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| Jackalope Mercado, Santa Fe NM |
Click on the image for a photo album.
We have breakfast at Pasquale's next door — a Mexican motif restaurant with tortillas instead of toast. We wandered the old town together for a while but split up after a bit so Kate could return to the hotel and have a rest — she's feeling those two chardonnays from last night at the Coyote Cafe.
The old town is all done up in an adobe style —- even the Woolworth's Store. There's an historic square with trees, it's a pleasant and active place. The shops around the square are all sheltered by verandas with sunning areas above. At one end of the square as the Governor's Palace — this is a large museum that goes the length of the square. The veranda there has all sorts of Indians selling crafts, mostly silver and turquoise jewelry. We have a sense, perhaps wrong, that this has been going on for centuries. This area was settled by the Spanish about 1650 (the Camino Real is the road and Mission Trail from Chihuahua in Mexico to Santa Fe here in New Mexico). There was a Pueblo revolt about 1680 where the Spanish had to retreat from the Indians.
The art gallery on the square has a walk of fame — the only name we recognize is Georgia O'Keefe. The gallery is one of those most photographed buildings and Reg photographs it too just to keep up the count.
Reg returns to the veranda of the St Francis (our hotel) to meet up with Kate and Cindy. Kate has been out wandering as well having had a short nap. After some stumbling about, Kate was having a "bad hair" day, and some tears we decide to check out a mall. Kate hopes to find a throw or blanket or etc. in the Navajo style that she can use back home on our new couches. And Reg needs more film.
On the way out Cerillos Road (that's also the road we came in on) we stopped for a quick snack at Casa de Margarita. It looks like a real cowboy dive on the outside but turns out to be baronial inside with a tin man pretending to be a suit of armor. Lunch hits the spot, as do the drinks.
Across the road is a very weird spot, the Mercantile & Trading Co., with lots of folk art, some folk artists, south west antiques (like second hand cowboy boots) and a burro tied up outside. Kate and Cindy are keen to check out the scene and the burro. He's friendly but tied up with no water or food. The burro's owner is this drunken cowboy cum folk artist but likely just a "hanger around" kind of guy. He has quite a buzz on and is drinking beer from the big bottles. These are quite large, sell for about $2 and contain about a six pack of beer. They are for the serious drinker and he's a serious drinker. He's keen to talk about selling his burro and how he'd never eat it although he does eat dogs! Or at least so he says. There are other artists around working with found objects to create neat things. For example carved tin cans to make lamp shades, but our friend with the burro, and the regulation ponytail, is far too much for us and we make a run for it. Off to the mall.
The mall is a disappointment. Kate finds her throws in Albuquerque on our last day.
One objective on this trip was the Jackalope Mercado. There's a small store downtown but we fear the downtown prices. The Jackalope is a big joke around the west and you regularly see mounted Jackalope heads, mounted on wood and stuffed like a deer head, and Jackalope postcards. It's a Jackrabbit that has Antelope antlers, a ficitional creature and quite a joke. There's lots of folk art at the Jackalope Mercado, and imported trinkets from around the world, but especially from Mexico. Furniture is in a style unique to this area — rugged unfinished pine with some carving and detailed accents. But the look is frontier and looks sort of home made.
The Jackalope Mercado was kind of like a Southwest version of Pier 1, although they also have Pier 1 in Albuquerque. It was very large with lots of neat things including most of the usual souvenirs. It also had a huge yard with all kinds of clay pots and clay lawn ornaments. The ubiquitous coyotes, sleeping compadres, jack rabbits etc. Kate writes that when she first saw coyote symbols and souvenirs in Texas she thought they were really neat. But now we've seen so many versions of coyotes that were starting to agree with the bumper sticker that we saw recently that said, "Stamp out coyote art!". The crowning touch to the visit however was the prairie gopher area where they had a hill a prairie gophers fenced off and you could sit and watch them play. They're darn cute.
We find out later that they will be having live music and have applied for a beer and wine license at the Jackalope Mercado. It's mostly an open air affair, a fun place to spend time on a sunny day.
The group returned to the Saint Francis and leveled out with drinks on the veranda before going to the Inn of the Anasazi on the old Town Square for what was advertised as "Native American" cuisine. Kate would tend to call it "Continental New Mexican" and most of what we ordered was pretty good. Especially Cindy's goat cheese something or other. But Kate's shrimp appetizer, which was served as a main course, was far too salty even for her chip loving palette and had to be returned for a lamb something or other that was okay. Reg had another variation on a Caesar salad, embraced the chardonnay, and had a bit of Bambi appetizer as his main course (little slivers of venison with lots of exotic mushrooms). We enjoyed our dinners.
The highlight of the end of the Anasazi turned out to be the ladies washroom. It had beautiful green tiles, it was large, probably bigger than our room at the Saint Francis, and nicely furnished with individual hand towels and much more.
For the first time on our trip we actually felt chilly walking back to the hotel it was cool. We're high up at 2,194m so it's much cooler here.
Lesson of the day: visit the Jackalope Mercado, wander the old town square, visit the galleries, shop for silver and turquoise, and try some of the many great restaurants.
These notes, originally composed by Kate, Cindy and Reg at the time of the trip, were transcribed '21/07/06 with the help of Google voice recognition.
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