Adventures in Santa Fe

I was really, really excited to visit Santa Fe. 

I've heard nothing but good things about the city, and had visions of artists' enclaves, cow skulls, dried chili pepper decor, silver jewelry, and excellent margaritas dancing in my head.

Apparently my prior assumptions were quite accurate:

But, lest you think that it's all chili peppers and cow skulls, rest assured that it's much, MUCH more.

Like....corn!

And...baskets!

And....old ladies!

But it's not all indigenous, crafty artwork. There's the New Mexico Museum of Art which features contemporary art next to historic art. Like these columns outside of the museum:

The buildings have beautiful architecture as well. The beautiful Hotel Santa Fe has these internal glass-paned panels that separate off an atrium restaurant. The panes are all hand-painted with various designs and New Mexican motifs:

There are sculptures EVERYWHERE:

And, of course, hand-crafted goods such as this black cherry goat replica of Andre the Giant's boots.

For reference: my feet next to Andre the Giant's boots.

There are panels:

And colorful opinions:

And then there's Canyon Road. 

Canyon Road is a winding stretch of road in Santa Fe lined with hundreds of art galleries, boutiques, sculpture gardens, and restaurants. And, of course, twee adobe homes built in classic southwest fashion:

I made a friend.

We only had a limited amount of time in Santa Fe, and decided to make a quick trip to see the famous Santa Fe Opera House. I would LOVE. To go see an opera there. 

Typical New Mexican art on a highway overpass.

The crunchy in me is happy with this sign.

Not a bad view from the opera parking lot.

Unfortunately, we were there in the middle of the day on a Monday, and thus did not get to see the actual opera. We did see the fence:

and will-call....

and the parking lot.

Still - isn't it beautiful?!

And thus: Santa Fe in an afternoon. 

On a Happier Note....

 

On a (much better) note, my girl over at Charm(ing) City Style put together a sexy little blog post just for me! Since she is ridiculously fashionable and super smart, I demanded that she help me pack for the Middle East.

Thanks, CCS! You are the best (dressed).

Time The Hell Out

A few nights ago, I uploaded a bunch of photos from our trip to Santa Fe that I fully intended to post tonight. But then, I started thinking, and I thought - you know, why the hell not, I'm going to go ahead and blog about Boston. 

As a runner who has completed three half marathons and dozens of shorter-distance races, the whole thing is unthinkable to me. I have run races in Baltimore and Washington DC with 10, 20, 30,000 participants, and I understand something of the sheer logistics of roping off city streets, setting up medical tents, making sure that portable toilets/food/water are placed safely along the routes, and prepping hundreds of volunteers. Everyone is prepared for things like dehydration, sprained ankles, torn ligaments, falls, heat stroke, exhaustion, and rando pirates who try to ghost-run races without a number. Everyone is prepared for crowd control because, lemme tell you, marathons draw crowds. If every runner has only one person there, cheering him/her on, that's still 10, 20, 30,000 people that are just standing off to the side, watching. And that's a conservative estimate. Oh, and also, this is taking place in a very centralized and urban part of a major metropolitan city. This, too, requires some serious planning.

Further upping the important anxiety of a big race is the fact that you have 10, 20, 30,000 people who have been working for months (perhaps years, in some instances) for this day. They are nervous as hell, double-knotting the laces of their sneakers and tightening their waist packs with mini-bottles of water and packets of sports gel. They are wearing their lucky shorts/shirts/socks/hats, and flexing tense muscles all the way up to the starting line. They've carbo-loaded the night before, drank just-enough-but-not-too-much water, tucked their IDs and cell phones safely about their person so that, when they finish, they can Tweet and Facebook and Instagram their triumph. These runners are dedicated, they're running for personal achievement or in memory of someone they love or as a dare or for the sheer hell of saying you've qualified for and run the Boston marathon. These are people for whom the slightest uneven pavement can wreak havoc, for whom a "bad day" can feel like utter defeat after months and months of early mornings, sore muscles, and lost toenails. These are people who have worked so f*ing hard.

