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	BlackChampagne -- no longer new; improvement also in question.: New Mexico Photos, Part I Tuesday, November 25, 2008 New Mexico Photos, Part I A selection of photos from my recent New Mexico vacation. These are all from my cell phone, and are included here as a delivery system for the captions, rather than for any artistic merit or eye candy-ness. I'll post some pretty pictures from my camera at some point in the future. Or not. Me standing on the bridge over the Rio Grande Gorge. There's no way to tell the scale in this photo, but trust me, it was a long way down to the water. Wikipedia says 800 feet (though any of us could go change it to something more appropriate), the Taos tour guide said something like 650 feet at the bridge, and my eyes didn't know, but thought it was fucking far. I love heights, so I greatly enjoyed walking out onto the bridge and leaning over. The best part was when big trucks came over (the main highway from Taos runs right over the gorge) and the two-lane bridge shook and swayed up and down, feeling a bit like the undulations of a water bed. The whole area is high desert, and despite the son, it was cold in mid-November. Albuquerque, where we flew in/out, is around 5000 feet, and Taos and Santa Fe are higher still. This photo is from a road over one of the local mountains, which go up to over 10,000 feet. (There are some ski resorts in the area, though they mostly rely on man made powder, since it's cold, but there's not enough precipitation to provide sufficient real snow.) The highway isn't that high, but this was probably 8000 feet or so. There wasn't much snow, but every shady patch of hillside through the mountains had white remaining from the last storm, over a week before. This was the largest patch we saw. Just some random photo of the high desert. Gray/brown hills and scrubby pine-like trees. It would be a pretty view if that guy would get his stupid head out of the way. Santa Fe is weird, since there's nothing actually there. The whole town is just hotels, restaurants, souvenir stores, and lots of art galleries. The boutiques are loaded with art of more dubious provenance, and I saw a gathering of these cheaply-carved and painted pigs in several stores. I didn't much like them; they had teeth that turned their idiot grins into something a bit ominous. Reminiscent of the fate Mason Verger planned for Hannibal. The pig photo was largely for the IG, while this one was purely for Malaya, whose bunny obsession was occasionally documented on these pages in ~~happier~~ earlier days. This hand-carved, cotton-tailed menorah scene was in the window of one of the countless expensive artsy-boutiques we saw in Santa Fe. I didn't tote up the total, not in US dollars or the myhrh/frankensense conversion rate. However, just the standing, adult Jesus bunny (who is clearly risking a disruption in the time flow by ret-conning himself into the scene beside his swaddling clothed-counterpart) was $2200, and the rest weren't much cheaper. Just a little path down to a scenic viewpoint, in Bandolier National Park. Better yet, that dude didn't stick his head into the frame this time. Amongst the (dubious) good of menorah bunnies, there was evil to be found in the art galleries. Case in point. Yes, it's a fucking bear. Snarling. Forever. The best part, if that word can be used in this scenario, is that the bear faces up and the table is glass. I couldn't help but envision the enjoyment one could garner by covering the surface with newspapers, then asking a guest to clear off the table for appetizers. A typical jewelry display in any one of the hundreds of such stores we saw in New Mexico. This was one shelf of maybe 50 in this particular store with a selection along these lines. Semi-precious stones = FTW! For the numerous, at least. A shot of what I've missed most since returning from New Mexico. The breakfast buffet in our hotel, which included a variety of donuts each morning. None of them were the best, but the powdered were pretty good since they were hard and crusty on the outside. Thee hotel also provided bagels, various types of cereal, strawberry and vanilla yogurt (good with granola cereal in them), toaster-style french toast and pancakes, and a huge platter of refrigerated, peeled, hardboiled eggs. Labels: photos, vacation Posted by: Flux # 3:13 AM Comments: New Mexico is wonderful, and but Santa Fe is horrible. It has turned into such a pretentious town whose economy is based on faux-Native American trinkets for rich, yuppy saps. If you are ever there again, the one thing that I do recommend is stopping by their capitol building. All of its hallways are gallery space, and they have a really good collection of art. My favorite places in New Mexico are in the Jemez Mountains, close to where Bandalier is... and farther north up into Taos. The landscapes are surreal and vividly colorful. When I lived there, I used to go on hikes almost every weekend! #: 11:04 PM posted by Anonymous By the way, did you by chance stay in Albuquerque? That breakfast menu looks suspiciously similar to a hotel I've stayed at... Vagabond Inn on University?? Or maybe that's just the norm over there. I remember the hotel so well because such an elaborate breakfast is atypical. #: 11:09 PM posted by Anonymous Cool Pics! #: 7:46 AM posted by Attila we stayed in santa fe for 3 nights. only in Alb for arrival and most of the last day there before flying out. day visit to taos. santa fe had a lot of nice art studios. small places with original stuff, not just the trinket shops with their $2000 navajo rugs. and many great restaurants in santa fe. glad dad was buying, but we had some awesome meals. #: 2:01 PM posted by Flux Man those are nice sunglasses #: 3:00 PM posted by Anonymous Post a Comment << Home Archives May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009 May 2009 June 2009 July 2009 August 2009 September 2009 October 2009 November 2012

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