Santa Fe (not Santa Claus)

Santa Fe Museum of Art and some idiot by the clock

Happy thanksgiving!  Down here in the US it is not thanksgiving – it is some other heathen holiday called Columbus Day - celebrating some mythical Italian Deity who supposedly discovered “America” (another unlikely myth).  What this Columbus person did not know was that there were already some people here (who had been here for a few thousand years) and that some other Europeans had already visited them.  Leif Erickson and crew were here in Newfoundland prior to 1492 and St. Brendan the Irish explorer may have even preceded him.  Although with St. Brendan there is very little proof – it might simply have been hallucinations brought on by the DT’s.  (He wasn’t really a saint- the Christians made him a saint when they came to Ireland because they did not know what else to do with him)

Canadian thanksgiving precedes the American thanksgiving by a few hundred years – it was a celebration of a successful voyage to the New World.  Since this is not thanksgiving here we will be unable to get a turkey dinner with all the trimmings.   I guess we will have to see if we can find a turkey burger and cranberry shake.

We are currently in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We drove for 2 days to get here stopping in Temple, Texas and Clovis, New Mexico.  As we drove north in Texas we notice a considerable decrease in economic strength.  There were a lot of abandoned farmhouses and we even drove through a town called Rising Star where everything seemed to be abandoned.  Even the Real Estate office had a dusty “For Sale” sign hanging askew from the front door.  

What a change from New Orleans and Houston Texas!  The altitude is about 2300 meters as compared to about 0. It is desert here and the air is very dry and considerably cooler – the temperature has gone down as low as freezing overnight.  The southern drawl we were gradually getting used to has started to fade and conversations here are mostly intelligible.  Along with the decreased southern drawl there is a decreased southern expanse.   They can actually fit more than three people in an elevator here.  Not all of the food is deep-fried – although about 75% still is.

Santa Fe is an artistic town known for it’s myriad artists and alternative life-styles.  We have seen more men with ponytails here than we have seen anywhere in the last year.  In the south ponytails would not be acceptable due to the strong military atmosphere.  It almost makes me want to grown mine back again…  just kidding!  I could sense a rising of hairs on the backs of necks and curling of upper lips from just typing that!   Calm down – it was just a joke!  Jeeze!

Center for modern aboriginal art

 The atmosphere here is very artistic.  Just the surroundings are artistically stimulating.  The earth here is imbued with rich earth tones of browns, reds, yellows and oranges.  The houses are mostly adobe and coloured with the hues of the surroundings giving the city a unique feel.  We have had our first glimpse of fall colours in the leaves, which makes us a little homesick.

More Adobe architecture

We walked around the center of the city today and did a little souvenir shopping.  Things are a little expensive in the shops.   I saw a unique belt that I thought I might like.  It was about $30.00 but I noticed that it did not have a belt buckle.  So I asked how much it would be for a belt buckle.  The lady said she had some nice belt buckles that ranged from $1000.00 to $1400.00 but that they were about 40% off this weekend.  Nothing like having a belt-buckle that was worth more than the rest of my entire wardrobe!  What kind of pants would you have to have to wear a belt like that?

Around the fringe of the central plaza were quite a number of aboriginal artists.  They had some very unique products and their prices were more amenable to the common man.  Telen did a little souvenir shopping there.  What I find a little disturbing is the proliferation of “native” artwork around Santa Fe that is not done by the aboriginals at all.  It has been “borrowed”.  The native designs are everywhere using the beautiful earth tones and minerals of the area but the majority of those products are sold in the high-priced store where they charge $1400.00 for a belt buckle.  The actual native artisans are relegated to the fringe of the tourist area where they sit on the ground and sell their goods off of blankets.

The Church of St. Francis of Assisi

The other interesting part of New Mexico is the strong Mexican influence here.  Almost half the population here is either Hispanic or Latino descent.  Hence the adobe architecture and the “southwest cuisine”.  Southwest cuisine seems to be a lot of tacos, burritos, enchiladas, and fajitas.  Not that I am complaining!  I love all those foods, so it is a good thing we are not spending a lot of time here or I would have to leave on the back of a flatbed truck.  As it is I am having a hard time keeping my hard-earned fitness while at the mercy of American cooking and portions.

   

Houston, we have a problem

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.  The rain in Texas falls mainly on the highway.  This is not driving rain. This was you-should-not-be-driving-under-any-circumstances rain.  We had a number of episodes of this kind of rain between Lafayette and Houston.  Visibility was down to one meter and we were struggling along with our hazard lights on, the windshield wipers at full speed, and our faces pressed to the windshield hoping the thing vaguely visible in front of us was the road.  To make matters worse semi-trailer trucks whose drivers were driving by memory kept passing us on the left raising tsunamis onto our wringing wet Prius.  When that happens visibility goes from abysmal to nil. It is very scary when the only separation between you and an invisible semi-trailer truck is your attitude.  I think cars down here should be equipped with sonar. 

