As I try to pay for the batteries that were easily found (they are special, but are also readily available in the right place), the attendant cautions me not to trip on my shoelaces. Indeed, one is untied, and I bitch about the epidemic inability for shoe manufactures to sell shoes with appropriately sized shoe laces (New Balance, very nice hikers, big bucks, wretched laces). We also talk about altitude effects, and she tells me that there is an Oxygen bar just across the street. An Oxygen bar? Yes, and she says that I should try it out even if I’m not feeling sick! I’m starting to wonder why so many people are cautioning me about the altitude. (Later, at home, when I’m trying to reverse diagnose some ailments I was feeling, I learn that altitude sickness is a very real problem, even at 6000 - 7000 feet some 25% of people - regardless of physical health, fitness or prior experiences - are affected adversely; and I realize that many of the things I had been feeling had been the early indications of altitude sickness). What was her prescience? I should have listened!
Most importantly, the woman tells me that its less than a mile walk to the Plaza, and that people commonly walk from the lodgings nearby to the Plaza. A block or so back is the Pueblo Lodge, with a “vacancy” sign! Even looks like a large version of the types of ‘Motor Lodges’ that I used to stay in as a kid when traveling with my Mom. Now those were adventures! 1948 Pontiac. Wool seats. No A/C. Vacuum wipers. AM radio. 9 year old kid navigating with Esso (sometimes Flying A) maps, playing alphabet games with license plates, and reading Burma Shave signs! We need more Burma Shave signs, and fewer cell phones!!!
Anyway, a nice room at the back (for quiet) is available, and I check in. Shower, some telephone calls, a walk to the Plaza, a look around, and then some food and a beer at a place called Eske’s. Some Brach’s Autumn Mix (it used to be only Farley’s was made with honey. Now Farley’s isn’t available, but Brach’s notes that their candy corn is made with honey. It’s the honey!) for dessert, read a bit, and sleep.
Friday, October 8, 2010: There was a thunderstorm in the early morning, which woke me, but I interpreted it as a train. Not that I’d seen any rails since Cerrillos, but trains do get tucked away. At daylight, a visit to the very popular Michael’s Kitchen, where I get both coffee and into the middle of a conversation (sitting at a counter) between some people complaining about house prices, lack of work and foreclosures. Lot of anger about banks refusing to re-negotiate rates, in favor of foreclosing on houses they can’t re-sell. Go figure!
Breakfast was good - New Jersey diner style - and I’m not talking about those modern diners, I’m talking those 1920 - 1960 diner style breakfasts! No, I wasn’t alive in 1920, but a few of those diners were still around until the 70's and they served large quantities of wonderful high carb, high fat, great smelling foods. Just what you needed the morning after carousing in bars on Staten Island, or getting ready to go fishing or sailing!
Out of Michael’s and into town. Kit Carson house and museum - cool place. A stop at a shop next door that sells used hats and cowboy paraphernalia. There’s sun in NM, and my panama was at home. I had seen one straw cowboy hat in Madrid, but I thought I looked silly in it. There were some great looking hats in the window of this shop though, and after a brief browse I found exactly what I wanted. That is, exactly what I wanted except for fit! Lamenting that inexorable fact, the hat went back on the rack. The proprietor, a tall cowboy looking character wearing a great looking black hat, asked if he could help. I said, “Sure”, and he proceeded to give me a 45 minute lesson in hats, hat sizing, hat design, and hat wearing.
I asked him, “If I move to Taos, do I have to learn to ride?” He said no. He also sold me a great hat, which affords outstanding sun protection, but unfortunately can’t be worn in a car because of the headrest. I think if I move to Taos I too will get myself one of those 1950's - 1960's pick up trucks (an acquaintance from Dallas calls them “pick em up” trucks), that are fairly common out here. Sometimes rusting in the side yard, sometimes rolling wonderfully down the street. Might even get me a gun rack! So there! I’ll be lookin’ right sporty in my hat, checking out the young, female tourists! Might even keep an Oxygen bottle on the seat next to me.
Time to move on. I keep on walking, note that in a store on the Plaza they’re selling Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy. Now, you might not remember that stuff, but it was one of the better 50's candies. Went off the market in the early 70's. Rectangular slabs of essentially pure sugar, cooked and worked and flavored to make a sometimes sticky, sometimes brittle substance sure to delight orthodontists. I think it was 5 cents - a nickel - and one of those proud buffalo nickels - not those insipid Jefferson nickels we have now. Bring back REAL money, Walking Liberty in my pocket! Enough with living in the past, reminiscing on the busts of politicians, let’s go back to fantasies of glory and a bright future!!! Ah-h-h, the delights the vision of a bar of Bonomo’s brings!
On to a Western Store. Still looking for a straw hat, and maybe a Western yoke shirt. No hat, no shirt, but a belt for my son.
There’s a parade brewing, and the Paseo is blocked by NM State Troopers. Back to the motel, pick up my SUV, get stuck behind a car with New York plates (?), and find away around the parade route towards Ranchos de Taos. Spend some time in the only traffic jam I ever saw in NM, and certainly the best behaved traffic jam I’ve ever been in. Finally get back to the main road, looking for the San Francisco de Asis Mission church.
South of Taos is where the box stores are, and I’m very glad I didn’t approach Taos from the south, I would have had a completely different impression of the city. Looking for the Mission, I’m expecting something imposing, but it’s surrounded by commerce and not readily seen from the road. Eventually, I realize that I’ve just passed it, turn around and stop for lunch before going to the Mission.
Lunch is at a tiny, roadside New Mexican restaurant. Looks to be mostly takeout, but there are a couple of tables indoors and a picnic table outdoors. Young man is working the counter, and a woman, perhaps his mother is cooking. The place is named after her, and I can’t remember the name. There’s a simple and interesting menu, from which I order a chicken mole, with corn tortillas and a mango drink (diluted mango juice served over ice cubes - very refreshing. So much so that I wind up ordering a second to go). The mole was delicious, and I’m thinking what a great find this was, as I finish off the stack of tortillas.
The Mission is but a hundred yards away, and I park in what appears to be the appropriate lot, but which I found out was the lot serving the shops in the Ranchos Plaza. Curiously, the Mission Church does not face the road, its back does. Earlier experiences have led me to believe that churches always face their plazas, but apparently, Ranchos Plaza has been so over built that any vestiges of the original traveled ways have disappeared.
What had been a plaza in front of the church has been turned over to parking, and the lot delightfully allows stepping back from the courtyard and getting a good vista of the small complex. The church is magnificent! Massive adobe in the most intriguing peach/ochre color.
Walking around the church, photographing it, I discover that an aspen has been placed in a south window, really the only south window, and it is glowing with the sunlight shining through the Palladian arched window. I don’t think the Spanish missionaries used Palladian windows, so I’m supposing that it was a renovation, set into what I’m supposing was the original rectangular window underneath the archaic lintel. That’s OK, may not be authentic, but it looks good.
St. Francis himself is in the courtyard, and I hang out with him awhile. I’m not Catholic, but I have affinities for both St. Francis and St. Catherine, and any time I’m in a place dedicated to one or the other I take the time to meditate and connect with them. I’ve got to mention that I had a seriously powerful experience with Catherine in Siena! But, Francis was a peaceful, retiring man, and he’s not pushing me to more revelations. So, I accept the simple peace of this delightful courtyard, take some more photos, make a donation and head on back to Taos.
No comments:
Post a Comment