Want to feel lucky? Trudge along Cerrillos in the heat
Jun. 21—A couple of Fridays ago, I saw a side of Santa Fe I'd never seen up close.
I had dropped off my car for repairs, and the dealership didn't have rentals available. I walked five minutes in the 92-degree heat to the car-rental business next door. Again, no luck.
That was a problem, as I had an important mission that night: taking photographs at KMRD in Madrid. I'd enjoyed writing a story about the station's history and volunteer DJs ("To air is human," June 14), but we needed images. Large, detailed photos are the coin of the realm in Pasatiempo; without them, a story isn't going to get much attention.
So I walked along Cerrillos Road in the heat, calling one car-rental business after another. Finally, I walked into an establishment that had one last vehicle available. I made it to Madrid while flipping through the rental car's satellite radio, wondering why so many stations were playing The Eagles. That terrible band does not exactly give me a peaceful, easy feeling.
The same can be said for walking along Cerrillos Road. You already know that the arterial lacks aesthetics, but I learned the hard way that the constant roar of traffic obliterates one's sense of well-being. The average non-commercial vehicle weighs about 4,000 pounds, and I saw probably 800 cars during my sweaty trek. That's 3.2 million pounds of noisy, fast-moving metal.
I actually recommend that others make the same walk, if only for three blocks. It's a valuable reminder of what some Santa Feans endure daily and is by far the best way to experience that road.
Periodically, The Santa Fe New Mexican prints letters to the editor about how the road, as one of the main entrance points for the City Different, doesn't prepare visitors for the beauty they'll encounter when they reach the city's core. I can vouch for that.
When I worked in Olympia, Washington, about 15 years ago, a colleague who had moved there from Santa Fe raved about the place. I investigated for myself in May 2015, when I moved from Minnesota to Las Vegas, Nevada.
By the time I reached Santa Fe on the second day of the three-day journey, I'd cut across rural Kansas and was ready for some rest. I stayed at a budget motel on Cerrillos Road, and the next morning I drove down Cerrillos to Interstate 25 toward Albuquerque.
No Santa Fe Plaza. No Cross of the Martyrs. No art galleries. Just chain restaurants I already was familiar with. I left unimpressed, and I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't remedy this until 2020, when I drove through Santa Fe on the way back to Las Vegas from the Denver area.
That second visit marked the first time I experienced what I call the Santa Fe smile. I parked next to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi after a good night's rest, and even though I'm not religious, the building and adjoining park comforted me. I felt I was in a mix of Europe, where I'd spent a sizable percentage of my childhood, and open-minded America, where I'd been lucky enough to spend most of my adult years. I hadn't known such a place existed.
The Santa Fe smile is my response to "how is this possible?" beauty, and it's not reserved for Santa Fe. The first time I took a "leaf peeping" trip here, in fall 2021, my face hurt for two days after because I'd smiled so much. The smile still emerges several times a week. You might see it one day, as it often appears when I'm meeting strangers. Unless we happen to be strolling along Cerrillos Road.
