Day 5: 30 March 2007
I swear I'm gonna live forever
Tell my maker he can wait
I'm riding somewhere south of heaven
Heading back to Santa Fe
It's judgment day in Santa Fe
Bon Jovi "Santa Fe", 1990
Santa Fe is definitely not close to heaven, but it is quite mystical and beautiful at the same time. We spent the whole day Friday exploring the city, drove around and walked all along its marvelous downtown.
All buildings in downtown have distinctive Southwest architecture. Not a single high rise building exists. The landscape is not typical American downtown. The streets are all narrow, mostly only enough for one car each way. The shops and galleries are neatly designed and even the sign boards seems like regulated, all match perfectly with the surrounding environment. The small plaza in the mid of downtown reminded us of the plaza in old western movies with Mexican background. Besides the art shops, we found a lot of locals selling Indian crafts and arts in a dedicated place close to the plaza.
The snow rain which was still falling when we were there made Santa Fe much more 'post-card' beautiful.
Santa Fe is a city of art. There are so many art galleries around the city. The artworks are widely range, from traditional Indian, Mexican and Southwest arts to the modernism. This is almost close to heaven for art enthusiasts and collectors.
Speaking of art, we can't discuss about Santa Fe and New Mexico without talking about the prominent late artist Georgia O'Keefe. She's been like a great art ambassador of New Mexico to the world of modern art since her move to New Mexico from New York in the 40s. We visited the museum dedicated for her, the Georgia O'Keefe Museum, right in the downtown.
I am not an expert in art nor its interpretation, but having visited the museum, seen her works myself (before this I only knew her from books, publications and documentaries), I found this artist quite inspirational. Her life story was about a tireless search for the meaning of life, until her death at the age of 99 in 1986. I can't imagine how New Mexico looked like in the 40s when she moved there permanently as she found a lot of inspirations there during her previous visits, leaving her estate in much more glamorous New York City, after the death of her husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz.
Her words described the philosophy behind her paintings:
Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of this life.
That's after she found her abstracts had been misinterpreted by critics as about sensuality and sexuality. She then moved to realism, so now an apple was an apple, a pear was a pear, a skull was a skull, in her artworks. And she didn't want people to read them:
One paint what is around. It is easier for me to paint it than to write about it and I would so much rather people look at it than read about it.
To sum it up:
From experiences of one kind or another shapes and colors come to me very closely.
So not to change this blog to become art review...:-), we finally concluded our day in Santa Fe a couple of hours before sunset and we continued our trip 180 more miles to the west. We stayed overnight in Route 66 town of Gallup, still in New Mexico.
Total drive of the day: 220 miles
Day 6: 31 March 2007
We started the day by driving around Gallup. The town is small so it was fast to complete the round.
An hour driving to the west we already crossed the border of Arizona, the Grand Canyon State. We didn't do a lot of stops. We continued all the way to Flagstaff (another Route 66 town mentioned in the famous 'Route 66' song, made popular by the Manhattan Transfer and many other singers).
This town is about 80 miles south of Grand Canyon. We initially planned to stay in the lodge inside the Grand Canyon Park, but they were all booked up when we called them. Based on our experience, practically there was not a nice place to stay between Flagstaff and GC, so we decided to call off the day and take a rest in Flagstaff. We explored Flagstaff before we rested. This is a nice town surrounded by ponderosa pine forests. At the background is the San Fransisco Peaks, the highest elevation peaks in Arizona, with snow still decorated its beauty from a far. No wonder that this town is chosen among the top places to live in the US.
Total drive of the day: 200 miles, and we already passed 1,500 miles, half of our total plan trip.
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