Santa Fe, NM: Part I

Living in New Zealand gives you rather a distorted sense of distance. Even allowing for the third-world standard of our roads, nowhere is that far from anywhere else. The longest distance to a town you'll ever see on a road sign is 200km, maybe 250 tops. So, when we hit the road bright and early and the highway sign tells us that we are 421 miles (or 673km, as we say in English) from Santa Fe - and then consult the map to discover that the distance in question represents a tiny fraction of the drive across the continent - it's hard not to feel that we are miniscule specks on an unfathomably immense landscape.

When adventurer Steve Fossett's plane disappeared over remote Nevada airspace last year, private aircraft from around the country joined in the search for the wreckage. To this date no trace has been found, but within the first week, searchers had found five other previously undiscovered crash sites. The result of five other searches that had obviously been called off due to the improbability of finding the equivalent of a needle in a haystack in the vast expanses of the American West.

Interstate 40, the superhighway that has carried us most of the way from Los Angeles, traces a 4,118km coast-to-coast path from Barstow, California to Wilmington, North Carolina. Its length equates to 18 trips from Christchurch to the West Coast. When I-40 was completed in 1990, journalist Charles Kuralt noted that "thanks to the interstate highway system, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything". This is what we are experiencing now, as we scythe through seemingly infinite semi-arid desert punctuated only occasionally by a power plant or factory, and even less occasionally by a bleak township that hugs the freeway and nearby rail line like embarrassment clings to George W. Bush.

The modest town of Winslow, Arizona has been spared that fate by the Eagles, who drove through it in 1971 and decided, presumably on a whim, to mention it in a popular song. We get off the interstate and take a cruise through the town to make the unsurprising discovery that the town is playing the "Take It Easy" card pretty heavily. On the corner of the two busiest streets we find "Standin' on the corner Park", which in reality is just a section of pavement about five metres by ten metres. Standing on the corner is a bronze statue of Jackson Browne, the man credited with writing the song. In case you've still missed it, a sign above his head says "standin' on the corner". And in case you've still missed it, a nearby general store is blasting the song itself over its loudspeakers, as it has presumably been doing for the past 35 years. Parked at the curb is an actual flatbed Ford, painted red. There is no girl (my Lord) slowing down to take a look at Jackson, so I can't be sure whether its positioning there is intentional or not.

As towns go, Winslow really is a one-trick pony. Still, it is better than a no-trick pony, which most of the nearby towns clearly are. There is even a shop across from the park selling "souviners", which is enough to raise an intrigued eyebrow, but not quite enough to entice me into the shop to discover what a souviner is. The only other point of interest on the drive is a road sign we encounter shortly after crossing into Nevada. The sign reads "Gusty winds may exist", which I take to mean that gusty winds may also not exist. "I suppose that's just a reflection of the uncertain times we live in", I say to no one in particular, pausing for the first and possibly the last time in my life to consider the existential anxieties that gusty winds experience.

Our gracious hosts in Santa Fe are old family friends Hervey and Leslie. Their new house is beautiful inside and out, with a magnificent view north towards the Rockies and a guest fridge full of beer. I've barely had a chance to down one before Hervey is firing up the barbecue. I grab another beer and head out to join him. He's been reading a book called "In Defence of Food"
"I've been reading a book called 'In Defence of Food'. Message is: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants", he says, removing the lamb chops from the grill and replacing them with a juicy plate of steaks. "Think about it. Asian countries have been eating the same foods for hundreds of years and have never even needed dental care".

I point out that no two nutritionists have ever come to the same conclusions about what and what not to eat so who's to say what really is "healthy", and besides, it's the tomatoes that we should be really worrying about.
"Well", he replies after some thought, "you should try chicken sausages. They're a lot healthier".

We sit down around the dinner table on the balcony, overlooking the Rockies, in the balmy New Mexico evening heat, and dig into a fine array of meats, vegetables and salads. The tomatoes have been halved, sprinkled with parmesan and grilled in the oven, then - if I'm not mistaken - finished with a light dusting of salmonella. It doesn't get much better than this. Even the American beer that has been provided for us tastes bloody good. And the lamb is superb.
"They say New Zealand lamb is the best in the world, but this is as good as any I've had".
"Oh, this is New Zealand lamb", says Hervey. It figures.

The after-dinner conversation moves on to politics, much to my intrigue. My father opens proceedings by lamenting that Hillary didn't get the nomination and claiming that Obama "scares the shit out of me" with his idealist rhetoric.
"If he thinks anything is going to change overnight in Washington, he's got another think coming" he says, give or take a few unrepeatable words.

Rick, the other dinner guest, voices his concern for Obama's business policies. Hervey is right in behind Obama, he declares, and has been from day one. Up until this point, I have been fairly noncommital about either candidate, until Leslie embarks upon impassioned monologue about Obama's visit to Santa Fe late last year.

"We left the house at 4pm, his speech was scheduled to begin at 5.30. And you know what? Traffic jams, back past our place, right out of town. Everybody in the town was going to see Obama speak. And we finally got to the arena, and what did we see? Queues, six or seven deep as far as the eye could see! Hervey wanted to go home, but I said, we've got this far now, we may as well stay".

She speaks with the passion and conviction that only a born-again Obama follower could possess.

