Departures: East to the West: Part 3

Haughty dismissal of Santa Fe proper... Sub-optimal navigation techniques... Man with no pants... Navigation by casino...

Santa Fe

We drove off in search of the resort which was to be our temporary abode, the Rancho Encantado, which I quickly came to think of as the Rancho Incontinento, thus displaying a callous disregard for the area's history, favoring low gutter humor instead.

We drove into the center of town, where some buildings were three stories tall. We wound our way amongst cute cafes. We navigated a scenic plaza. Traders came here centuries ago to sell trinkets and geegaws; they're still trying to unload the remainders today in a large number of little gift stores.

We emerged from downtown into the rural sprawl of Northern Santa Fe. We found our way onto Bishop's Lodge Road and followed it North, looking for the community of Tesuque.

The road rolled through dusty hills. The only plants growing were low shrubs which somehow made the hills look even less lively. We rode past the Bishop's Lodge, where the wedding would take place the next day. We noted the spot.

Tesuque

The road rolled amongst hills, now shaded by trees. Low fences and low adobe walls lined it, sheltering gardens and low houses. The road rolled quite a ways. Were we really sure where we were going? We decided to ask for directions at next opportunity. Let me emphasize this point: in a car containing four men and no women, we decided to stop and ask for directions. We stopped and asked for directions. We followed the directions. They led us to the wrong place. These directions were totally wrong. We followed them, and they led us off to entirely the wrong road. Thinking maybe we'd mis-interpreted them, we reconsidered these directions, perhaps we should have turned at that other intersection... but that would have led us further away. I made a note to never, ever let myself get talked into asking for directions again.

I navigated by one map, Bryan by another. These maps did not agree with one another on the numbers corresponding to various roads. Dave, driving, calmly monitored our debate, synthesized our views, and managed to get us to the Rancho. He checked us in. We dumped our bags in our rooms. Dave and I were sharing a sort of suite; Brendan and Bryan were sharing half a condo across the road. I think it was at about this time, as we were getting settled, that Brendan discovered that he didn't have any pants. Rather, that he hadn't brought any long pants. He was wearing shorts. He'd packed another pair of shorts, but no long pants. Since we were going to a wedding the next day, this was something of a cause for concern. I think I let loose a few derisive peals of sympathy. As we headed towards the car, Brendan was asking about the possibility of our shopping for pants today. Dave considered our schedule. We were going to see the Anasazi cliff dwellings at Bandelier, then we were scheduled for a wedding-related dinner that evening. We were already cutting things pretty close; we were going to have to kind of hustle through Bandelier. We probably weren't going to have a chance to do any shopping. This was okay by me--I'd never seen any cliff dwellings, but I'd seen Brendan in long pants before.

We headed up North, out of Tesuque, past Camel Rock (a landmark easy to spot--it's a rock that looks something like a camel, close to the Camel Rock casino), turned left at the next town (whose name I never learned, but fortunately the person giving me directions had mentioned the impossible-to-miss City of Gold Casino there), crossed the Rio Grande on the road to Los Alamos, then turned South to the windy road through White Rock to Bandelier. I mention the route because I was navigating, as it turned out that my map was better than Bryan's in this region--perhaps the people doing the signage for these roads had been using my map instead of his that day.

I didn't take this picture. I don't even think it's from New Mexico.

Along the way, we went past a McDonald's with a play structure out back. The weird part was that they'd glassed in the area containing the play structure. It was like they'd glassed in their whole back yard. Maybe it was to keep dust from blowing onto the bright plastic structure and making it look drab. It made the whole thing look like some kind of twisted variation on a self-contained biosphere, some sort of ecological experiment in which a small number of food service clerks had been sealed off to see if they could live in the enclosed environment. The play structure's role in this experiment was difficult to deduce.

We arrived at the gate to Bandelier National Monument. Admission to the park was $10 a carload. As the car pulled up to the toll booth, I reached a hand into my pocket and pulled out a five dollar bill. "I'm in for half," I said, handing it over to Dave. Dave said hi to the ranger, who said hi back, and it would be $10. Dave started to go for his wallet. At this, point, Bryan and Brendan started going for their wallets. Dave got his out first, and shelled out the necessary dough. How awkward--by tradition, the driver would never pay for such. We pulled through. "Everyone's arms got really short all of a sudden, huh?" Dave asked, kindly. I wondered how long it had been since either of these jasper dudes had managed to escape to a national park.

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