Santa Fe – Saturday

Last day … and, oddly, neither Deeply Depressed over it, nor Tiredly Glad. Just is, which is probably a sign it was a good time to leave.

Slept in late, then wandered out for breakfast (note to self: still need a review of the B&B).  The owner was finally there — she’d been out of town during our whole stay — and was charming and pleasant and made us sorry she hadn’t been around sooner.

After stocking up on a nice breakfast, we went back to the room to pack, which took a lot less time than I though it would.  Though most of the stuff we bought is being shipped, there were a few things it was easier/cheaper for us to carry — which added one more carry-on (not counting the last-second at-check-in shifting of 6 lbs. of baggage into our carry-on from our big suitcase).

Once we were checked out, we finally did some museum-visiting.  There’s a big cluster of them on Museum Hill, about a 5 minute drive SE of downtown (too far to walk).  We ended up going to two of them.

We went to the Museum of International Folk Art last time we were in town, and it’s just as interesting as before.  There was a fascinating exhibit on a Sufi mystic revered in Senegal, Sheik Amadou Bamba (1853-1927) — including various iconography around him based on a single photo of him in 1913.  There was also a cool exhibit on textiles and tools (which Margie did some weaving at) — but, the centerpiece, as last time, is the Girard folk art exhibit.  Which I can only describe as “A Small World” on steroids and truly authentic.  An amazing display that any visitor to Santa Fe should see.

(For those wondering the difference between “folk art” and “fine art” — well, from everything I’ve been able to read, art scholars aren’t all that sure either (and so some of them want to abolish both terms).  From what I can tell, though, if it’s mass produced, made by the plebes and the heathen, sold at road-side stands, and not likely to draw folks in tweed jackets to drink white white and eat brie at the opening — it’s folk art.)

From there, we crossed the plaza to the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture,  We only had time to tour half of it, but we were firmly impressed by the time we were done that we have done a tremendous wrong to the Native Americans by making them wear store-bought clothes.

No, I jest.  And I certainly think the First Peoples here in this continent were done a series of tremendous wrongs that extend up to the current day.  By the same token, though, there was a certain … almost whininess about some of the exhibits, as in the one display where one of the first-person stories spoke wistfully about how, instead of wearing hand-woven clothes like her grandparents, she wears store-bought — as if “the Man” had robbed her of that.

It’s un-PC — and, again, I’d be the first to support reparations or massive increases of the BIA budget or whatever it would take to help deal with the massive damage done to the Native Americans (one could arguably make a case that it exceeds the evils done to African-Americans over the centuries) — but at some point you say, “Time marches on” and “I’m kinda sorry I don’t slow-cook a fabulous pasta sauce the way my grandmother used to, but instead eat pasta sauce out of a jar most of the time, too” and move on with things.

That requires more pondering.

At any rate, at that point we piled into the car and headed back south.  We got to the Albuquerque “Sunport” (yes, that’s what they call it) in plenty of time, and turned in the Forester.

(Mini-review:  Spacious for a “small” SUV; decent pep for the bottom-of-the-line rental model, even if some of the automatic gearing was strange; I’ll keep it in mind when we (once again) start looking for cars (once rebuild our down payment 🙂 .)

At check-in, the Curse of Dave Hill, International Man of Mystery struck again (as it did with every check-in this trip).  At least they can now clear me from their screens, without having to call the TSA Mother Ship the way they did in the past.

We had lunch at the Garduño’s inside the airport — a New Mexico restaurant chain that I remember fondly from business trips to Albuquerque past.  We decided for a big lunch so that we didn’t have to hassle dinner when we got home (the plan worked), and I had a huge bowl of Posole.  Yum.

Then through the security check-in area (a major addition to the airport since I was last through), where I discovered I had too many snaps on my shorts and had to be wanded (by a very polite and professional TSA fellow) while Margie rescued all our carry-on (and my wallet and sandals and hat) from the conveyor belt.

Which left us about twenty minutes to kill before boarding, which let me once again marvel that the Sunport not only doesn’t make life difficult for laptop users — they actually provide large tables with plentiful power outlets and free Wi-Fi to business travelers.  Amazing (and worth lauding).

Aside from some problems fitting our now-larger carry-ons into the tiny CanadAir overhead bins, the flight home was uneventful.  Jackie picked us up and drove us to her place, where the van was, and we headed home.

Where we did some minor unpacking, did a bit of picking up of post-raccoon incursion mess (and great kudos to Doyce for taking point on that), confirmed that the folks who redid our cable line and placed it underground managed to sever the control wires for one of our sprinker zones, battened down the hatches for the evening, and …

… well, I did a bit of blogging …

Good trip.  Good to be home.