Category: road trip

My People

I am always filled with a not-so-quiet joy when I see the place from whence I came showcased on the big stage.

It somehow validates me.

Sure, having Big Bad Billy run for President surely upped New Mexico’s cool quotient and “put us on the map” in plenty of ways.

But my heart sang and my eyes wept last night watching an episode of “No Reservations” on the Travel Channel.

I love this show. Starring Anthony Bourdain, a career chef, New Jersey born, New York resident. This is a high class, high dollar guy who knows his food.

He was head chef at upscale Les Halles in New York for many years. He’s also a prolific writer and avid traveler. I’ve read a few of his books, many of his editorials and some blog posts. His writing is tight, snarky and well, just good.

I’ve watched his food/travel show since it was called something different for a season on the Food Network. I’ve also seen every episode of the long running series now on the Travel Channel.

I’ve been around the world with Tony. Watched him get pummeled by bulky bodybuilders in Finland, seen him travel the back roads of Viet Nam eating god knows what, watched him get bucked off a four wheeler in New Zealand, and am intimately familiar with his love for all pork products.

So last night’s episode (actually, it was last week’s, I missed it and caught a rerun), Anthony was given use of a BMW SUV, then set out on a road trip to the American Southwest.

Hoookay, Mr. Snappy Chef Boy, you are dancing on my terrain now.

I was pretty certain I’d see plenty of Arizona, lots of Texas, and none of my Fair New Mexico.

I was wrong.

In between stops in Indio, CA (god, why would *anyone* willingly stop there) and Waco, TX (home of one Mr. Ted Nugent), the No Reservations crew made a stop in Hatch.

Yes, Hatch, New Mexico, home of one of the finest food ingredients in the world.

Tony sat at a vinyl-topped table with the owners of The Pepper Pot, and talked with them about the troubles of chile farmers (mostly that there is lack of demand, so farmers are converting crops to more profitable items, like corn).

While they talked, the host was served both a red and a green enchilada.

And Mr. Bourdain, world traveler, renowned chef, he of highly calibrated taste buds turned to the camera and said, “That is the best enchilada I have ever eaten.”

Yes, yes it is. The best you’ll *ever* eat.

Take that to Manhattan, big man.

Because if it was the last day of my life, and I was told that I could choose one of two places for my last meal: a high end, high dollar establishment, or a crappy diner in New Mexico, there would be no contest.

Chicken enchiladas, green, with a fried egg and sour cream.

And I would go quietly into that great beyond with a big smile and a full belly.

Salute to my home state for getting a good review from a snarky host of a travel show!

To celebrate, I’ll have feet on the ground in just less than two weeks.

Because it’s time. And because my sweet New Mexico calls to me.

Mostly because my best friend said she’d make rellenos.

Green chile chicken enchiladas, here I come!

It never gets old

This weekend, The Good Man and I met some friends up in Sausalito for fun and merriment.

Getting to Sausalito means traversing the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge.

I believe this year makes twelve years for me living here in the Bay Area and driving across that big orange bridge is still as exciting as it was the first time I ever did it.

I have about a zillion photos I’ve taken of the Golden Gate Bridge, because no matter how many times I see it, I always find something more interesting I need to try to capture.

Then sometimes, like yesterday, I decide to come out from behind the camera and just watch as we drive by. The art deco uprights are still so endlessly fascinating to me, the way the light plays off of them, the subtle texturing. The stout cables that hold it all in place still look like dental floss in perspective of all the iron and steel and concrete that make up the bridge.

I wondered, as we drove across, if the men who finished the bridge back in 1937 could ever fathom what it this bridge would become. Could they have ever imagined the magnitude of traffic that rolls over it every day?

And how freaking cool that something built 72 years ago still stands tall and proud and virtually unrevised (but for some retrofitting and upgrading) since then.

I got to thinking, was there anything from my life in New Mexico that could even come close to this? Something that in driving by with some frequency, I still have the sense of awe and wonder every time I see it?

The closest I got was not a man made item. First thought in my head was Tijeras Canyon. Similar in that it is a roadway to transport people from one side of a great geological obstacle to another.

It still fills me with awe at the beauty and wonder at the too fast development growing in that gap between the Sandias and the Manzanos.

I tried to think if there was something like this, something man made and yet so enduring. Of course, the Indian ruins are far older than the Golden Gate, but not something that one drives by with frequency, as they tend to be back in the hills.

I suppose the most awe inspiring bit of human engineering and transportation in New Mexico is the Sandia Peak Tramway.

I don’t know, to my New Mexico friends, do you have any ideas? I’m sure I’m forgetting something…

Photo by Karen Fayeth

Alternate spelling, alternate universe

You may recall from a post a while back that I use my secret agent 007 stealth first name when I order coffee and they ask for a name to write on the cup.

My secret agent name is Lucy. I use that name because it’s:

1) easy to pronounce

2) easy to spell

3) heard clearly over the whooosh whooosh sounds of an espresso machine

I copied this from a friend (who has my same real first name), even borrowing her own made up nom de bebida, because of the ease of use.

Until this past week at the Honolulu airport.

They asked my name. I said Lucy. They nodded and wrote the name. I got my beverage and it wasn’t until I was on the plane that I noticed.

You can’t make this stuff up.

You can’t make this up

And you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.

So I’ll have to prove it in photographs.

I was shopping the book store at the Kona airport, looking for something to occupy me on the five and a half hour flight.

When my eyes fell upon this:

What is this, you say? Yes, someone actually took the time to translate the new testament into Hawaiian pidgin english.

Behold

Dats some supa spesho spirit right der!

Aloha!

Defies words

I had a day today that defies all possible words.

Started out with a road trip down south of Kona to the very end southernmost of the Big Island of Hawaii.

My destination was Punalu’u Black Sand Beach.

I had stumbled across this gem online while looking for actual beaches. Kona is the newest of the islands and as such, doesn’t have fabulous sand beaches. It has stunning lava coastline, but no happy sandy beach to lay about and catch some sun…or even walk on and put your toes in the water.

So not only is Punalu’u an actual sandy beach complete with watery toes….it comes with sea turtles!

Yes, actual sea turtles!

I was lucky enough to see five today on the small stretch of sand that comprises this amazing, glorious, gorgeous beach.

Then, after I’d spent several hours with the turtles, full of a turtle induced I, I decided to move on to the Volcanos National Park.

Both Kilauea and Mauna Loa were visible and AMAZING.

I took about three hundred photos today, and I’m sorting them out. The volcanos put a muted light haze on the day which my photographer friends will know is KILLER light for taking photos.

So here’s a few to start, more to come:

All photos by Karen Fayeth