Goodbye to great breakfasts
cute babies who endure mardi gras photo shoots
And their older sisters who enjoy it a little more
To domesticity
To Mad Hatter bridal showers
That migrate to the Buffalo Bar
Goodbye to all that and the lovely people of Silver City. It’s been an amazing month and I can’t wait to come back!
Until then,
Hello, Roatan.
It’s gonna be all diving and islands and adventure for the next 5 months. Stay tuned!
I didn’t have a real appreciation of taco trucks until I moved to Tucson. There I discovered that some of the best Mexican food in town was served in parking lots under makeshift umbrellas and out of dusty trailers that looked like they’d driven all the way from Argentina. Three words: Sonoran Hot Dog.
In New Mexico, it’s hard to find true Mexican food because New Mexican food is its own cuisine. Most Mexican restaurants in Silver City serve New Mexican dishes that all come with green chilies and lots of smothering sauces.
Except at the taco truck
Chip’s taco truck is an unassuming little trailer
set up in a former autobody shop with a shady overhang and little picnic tables for dining alfresco
Jen swears by the #1 combination with brisket and carne asada tacos but I’m partial to the #4 with queso quemado veggie tacos.
Queso quemado is cheese slapped on the grill until it’s browned and melting and then plunked on corn tortillas and topped with sauteed green peppers and onions.
And lots of salsa.
His salsa bar is outstanding
With pickled onions, fresh cabbage and salsas ranging from red and green “greasies” to mango salsa and spicy pico de gallo
There’s nothing glamorous about a taco truck, but sometimes really good food needs to be eaten with your fingers outside while the sun beats off the blacktop and grease drips down your hand.
When that’s the case, go visit Chip.
I wish this place were attached to a living history museum, something commemorating pioneers with a collection of dusty covered wagons while men in suspenders bale hay and sun-bonneted docents show you around.
Instead, this whole gigantic building is kind of a fast food restaurant.
The “kind of” part being the crowds, booths and ordering procedure
And the relative speed of service. However, the food is surprisingly good for a restaurant with foam cups. I got the breakfast burrito, which was full of green chilies and hashbrowns
This cinnamon roll might be the most decadent thing I’ve laid eyes on in weeks.
Yeah, that’s melted butter…
University of New Mexico students have been patronizing Frontier Restaurant for decades because it’s right on Central Avenue and it’s open until 1am. However, the Travel Channel has recently taken notice and guess who came to visit?
Tune in next week to see if Adam Richman agrees that Frontier Restaurant serves the best green chili cheeseburger in town.
It’s hard to believe that Frontier Restaurant could get busier, but TV exposure tends to do that; so, if you actually want to taste that cheeseburger, you should go this week. Barring the cheeseburger, try the cinnamon roll. It’s de-li-cious.
Alex, Carrie, Santouza and I took a picnic and went up to the Gila National Forest. Santouza got the seat of honor
But she really hated the switchbacks and needed Alex to keep her company
Alex lives in Ohio so Carrie wanted to show him the Gila cliff dwellings, which were built by the Mogollan people on the outskirts of what is now the Gila wilderness.
They’re about 150 feet off the canyon floor and, unlike many cliff dwellings in the Southwest, we could hike up a relatively easy trail to these cliffs and actually go inside these caves.
Walk around the houses where people used to live
Look out their windows
See their artwork
And the way they organized their living space
It blows my mind that these stairs have survived the elements for 700 years
Sidebar -If you’ve read Born to Run, this is also the area where Caballo Blanco was found dead. And even further incidentally, if you haven’t read this book because you aren’t a runner, you should read it anyway because it’s a fantastic adventure story - Unsidebar
The Mimbres River runs near here
So we stopped near the river for a picnic
in part of the dry river bed
It’s such a beautiful area and that much more of a bummer that it’s all closed now because of the smoke from the giant Whitewater fire that wiped out thousands of acres in the Gila forest.
We took this trip about 2 weeks ago when the fire was much smaller so these pictures predate the fire and I don’t know what this area will look like when it reopens. I’m hopeful that the cliff dwellings will survive this fire, like they’ve survived everything else for the past several centuries, and that the river will once again be full of kids.
