Last night was a drowsy one. Not as bad as the previous two nights, but I didn’t wake up bright and early, either. I lazed out of bed and down to the hotel breakfast. Inside the still-sizzling serving trays were large tortillas, eggs, sausages, and the best hotel beans I’ve ever had. I downed the tortilla and beans with trusty hotel apple juice, and we loaded the car.
While my mom and I were waiting at the car and my dad was still in the hotel, I suddenly remembered the signs I had seen yesterday. “Sweet Santa Fe”, it had read, with an arrow pointing to the right. It was a small restaurant famous for its award-winning desserts, and it was situated in a mall just a parking lot away from the hotel.
It opened at 9 a.m. Guess what time it was then? 9 a.m..
I quickly got my mom on board, and we eagerly headed to the clay-looking, rounded, alternate-reality-type mall entrance architecture lining the far side of the lot. It was an inviting light brown color with signs framed in blue and red-pastel pillars inside, making a calming archaic aesthetic.
Sweet Santa Fe actually opened an hour earlier than the mall did, which meant the place was deserted. The mall was outdoors, too, so it was just my mom and I in a colorful outlet under a piercing blue sky. It was a special kind of peaceful.
When we reached the shop, the giant spread of all kinds of food (desserts and non-desserts) overwhelmed me. Instead of asking for their award-winning truffles, I stared blankly at the menu. I indicated my interest in chocolates, so the store operator bailed me out with some shipping chocolates. I picked lavender flavor with whipped cream. Lavender is calming, right?
As the worker turned around to make the drink, I overcame my mental block and took in the store around me. One of the 
bright blue displays in front were lined with everything from bagels to popcorn. The other display was devoted more exclusively to chocolates—decadently covered with icing or sprinkled with nuts and sugar crystals.
My eyes followed the rows of chocolate balls, fudge bars, and so on, until I noticed the sign listing the awards certain desserts had won in recent years. I eagerly looked for “Lavender Sipping Chocolate”, hoping I’d lucked out, but it wasn’t there. The closest was “Mexican Chipotle Sipping Chocolate”, which probably had a spicy flair to it.
That’s what happens when you’re (as I explained in my last post) bad at tourism. But it’s okay. You live and you learn.
The first sip tasted like bitter dark chocolate, and I thought I’d made a poor choice. The next few sips, however, changed my mind. A strong, 100% chocolate flavor mixed with sweet whipped cream? Not bad, not bad at all.
Now dowsed in sugar, we were finally ready to set off for our next destination: Chaco Culture National Historical Park, a preservation high up in the mountains where you can see the remains of ancient Chacoan towns. Onward we go!
Before we continue, a quick note: I once again sided against using my camera today. Lately, my Canon-produced photos look as if they have a blue filter on them. I have no idea what settings I must have accidentally pressed to make that happen, but that’s an issue for a later date.
Yesterday, I mentioned a vision in my head of large canyon faces, each rock layer a different vibrant hue. This was something I’d seen on the way to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, but I couldn’t remember if it was a feature of New Mexico or Arizona, or both. I had seen something similar to this yesterday as we entered Santa Fe, but not quite—impressively tall hills with jagged edges but with only one or two pale colors streaked vertically in the rock. My quench for beautiful rocks had been satisfied, and I hadn’t expected to see my vision in reality.
Until today.
Somewhere between Santa Fe and the National Park, on a road that took us curving around elevated terrain, I saw the landscape change to the soaring steep hills of my imagination. First, the mountain peaks stretched ever so much higher, in solitude with other mountains. They encircled us with their inspiring magnificence, daring us to look up at them without falling into a mesmerized daze.
Soon after came the cliff faces—layers of bright red, pale orange, white, and every shade in between stacked in a toppling tower toward the clouds. With some buttes close by, and others far away in the distance, each moving away at different speeds as our little car zoomed by, it was like an ant inside of a pop-up book. These giant formations appearing in front of you, behind other canyons, and around curves in the highway, merely passing alongside you.
It’s very humanizing. You just are here. But those rocks? They belong here.
After the last of my morning tiredness faded away, I volunteered to drive the last leg of the bumpy ride, and I don’t just mean that metaphorically.
The several dozen miles leading up to Chaco Park took us even higher upward in the world, on a sloping up-and-down highway, past small bits of civilization in an otherwise rainbow-rock reality. The road narrowed, the land flattened out and drowned in vegetation. Then, the road disappeared, and I was suddenly driving a minivan through paths of sand, gray and red rock, and dirt that had been eroded into wild bumps by streams of water. Several times I felt the whole car lurch back and forth, and other times, we were literally vibrating. The landscape around me continued to impress, and as a licensed driver of less than two years, I felt so blessed to be able to steer a car through such beautiful mountain land on a literally unpaved path. It was like something out of an action movie.
Eventually, we pulled into a parking lot amid towering brown canyons. By then, all my expectations had been met. The adventure bar of my day was overflowing. In anticipation, we walked toward the Chaco Visitor Center to learn about the park.
We were advised by an incredibly kind park ranger to purchase a self-guide book for the Pueblo Bonito, the most popular spot in the park, and a book explaining the petroglyphs along the Chetro Ketl trail and other parts of the park. The afternoon tour had been canceled due to their being short-staffed (hence, the self-guide books), but no matter. After a quick late lunch in the car, we drove on the park’s 9-mile loop, which had trails and various tourist stops like Pueblo Bonito along the way.
I have very little documentation of this park because I committed to having the self-guide books in my hand and reading about what I was seeing as I went along. Regardless, the park, which featured the ruins of towns and houses and kivas, did not have the effect I was hoping it would.
Maybe it was fact that the drive up to the park had already blown my mind out of the water (in a good way. In an epic way.) Or maybe it was that parts of the ruins had been re-plastered for preservation purposes by archaeologists. Or just the fact that it was thousands of years old. Standing in the contained, brick-and-mortar rooms, I didn’t feel any of the spiritual essence or connection to the past that I had read in a blog about the park or later watched in a video in the park’s museum. None of that. It was just…me, standing in a room. Any powerful presence or essence I was anticipating just wasn’t there.
However, that didn’t detract from the park in any meaningful way. As we walked along the trails, gazing through the rooms, comparing sketches in the petroglyph book to the scraggly carvings in the canyon faces, laughing in the dead heat, getting to know other tourists randomly, and finally collapsing in the car after a burning one-mile walk in the sun, I felt content. I want to be able to do a hike or run a marathon, but at this stage in my life, I am not one for physical exertion. So, these park trails were a true victory.
Heading back down the park took no time at all. Suddenly, we were in the midst of Albuquerque, ordering pasta and pizza from Tomato Cafe. And then we were laughing heartily to a podcast episode of “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” as we drove on a straight-shot road to our hotel in Socorro. To my right, the sun had turned a prominent, beautiful golden. I watched as it melted down in the sky, casting the clouds in a deathly pink glow.
And now, here I am. Typing away.
Good night, and see you tomorrow at White Sands National Park!
—May Sarin, managing editor