And the people that come to cheer them on - perhaps they are runners as well, who didn't or couldn't or wouldn't qualify for the marathon. Perhaps they are family members, husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, best friends, bosses, Book Club members who just came to watch So-And-So run the m*ther f*ing Boston Marathon. They're there, they're cheering, and they are genuinely excited. It's rare that you have the opportunity to watch someone's triumph live and in person. It's like sitting and watching the Arrivals Gate at the airport. All is forgiven, everyone is just so damn happy to see one another after a long journey.

The luckiest fans and supporters - the ones who get there super early, and brought coffee to warm their hands and innards, granola bars, cameras with extra batteries, waters and who cheer when the initial gun goes off and settle in for that 3-4 hour wait - are the ones who cluster at the Finish Line. Everyone wants to see the first Kenyan person cross the finish line because they're watching human history in the making. And, unlike most sporting events, this sh*t is free. All you have to do is show up. Super early. 

So you take this giant equation - the logistics, the safety measures, a historic and beautiful metropolis, the anxiety of high-strung runners, the excitement of the crowd - and it all adds up into a giant, beautiful, crazy hullaballoo that gets televised and warrants Today show interviews. This thing is big, it's exciting, and damn if it isn't a major triumph of human spirit.

Oh, and also, don't forget that the last mile of the Boston marathon was dedicated to those who were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary school. Not only are you crossing a finish line, you're doing so on hallowed ground. 

So, everyone is cheering, everyone is excited, everyone is tired and possibly a little bit cold and (if you're running) it's probable that you're suffering from some sort of gastro-intestinal distress and/or severe exhaustion. But it's good distress, and well-earned exhaustion. The runners see the finish line, and they get that final last burst of energy, that one that propels one towards things like Gatorade, bananas, and a silvery papery jacket that you can wrap around your tired shoulders. The faces light up, the exhausted get their swagger back a little bit. Everyone runs a little faster down that last ten or so yards towards the Finish Line. The crowd is encouraging - YOU HAVE COME SO FAR, JUST A LITTLE BIT FURTHER, AND THEN YOU'VE DONE IT; YOU'VE RUN THE BOSTON F*ING MARATHON.

Now, tell me. Tell me who. In the hell. Would put bombs at the Finish Line of the Boston Marathon. 

You can't tell me. Because, if you're like me, you can't even fathom it. It's difficult enough to think about random acts of violence that involve guns and children, or airplanes and landmark buildings. It's difficult to imagine countries where car bombs go off as regularly as chiming clocks. It's difficult to wrap your head around acid attacks, pipe bombs, disgruntled teenagers taking an entire school hostage. All of that is horrific and there's no rhyme or reason for it. 

You take a huge event like the Boston marathon, you trim it with all of this excitement and anxiety, and then someone comes along and blows the whole thing up. Because even though the bomb "only" killed 3 people and "only" injured less than 200 people, every single runner in that race was heartbroken, every single on-looker was shocked and terrified, and an entire nation stopped to watch with shock and sadness. That whole thing went to hell in a handbasket in the span of 20 seconds.

I feel multiple things simultaneously: rage, fear, anxiety, sadness, guilt, and hope.

Rage - because WHO. WHY. HOW COULD ANYONE EVEN. 

Fear - because, as the paranoia in this country reaches new heights, you start hearing that "you just never know" mantra. I hate that mantra. It forces terrible laws into passage, it solidifies stereotypes, it isolates us from each other, and it perpetuates displaced hatred.

Anxiety - because incidents like these put everyone on high alert, and honestly, I'm more fearful of what angry, afraid populations do than I am of some crazy asshole copycat.

Sadness - It's consuming. It's huge. It's overwhelming. It makes me want to lie down in my bed and never come out.

Guilt - because this shizz happens every single day in other parts of the world. In the US, we feel that we are safe and immune from random violence to a certain extent. This isn't Pakistan or Yemen. This is the US of A, we take our shoes off to get on planes and go through metal detectors to enter elementary schools forchrissake. We aren't used to this level of shock, and when it happens, we feel such a toxic cocktail of the four aforementioned emotions that we're forced to think...Wow...some people feel like this everyday. 

And finally - hope. Hope, because I see so many people signing up for marathons, so many people wearing Boston T-shirts and hats, so many people urging the public to see the good, the redemption. Hope because runners will always run, and because we have a President who diplomatically refused to use the word "terrrorism" when referring to the incidents until proven otherwise. Hope because everyone is all up into these triumphs of human spirit stories, hope because we have a new crop of "my cousin's sister-in-law's daughter's third grade teacher was four blocks away from the blasts, but she's ok" stories to tell. 