I raise my glass to all the fire fighters who’ve been fighting the New Mexico forest fires over the last month. Thank you.
Tia Juanita’s burrito.
Quito in T -14 hours!
Dear Kate Marie,
We’ve been waiting for you all week. Your Gigi and Papaw came all the way from Nashville to be here for your birth and I came from Tucson.
It snowed on Sunday and I was sure you were going to be born. But you weren’t ready.
Your mom was very tired of being pregnant by this point. For the past week, I’ve told her good night every night by pressing on her belly and saying “Baby, come out!”
Your mom had contractions on and off for several days but you weren’t ready to be born. This made her cranky. She made muffins on Sunday and then she threw them when they burned.
In other news, your older sister Ruby also throws things when she’s angry. We don’t know where she gets it.
Today, I was writing about Michelle Shocked when I got a call from your Gigi saying “You better come.” So I did.
Your dad came home and your mom was in labor.
Everything got really intense around 11am and your mom said “I can’t do this!” a lot but we all knew she could.
At 12:30 your Gigi sent your Papaw out for tacos because everyone was hungry. I didn’t go because I didn’t want to miss anything. Your Papaw walked in the door at 1:10 with 4 boxes of tacos and we said “Hurry!” He got there just in time to watch you come out.
Your shoulders got a little stuck but your midwife, Shauna, reached in and pulled you out. Your Gigi nearly fainted.
At 1:11 on April 16, 2012, you were born.
You were very purple and we were all a little scared but Shauna breathed into your lungs so you could breathe and you started crying and we knew you’d be ok.
We talked about you all day. Then your sister, Ruby, came home to meet you and tried to feed you a carrot. She thinks you’re pretty great until you cry.
We’re all so happy you’re finally here.
Welcome to the world, little girl.
It’s a pretty crazy place but I think you’ll like it here.
Love,
Auntie Kaitlyn
I went to hear Michelle Shocked a couple of nights ago. I’m a fan of her Short Sharp Shocked album and even though I hadn’t heard anything she’s released since then (which isn’t much) I happily paid $20 for a chance to hear her play in the historic Buckhorn Opera House in Pinos Altos, NM (population 300).
Strangest concert I’ve ever attended. Hands down.
Michelle is 50 (ish), very tall and thin with a slightly manic attitude and tendency to ramble. She admitted at the beginning that she talks a lot and that she enjoys a certain unprepared/extemporaneous vibe to her concerts, but I wasn’t prepared for the reality. In the 2.5 hours of the concert she played fewer than 10 songs and she talked for the rest of it, which is a rough ratio for a concert.
Moreover, she’s enchanted when other people sing her songs; so, whenever she did sing, she insisted that the crowd sing with her. That’s 2.5 hours of listening to your neighbor warble through “Memories of East Texas” and “The L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore” while Michelle strums three guitar chords (she says that’s all you need), smiles maniacally and says “This is awesome! I love this!”
But the crowning moment of weird was her 20 minute lecture on foreclosures.
To repeat: Michelle Shocked took a 20 minute break from leading summer camp sing-a-long versions of her most popular songs to lecture us on bank foreclosure policies and how they may or may not be fraudulent.
So. Strange.
She tried to link the whole thing to the Occupy movement by putting signs over her speakers (fraudclosure!) that immediately fell down and had to be taped up with gaff tape. Then she unfurled a pop-up tent that filled the pocket-sized stage so she had to stand in front of the stage, which meant no one could see her except the front row. And then she lectured.
I don’t mean that she gave an impassioned speech on subject matter about which she feels so strongly that she can’t help talking or writing songs to proselytize. I mean that she pulled up notes on her iphone and gave the kind of speech you might hear in a college history class held in a giant lecture hall where the professor never looks up from his notes and is so far away that you can’t see him so you zone out and draw pictures of hearts all over your notes until he stops talking.
She started with a rambling history of America’s home mortgage policy since the Depression and progressed to a question and answer section to clarify what we’ve heard in the news about foreclosures.
