The natural beauty of New Mexico has been immortalized by more than one painter over the years. The small details of a flower, the flowing lines and contrasting colors of a mesa, the contrast of a woman’s woven blanket against an adobe wall all conjure up the feeling of New Mexico and Santa Fe in particular. In at least one place in New Mexico the beauty below ground is nearly as breathtaking as the beauty above. The formations built by water and time in Carlsbad Caverns reveal ongoing creation as unique and interesting as any open air vista Santa Fe has to offer.
We have been to Santa Fe several times, mostly for the opera but never at this time of the year. Santa Fe is chilly in the early spring which led us to spend more time indoors than out. The Georgia O’Keefe Museum was something we’d never visited, so we bought an online ticket and wandered through the place for a couple of hours. The relatively small museum features an in depth look at Ms O’Keefe’s life and artistic influences. She seems like the kind of woman I’d like to spend time with and I hoped to see a large representation of her paintings at this museum. Alas, I was disappointed as most of her most famous canvases are in the big art houses and museums in Chicago, New York and L.A.
Ms. O’Keefe is one of, if not the most photographed woman of her time. Her husband was a photographer and a philanderer, and early in their marriage and in subsequent years in the makeup phase, he took lots of great pictures of this iconic artist. O’Keefe’s usual wardrobe consisted of mostly black and white pieces, and one of the most interesting things on display was a coat that made me think of a Spanish cape. She cinched the “cape” around the middle with a beautiful silver belt, paired it with a set of handmade earrings and a stylish hat. The clothes exude a kind of bold and independent style that still seems to set the standard in Santa Fe.
Driving into Carlsbad Caverns National Park looks very much like another desert canyon with lots of scrub brush but not much else. But wow ~ that sagebrush sits atop an immense wonderland of caves with amazing and accessible rock formations that are out of this world cool. The cave is so big they are still discovering parts of the complex more than 100 years after a local cowboy named Jim White dropped a torch down the mount of the cave to see how far it was to the bottom. The National Park has an excellent interpretive center above, and an elevator that whisks you 750 down to the big room. Alternatively, we walked the winding 1.2 mile, 20% sloped, paved foot path that gradually lead us deeper and deeper into the cave. The path winds back and forth as we passed from the bright NM sunshine to a sort of twilight then to a passage that would haven been pitch black if not for the dim lights placed at strategic intervals. We took our camping headlamps because…..what if something happened to the electricity?! *shudder*
The Cavern hosts one of the largest Mexican free tail bat colonies in the southwest, and one of the original reasons the cave was explored even further was for the mining of bat guano. The entrance to the cave was initially “discovered” as the bats were flowing out of the entrance for their nightly hunting trip. The bats were so numerous our cowboy friend thought it was a fire and went to investigate the “smoke”.
Our campground wasn’t far from Carlsbad the town, which isn’t far from Roswell of UFO fame. Erin thought she saw a set of orange floating lights one night (no joke!), but as far as we know we weren’t kidnapped by aliens this time.
Would we live in Carlsbad or Roswell or somewhere down there in southeastern New Mexico? Probably not ~ there’s lots of desert and not a lot of water or people, so unless we’re looking for a lonely ranch with a dusty view ~ nope. Would we visit again? Maybe…..I’m not sure there’s much more to do in that corner of NM, but maybe we just need the right guide?
Would we live in Santa Fe? Maybe, if we come into some $$$$$ and could afford it ~ it really is a lovely town. Would we visit Santa Fe again? Yes, I’m sure we’ll be back for the Opera or the spa or Christmas on the square….theres lots to see and do in Santa Fe.
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