling tours and/or time shares. And masses of people.

73

In 1979 I hopped on a Greyhound bus to move to Santa Fe. I fell in love with the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe many years earlier and felt drawn to the landscape and multicultural population. Within a week I had a great job, and within a month met my future husband, who grew up there. Unfortunately when I met him he had already decided to move east for graduate school, so my time in Santa Fe was much too brief. This summer we returned to check it out as a retirement locale. We met up with many of my husband’s high school friends, who had never left. Not sure that we can afford it, but the magic was there for both of us. Santa Fe is a soulful place that fills my heart with contentment.

74

This thread appeared shortly before I took a long-awaited trip to Santa Fe. I got a little scared because I was so looking forward to going and I thought oh no, maybe I’ll be disappointed.

I wasn’t.

It was four days of fabulous. Perfect weather, a great hotel just a short walk to Canyon Road and the Plaza. I know some people think the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum is small, but I loved it and enjoyed the nice representation of her lesser-known work. If you like American Indian pottery, go to Andrea Fisher on the Plaza. Oh my.

Had a great meal on the beautiful patio at La Casa Sena. And thanks for the recommendation of Rancho de Chimayo - the scenery on the drive out there with the sun low in the sky was out of this world, and then the food! The sopapilla might be the single best thing I’ve ever eaten, and that frozen prickly pear lemonade…

I ran a half marathon while I was there and burned off some of the calories I consumed. Fortunately I’m not affected much by altitude despite the fact I live near sea level. I’ll admit I did feel it when the first two miles of the course climbed about 300’, but it was all downhill (in a good way!) from there.

There wasn’t time to see everything I’d have liked, and that gives me a great excuse to return.