She used the words meta story.
I was so fascinated by the twilight zone nature of the event that I sat through the whole thing, as did almost everyone else. I hate to miss things so I stick around through the boring parts in case the situation takes a weird left turn and becomes story-worthy. I don’t know what everyone else’s excuse was.
She finished the set by exclaiming that this second night of her tour was much more polished than the first night (!!), she tried to fold up the tent (no luck) and sang 3 songs. Then she requested donations so she could hire homeless people to make her more fraudclosure! signs and she called it a night.
Overall? Super awkward.
Worth the money? Definitely. I’ll pay money for Weird any day of the week.
Possible chance I’ll ever go to another of her concerts? Nil. Zip. Zero. Once is plenty.
Jen and I have known each other 22 years. All but 4 years of our friendship has been long distance, which makes it even more remarkable that we have not only stayed in touch but have gotten closer over the years. I think she’s remarkable and hilarious and the more time I spend with her, the more time I want to spend with her. Our friendship has been marked by several amusing moments and in honor of her 40th birthday (officially tomorrow!) I’ll tell one of our many many stories.
One year Jen came to visit me in Tucson intending on a relaxing, rejuvenating “spa” weekend but without the requisite cash for a resort. Because we’re resourceful girls who love nothing so much as a challenge, we worked up a “ghetto spa weekend on the cheap.” It went like this:
Night #1: Jen arrives in town. We eat sushi for dinner and spend the rest of the evening driving around looking for yoga places advertising free first classes. She picks up several yoga flyers, free passes to the YMCA and then we find a community pool right down the street from my house. “$1 per visit? Perfect!” Jen says.
We go home and spend the next several hours on line searching for “cheap massages” only to find that there’s no PG rated way to make that search. After an hour of interesting websites and even more interesting speculation, Jen abandons the massage search and makes a list: “Tomorrow I’ll start at the YMCA with a cardio-kickboxing class, do yoga at 2 and go to the pool at 5. I’ll pick you up after work, then it’s the sweat lodge and dinner.”
The next day she does her classes, drinks green tea, gives herself a facial and calls me “Think of all the money I’m saving! she says. It’s all going so well! Why doesn’t everyone do a spa weekend on the cheap!?” Full of success, she gets into her swimsuit, grabs her giant sunglasses and her beach bag with and walks down the block to pay her $1 only to discover a small blood-temperature community pool surrounded by an acre of blazing hot concrete. Not deterred, our fair maiden throws her towel on the concrete, slaps at the line of ants marching across her ankles and ducks as small children skid into her, eating potato chips and dropping crumbs hither and yon to feed the aforementioned ants. She’s not a quitter and hung in there for an hour as the sun blazed and pool practically boiled before calling me and saying “I’ve discovered the “ghetto” factor in my ghetto spa weekend. I can see why people don’t do this. Let’s go to the movies tonight. I’m as rejuvenated as I’m going to get.”
Day #2: I come home to find that the spa weekend has taken an interesting turn. Jen has cleaned out my freezer (This says 2006!!! I’m throwing it away and you can’t stop me!), grocery shopped and done my dishes. As we hang out she spends the rest of the evening making critical comments about the way I organize my living room while I drink beer and nod at the appropriate moments. None of this is unusual. When I visit her, she cleans out her own freezer, grocery shops, does the dishes and makes critical comments about her own living room. I drink beer and watch her. Ordinary people would consider this the demise of the spa weekend; but for Jen, organization is relaxing.
Day #3: I come home to a newly reorganized freezer and refrigerator containing the few remaining things deemed worthy (You have had this as long as I’ve known you! It goes in the trash!). We eat a dinner Jen made (delicious) and dessert (even more delicious) and then she does the dishes while I write in the living room. I finish up and put my laptop away where I ALWAYS put it, where it ALWAYS lives in my house, where it works PERFECTLY for my lifestyle. Jen comes in the living room, watches me and says “Did you notice that I created a new space for your computer?” Without a pause for me to respond, she walks over, takes my laptop away, turns to the shelf next to me, moves my bag from the place where it always lives and puts my laptop down. “See?” she says. “Now you can hide the cord.” And then she shoves it under the rug. “Perfect!”
