I knew I shoulda taken a left turn at Albuquerque...

I arrived in Santa Fe, NM at 7:30pm on Thursday March 18th. Although the landscape was absolutely beautiful, I quickly discovered that the city itself was dominated by wealthy, middle-aged art collectors. I have no use for that crowd, but luckily I was able to find the Santa Fe Brewing Co., which had a great atmosphere and delicious beer. I highly recommend checking it out if you're ever in Santa Fe.

Big Five Sampler tray.

On Sunday March 21st, I visited the Cochiti Pueblo on the Cochiti reservation, which was definitely the most depressing part of my trip so far. While the Cochiti Pueblo didn't appear to be any more impoverished than many of the small rundown towns I'd driven through in New Mexico, there didn't seem to be many businesses around to help improve things. From what I've read, the only sources of income for the Cochiti are from the land they lease to the small Town of Cochiti Lake, the revenue they get from their golf course, and the sales of "Indian wares" to white tourists in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. That last one might sound like a sweet gig, since we all know how liberal white people will happily empty their wallets for anything that's "genuinely Indian made" (which Indians? Who cares! It's authentic and clearly very spiritual), but 21.4% of families in the Cochiti Pueblo remain below the poverty line compared to the national average of 9% (figures from here). Whether that's because only a fraction of the Indian population can live well from selling their crafts or because all Pueblo, Apache, Navajo, etc. craftspeople have to undercut each other in order to scrape by is unclear to me; regardless, watching white tourists ignore this economic reality in favor of viewing Native jewelry and drums as bits of a noble culture they could buy depressed the hell outta me.

The covered walkway along the Portal of the Palace of the Governors in downtown Santa Fe, where Native craftspeople set up shop for tourists every day.

On Monday March 22nd, I explored Albuquerque, NM. While I enjoyed the area around the University of New Mexico, I couldn't find a part of that city which was not a strip mall. The ubiquitous pavement resulted in an oppressive heat that I couldn't imagine enduring in the summer, let alone March. Unless I was a student or employee of UNM, I can't think of a reason I'd spend more than an afternoon in Albuquerque.

Drive-thru tobacconist.


These assholes are everywhere in New Mexico.


A megachurch in an old theater? Oh, that's too easy.


An awesome house I stumbled across.


...with dinosaur statues in the front lawn!

I also checked out two comic book stores, one of which had a gorgeous mural on one side that would lose a lot if I posted a tiny version of it in this post. Luckily, you can view the original here.

After returning my rental car to the Santa Fe Airport that night, I packed up my things and got ready for my bus and train ride to Boulder, CO. But that's a story for my next post.