"Everyone was there. The whole town. The old, the young. People my age. Men, women. Blacks, whites, Hispanics. Tall, short, fat, skinny. Everyone. Everyone. There were thousands of people outside who didn't get in, so he had megaphones set up and everything. And when he was done inside, he went out and spoke with everyone who didn't get in". He does sound like a pretty swell guy.

"And you know what? I felt like I was a part of history. Hervey, pass me the ice cream will you?"

As Hervey passes his wife the ice cream, he takes the opportunity to resume the narrative. "I was 21 in 1960. I saw JFK speak three times. This feeling around Obama at the moment is exactly the feeling that there was around JFK".

Obama is a dreamer, no doubt. And he knows as well as anyone that, if elected, he won't be able to deliver on all the promises he has made to the American people. But his countrymen have suffered through eight years of being dragged through the mud by an inept and uncaring administration, and they want to believe that change is in the air. "Healthcare is a disaster", Leslie says. "We're not even teaching our children. Oil prices are driving people into poverty. And the rest of the world hates us". Obama, with all his hopes and dreams, is going to change all that. At least that's what the people want to believe, and that's what they will believe.

In hindsight, I probably had one beer too many.

Santa Fe is comfortably the oldest town I've ever visited; in fact, it's one of the oldest continously settled sites on the continent. For thousands of years, American Indians frequented the area, drawn here by the water from the Santa Fe River. They lived peacefully and as one with Mother Earth, establishing several villages in the Santa Fe area from 1050 onwards. Sadly, their fortunes took a significant turn for the worse in the early 16th century when the Spanish turned up and tried to convert them all into God-fearing Catholics, only to discover that it was easier just to kill them all instead. Those bastards duly got theirs in 1846, when the Good Guys marched westward under the command of Brigadier General Stephen W. Kearny and claimed the territory of New Mexico under the American flag.

The Navajo Indians were to impart an important legacy on the city, however, in the distinctive adobe architecture it has adopted. Adobe structures, built out of a mixture of sand, clay, water and straw, are ideally suited to their region due to the excellent insulation they provide and the fact that they look awesome.

Downtown Santa Fe owes much of its charm to the predominantly adobe buildings that line the streets. It is a slow-paced, relaxed city of 70,000 people or so, and for a long time has been a haven for artists, musicians, literary types, and Julia Roberts. Down its curious narrow streets can be found fascinating art gallerys, museums and, of course, a shitload of Mexican restaurants. Wherever I walk, the smell of barbecued meats pervades the air, putting me further at ease with my surroundings. If there is a more satisfying or comforting olfactory sensation known to man than that of a dead animal roasting on an open fire, I've yet to encounter it.

After lunch I take a seat on a bench in the central plaza, a large open public space in the centre of town, and watch the world go by. I am very impressed by the friendly and unrushed pace of Santa Fe: a bit like Dunedin, only thirty degrees warmer and without the bogans. An eclectic mix of folk wander past me through the plaza and onto God-knows-where: locals, cowboys, American tourists with their t-shirts tucked into their shorts, foreign tourists complaining about the heat, students, elderly couples, hawkers, and just about everyone else in the city as well. I feel a bit like Humphrey Bogart sitting on a park bench in "The Treasure of Sierra Madre", only not quite as much of an outlaw.

In the centre of the plaza is an impressive monument, surrounded by bushes and protected by an iron fence. The plaque on it reads "Monument to the heroes who have fallen in the various battles with ____ Indians in the territory of New Mexico, 1862". The word between "with" and "Indians" has been chiselled off, which can only make me think that the removed word had some sort of derogatory or inappropriate connotations. But what? "Dastardly Indians"? "Noble Indians"? "Not very nice Indians"? "Poofy Indians"? I saw lots of Native Americans in the diner where we stopped for lunch in Gallup yesterday. We were actually the only white people in there, and they certainly didn't look poofy to me. In fact they looked quite capable of snapping me like a twig, had they not been so preoccupied with trying to sell me cheap bracelets and jewellery.

Hervey and Leslie have a treat lined up for us for dinner. We are taken on a short drive north of town to Gabriel's Mexican Restaurant and promised the best Mexican food we've ever had. Things begin impressively when a waiter wheels over a trolley to the table and... makes the guacamole fresh in front of our eyes!
"That's pretty fresh", I say, displaying the classic Kiwi penchant for understatement that Americans don't get.
"Won't get it any fresher than that", Hervey confirms.
The waiter can barely speak English, which is a good sign because it means he hasn't wasted his time learning another language when he could be honing his guacamole skills. Though a young man, he is already a master, whipping up a massive bowl of the good stuff in mere moments. It is fresh, and it is superb.

The main courses are no less incredible. Each is a work of aesthetic genius, almost too good to eat if you didn't know that it was going to taste deliciously delicious anyways. I have gone for an old favourite with a twist: chile rellenos stuffed with chargrilled chicken and cheese, deep fried and smothered in an chili sauce, served with beans, rice, corn and - you guessed it - more guacamole.

Back at home, nursing the now-customary distended belly that comes free with every dinner you eat at a restaurant in America, I once again find myself wondering how best the food industry in New Zealand might be improved. It occurs to me that perhaps the US government has covertly passed a law stating that any person caught serving shitty food be executed. This would make sense, considering we haven't had a bad meal so far. What implications might such a law have back home? From what I can see, it would either drastically improve the experience of dining out in New Zealand restaurants, or result in the entire food industry being wiped out virtually overnight. Sadly, I can't help but feel it would be the latter.