Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
is warm and clean and the reddish Sangre de Cristo mountains at the city's back are just
sensational, especially
atsunsetwhentheysimply glow,asiflit fromwithin, like jack-o'-lanterns. Thetownitself
is just too rich and pretty forwords.It is the oldest continuously inhabited city in America-
it was founded in 16i0, a decade before the Pilgrims set off from Plymouth-and takes great
pride in its age. Everything in Santa Fe, and I mean everything, is made out of adobe.
There's an adobe Woolworth's, an adobe multistory parking lot, an adobe six-story hotel.
When you pass your first adobe gas station and adobe supermarket, you think, “Hey, let's
getoutofhere,”butthenyourealizethatitisn'tsomethinglaidonforthetourists.Adobeis
simplytheindigenousbuildingmaterial,andusingiteverywheregivesthetownauniform-
ity of appearance few other places achieve. Besides, Santa Fe is filthy rich, so everything
is done tastefully and well.
IdroveupintothehillslookingforSt.John'sCollege,wheremyniecewasastudent.Itwas
four in the afternoon and the streets were full of long shadows. The sun was settling onto
the mountains and the adobe houses on every hillside were lit with a rich orange-brown
glow.St.John'sisasmallcollegeperchedhighupinthehills,withthefinestviewintown,
looking down over Santa Fe and the rolling mountains beyond. It has only 300 students on
its sleepy campus, but my niece, on this fine spring afternoon, was not among them. No
one knew where she was, but everyone promised to let her know that a slobby, overweight
personwithdustyshoesandtropicalarmpitshadcomelookingforherandwouldcallback
in the morning.
I went back into town, got a room, had a deep, hot bath, changed into clean clothes and
spent the evening shambling happily around the tranquil streets of downtown Santa Fe,
gazing admiringly at the window displays in the expensive galleries and boutiques, savor-
ing the warm evening air, and disconcerting people in the more exclusive restaurants by
pressing my face up against the windows and looking critically at their food. The heart of
Santa Fe is the Plaza, a Spanish-style square with white benches and a tall obelisk com-
memorating the battle of Valverde, whatever that was. On the base was an engraved in-
scription in which February had been misspelled as Febuary; this pleased me very much.
Another pleasing thing about the Plaza was a place on the corner called the Ore House.
Downstairs it is a restaurant, but upstairs there is a bar with an open porch where you can
sitwhere indeed I did sit-for many tranquil hours drinking beers brought to your table by a
pleasant waitress with a nice bottom, enjoying the mild evening and watching the stars fill
the pale blue desert sky. Through the open door into the bar I could also watch the pianist,
a well-groomed young man who played a seemingly endless series of chords and tinkling
arpeggios that never really developed into anything you could call a song. But he cruised