Wanna guess what happened when she went home? Yep. But there’s always next time…
Happy birthday, my dear unstoppable-force-of-nature friend. I love you. May your next 40 years be full of friendship and laughter. You can come organize my house and my freezer any time.
Actually, the sooner the better because you know how I get…
My best friend in all the world turns 40 this week!
And her family
Dressed for the occasion
And her friends
Gathered in her yard for a cookout:
with appropriate decorations:
That lasted well into the night:
Happy birthday, girlie! I hope I know you for 40 more.
This is part 1 of 2…
Remember how I said I would return my rental car and stop talking about car stuff here?
Yeah… kidding.
Today I planned to pick up my friend Eric at 8:30am and drive 3 hours from Tucson to Silver City for my best friend’s birthday. I hoped this schedule would allow me to arrive in time to help with last minute party prep and then attend the birthday cook-out starting at 4pm.
8am – I look at my hotel room and realize I need a shower and I haven’t finished packing. No world exists in which I can accomplish those two tasks in under 20 minutes. I call Eric and push the time back to 9am.
9:10 – I show up at Eric’s. We load his stuff into my truck, say goodbye to the dog and make 2-3 trips back to his house because we’ve forgotten things.
9:30 – we get on the road.
10am – while driving down the interstate immersed in a long conversation and in a remote area of the highway outside of Tucson, the loudest most horrendous popping grinding banging sound ensues from my truck and I slow down and steer it off the road. Buzzing with adrenaline I get the car to stop and look at Eric who says “it’s probably a blow out. And you handled that beautifully.”
10-10:30am – The tire is completely shredded with pieces of tire thrown for several hundred yards. Eric crawls around on the ground to get my spare tire and then looks up and says “Didn’t I promise sangria with this lesson?” We decide the whole incident is his fault for even leaving that comment on my last blog post. I find my jack but then he uses the lug nut wrench to no avail. Even with both of us pulling, the wrench is bent just slightly out of torque and nothing budges. We evaluate. We’re stuck in the middle of nowhere and we can’t get the tire off. Eric asks if I have Triple AAA (no) if we should get it towed (maybe) or maybe use his Triple AAA (ok, let’s try that). While he’s on the phone with Triple AAA, a cop car pulls over and the officer offers to help.
11am – the officer has an entire battery of car tools in his trunk including, but not limited to, a 4 way lug nut wrench, a foot jack and a mini compressor. In 20 minutes we’re on our way back to Tucson because my spare isn’t going to make it to Silver City. We decide we need to rent a car because Eric’s car probably shouldn’t do highway driving either.
11:30 – for the second time in 2 days I find myself at the Avis counter renting my third rental car in as many weeks.
12 – drop off my truck at Eric’s house, 2-3 more trips back into the house to leave notes and grab water and say goodbye to the dogs (who now think we’re kidding about leaving) and as we get back into the car I look at Eric and say “I’m not getting back on that highway without a latte and a cake pop.” He agrees.
12:15:
I feel like I can go on now.
12:45 – 3pm – highway.
Then we lose an hour crossing the border of Arizona and New Mexico
5pm – we pull into Silver City. A three hour trip has now taken an entire day and required two cars. As I’m driving up one of the hills by our hotel, the rental car ceases to accelerate even though I have the pedal pressed to the floor. I drift to the side of the road, stop the car, look at Eric and yell “ ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW??? WHAT IS GOING ON!!!” and then I look at the shifter and realize that it’s not in Drive, it’s in “2” which apparently means “Halt.” After I take a deep breath and Eric stops laughing, I shift back to drive and the car is fine.
We stop at our hotel to change our clothes and rinse off the road dirt and finally get to the party approximately 2 hours late and 6 hours later than we anticipated.
And the party? Here’s a preview:
Pictures and stories tomorrow.
This is it. Really. No more car stuff.
Seriously.
