A Visit to Santa Fe
Last week I finally did something I've been meaning to do for years, I visited Santa Fe the capital of New Mexico.
I've spent quite a bit of time in New Mexico, back when I was in the newspaper business I interviewed for reporting jobs in Hobbs (for my money the ugliest town in America, Gallup (drunken Indian capitol of the nation), Farmington and Clayton. I Thank God that I didn't get those jobs, which tells you something about those towns. So I wasn't really expecting much from Santa Fe despite its magical reputation.
Driving into Santa Fe from the North you pass through the "real" New Mexico, mobile homes, junk cars, speed traps and crummy convenience stores. Not to mention some of the most deserted country in the nations and highways that are in a poorer state of maintenance than Colorado's (I didn't think that was possible). Soon you start driving into Indian reservations the only difference you notice is the tax free cigarette stores and the speedtraps utilizing unmarked police cars.
As you get closer to Santa Fe, the mobile homes give way to Indian casinos and you finally find yourself driving on a nice modern four lane highway(which goes straight to the Indian Casinos). Traffic on the Veterans Memorial Highway is as bad as anything on an LA freeway.
Santa Fe is a nice old city but I can't see how it is any better than a dozen western cities I can think of. Pasadena, Riverside, Redlands, Boulder, CO, Salida, CO, La Junta, CO, Trinidad, CO, Roswell, NM. I suppose the history and the art scene get people.
Another possibility is that Santa Fe is the first true Western town a lot of Easterners and Europeans see. To somebody from Long Island, Santa Fe must some like a romantic adventure.
Santa Fe is a nice walkable town with some very attractive features. There are tourists but not the hordes you might imagine. A great feature is the lack of homeless people and beggers. I saw no sign of them, my guess is that Santa Fe's police force knows how to use a night stick and the nation's homeless know it. They know that the only way to get a handout in Santa Fe is to hop a freight train to Denver.
There are some embarassing shortcomings too, there's a terrible lack of parking downtown and no public restrooms. Most of the tourist attractions are too expensive and there's a lack of affordable food downtown.
Interestingly enough, the town's biggest and most successful operator of tourist attractions is the Catholic Church. The Cathedral and the chapel with the twisting staircase are big draws complete with gift shops in the lobby. I suppose that's to be expected the Church invented tourism didn't it?
Still there is plenty of affordable food and housing just a few miles from the Plaza. There also appears to be decent bus service.
After visiting Santa Fe I have to wonder what was all the hype about?
I've spent quite a bit of time in New Mexico, back when I was in the newspaper business I interviewed for reporting jobs in Hobbs (for my money the ugliest town in America, Gallup (drunken Indian capitol of the nation), Farmington and Clayton. I Thank God that I didn't get those jobs, which tells you something about those towns. So I wasn't really expecting much from Santa Fe despite its magical reputation.
Driving into Santa Fe from the North you pass through the "real" New Mexico, mobile homes, junk cars, speed traps and crummy convenience stores. Not to mention some of the most deserted country in the nations and highways that are in a poorer state of maintenance than Colorado's (I didn't think that was possible). Soon you start driving into Indian reservations the only difference you notice is the tax free cigarette stores and the speedtraps utilizing unmarked police cars.
As you get closer to Santa Fe, the mobile homes give way to Indian casinos and you finally find yourself driving on a nice modern four lane highway(which goes straight to the Indian Casinos). Traffic on the Veterans Memorial Highway is as bad as anything on an LA freeway.
Santa Fe is a nice old city but I can't see how it is any better than a dozen western cities I can think of. Pasadena, Riverside, Redlands, Boulder, CO, Salida, CO, La Junta, CO, Trinidad, CO, Roswell, NM. I suppose the history and the art scene get people.
Another possibility is that Santa Fe is the first true Western town a lot of Easterners and Europeans see. To somebody from Long Island, Santa Fe must some like a romantic adventure.
Santa Fe is a nice walkable town with some very attractive features. There are tourists but not the hordes you might imagine. A great feature is the lack of homeless people and beggers. I saw no sign of them, my guess is that Santa Fe's police force knows how to use a night stick and the nation's homeless know it. They know that the only way to get a handout in Santa Fe is to hop a freight train to Denver.
There are some embarassing shortcomings too, there's a terrible lack of parking downtown and no public restrooms. Most of the tourist attractions are too expensive and there's a lack of affordable food downtown.
Interestingly enough, the town's biggest and most successful operator of tourist attractions is the Catholic Church. The Cathedral and the chapel with the twisting staircase are big draws complete with gift shops in the lobby. I suppose that's to be expected the Church invented tourism didn't it?
Still there is plenty of affordable food and housing just a few miles from the Plaza. There also appears to be decent bus service.
After visiting Santa Fe I have to wonder what was all the hype about?
posted by great one at 8:21 PM
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