Houston Texas is the 4^th largest city in the US.   This is something I wish I had known before we drove here.  Telen mentioned this to me as we were approaching the city and all I could see from horizon to horizon was oil refineries and cars. With ten times the population of Canada the roads are filled with ten times the number of cars. 

They were all in Houston.

Not a sign we would see in Canada

We came to Houston because of the Nasa Space Centre.  I know, I know…this screams GEEK!  I never claimed to be anything else, so there!  The Johnson Space Center is where they control the manned space missions as compared to the unmanned space missions such as Curiosity (on Mars) that is controlled in Pasadena California.  Currently their focus is the International Space Station.

Not Quite what we expected to do at the Space Center

The US is good at two things: entertainment and space.  The entertainment bit we can see when we get to the west coast.  The space exploration bit we could see in Houston.  We had seen the gantry at Cape Canaveral where the shuttle was launched and now we could see where it was developed and controlled.  To someone like me – this is groovy.

Mission Control

Telen and the Saturn Launcher

The shuttle program is over and the shuttles are all retired.  The International Space Station is manned by astronauts and cosmonauts from all over the world and is supplied by the Russian Soyuz spacecraft so really the US manned space program is kind of on hold at the moment.   They are apparently working on a new spacecraft called Orion that should be able to take people to Mars.  When I was eight years old I thought we were already there so this is a bit anti-climactic for me.

I really enjoyed the Space Centre.  Telen seemed to as well.  It was very cool to see the control center where they were monitoring the International Space Station, the training center where the astronauts were trained, and the Saturn Rocket that took the astronauts to the Moon.  There were quite a few films and displays chronicling the development of the American Space Program.  Telen kept asking if they were sending up any unmanned rockets while we were there and how much I wanted to ride on one. Don’t worry about the re-entry thingy. She asked a lot of people, and almost convinced them, but they were underwhelmed by the equipment available.

The general population of Texas is broader than it is long.  We went to a Chinese food buffet for dinner.  Can you say, “Deep-fried”?  Deep-fried Chinese food? Really?  I think they deep-fry everything here with the exception of crawfish.  Crawfish is also known as crayfish or crawdads are a tiny fresh-water lobster.   They brought out buckets and buckets of these and they were extremely popular.  I watched one very large lady load her plate with these and she kept adding more and more as they kept falling off her plate.  Amazingly she managed to do this while eating a piece of pizza (in a Chinese restaurant?).  To top off the meal a gentleman at the next table carried on a very animated and hilarious conversation with his table companion who was very spiritual or maybe just invisible.  At least the Americans have managed to entertain us as well as feed and inform us. 

Space AND entertainment!

Telen writes:

Buffets seem to be very popular and CHEAP here.  The Chinese/sushi bar buffet we had was only $10.50 per person.  I was ecstatic to see a huge spread of sashimi and sushi rolls (and these were not deep fried!).  The Chinese selection was huge too and yes, lots of fried stuff.  Looking around the restaurant, the word “portion control” is unknown.

I enjoyed visiting the Johnson Space Center.  It was strange though to see a Space Shuttle parked just outside in the back yard.  This particular Space Shuttle is not the real Challenger but is built to the exact measurements.  The International Space Station (ISS) is a prime example of how effective international cooperation can be if human beings put their minds to it.  I was moved to see the CanadArm playing a pivotal role on board the ISS.

The Space Shuttle in the Back Yard

Houston is the home of the Texas Medical Center – the largest medical center in the world.  According to Wikipedia, the center contains 50 medicine-related institutions, 3 medical schools, 4 nursing schools, and schools of dentistry, public health, pharmacy and other health-related practices.  Perhaps this explains the odd sighting of freestanding MRI clinics in various strip malls.  I saw at least 2 MRI clinics within a radius of 2 miles.  One clinic is right next door to a 7-Eleven!  Here, you can go to 7-Eleven, buy junk food and then go next door to have a total body MRI.  This idea seems so surreal since in Victoria, there is an average 7-8 months wait for a non-urgent MRI scan…  Looking at the numerous advertising billboards here, the competition for sick patients here is fierce.   I saw, in various strip malls, vascular clinics, kidney clinics, and heart clinics.  The best billboard I saw was advertising a “DialysSPA”, presumably a dialysis clinic with SPA –like surroundings.

Here they are fighting for patients while at home we are turning them away.