This Saturday, I'm running a 10k here in Baltimore. And you bet your ass I'm going to toss up a RunForBoston hashtag. I might even write it on my bib. 

And you know what else? All this makes me want to do is run a marathon.

The World's Longest Suspended Tram Ride - Sandia Peak Tramway

OK, Wikipedia tells me that I'm lying about it being the longest. Apparently, it's the world's third longest. Oops. Fact checking FTW!

We timed the tram ride perfectly to coincide with the sunset. It was a beautiful, clear day and while it was a delightful 60-something degrees at the base (which is, by the way, still over 5,000 feet above sea level), it was roughly 23 degrees at the top, which is a good 10,000 feet. I had packed for Mexico, and not vast variances in temperature, and thus ended up having to wear two sweatshirts (one of which belonged to The Gentleman) underneath my light spring trench. We didn't spend all that much time outside once we got to the top. Anyway, the real treat of the experience is the ride itself.

For about $20 per person, you can purchase a round-trip ticket on the Sandia Peak Tramway. It starts at the base of the Sandia Mountains just at the edge of Albuquerque. The unit at the base reminded me a lot of The Funicular in Prague, except this thing is suspended from cables, not running on a track. It's probably best not to think too much about the mechanics of this until you're back, safely, on the ground. Or maybe you're one of those people who feels safer when you understand every detail. Either way, here are some basic things you should know:

This is where you'll start. This image was taken as we were returning safely to port.

This is what the cable cars look like. This was an oncoming car. The Sandia Tramway is a "double reversible jigback aerial tramway" which is also a move perfected by Olympic gymnasts, but basically means that the tram cars have to move in unison with one ascending as the other is descending.

This is what a tram car looks like as it's headed back down to home port from the top.

These are the giant fixtures, placed periodically along the climb, that hold up the cables. There are no access roads up the mountain sides, and so most of these fixtures were built by helicopter. That kind of freaked me out, so I decided not to think about it too much.

These super-strong cables are the only things supporting you hundreds of feet in the air and preventing you from crashing into the side of the mountain. Don't worry - they're pretty strong.

This is one of the giant wheels that supports the double reversible jigback aerial tramway. Don't touch it.

I am not afraid of heights, and I didn't really have a problem with the tram ride, but I can easily see how it would be intimidating for some. But however freaked out you may be by the thought of being suspended hundreds of feet above a desolate mountain landscape in a tin can by a triplet of strong wires, the view is pretty freaking fantastic. And, once you get moving, it's a pretty smooth ride.

Passing the other tram car at the midway point.

Our shadow on the mountainside.

Icicles dripping down the mountain side nearer the top. It's cold up here.

View of Albuquerque from the top of Sandia Mountains.

See, now, we just came up THE SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN, so I was sort of prepped for mountainous terrain for the last 30 minutes....

The cables from whence we came.

The top of Sandia Mountain in this area is actually the back side of a ski resort that runs on the other side of the mountain. It was past ski season by the time we were there in late March, but some snow remained.

They show you this at the top of the mountain....in the little port area where you wait to board the tram running back down. Soooooo, there's roughly a bit less than 4" of cabling holding that tram aloft. Awesome.

Don't molest the animals.

There is another feature of this particular double reversible jigback aerial tramway system that should be pointed out, and that is the High Finance Restaurant at the top. We enjoyed appetizers (cocktail shrimp and spinach artichoke dip) and some cocktails. Which brings up another important point about high altitude.

Not only is working out more difficult at high altitudes, so is drinking. I ordered a martini (Ketel One, straight up) which was dumb. At the High Finance Restaurant, you are 10,378 feet above sea level. If you're not used to it, one drink is about the equivalent of three. Also, breathing is not easy. Also, we had 2 rounds of drinks. It was not pretty.

Boarding the tram to head back down. After two drinks at 10,000+ feet, the ride down seemed a bit faster. Or maybe that was gravity. I don't know.

Moon peaking over the edge

Back safely at the base port.

 Stay tuned for: Adventures in Santa Fe, and New Mexican eats and bevs!