Santa Fe may have not been the best stop for a first night back in the US. The border crossing itself was remarkably easy, despite a labyrntine bureaucracy to cancel our vehicle’s permission to travel in Mexico. No border officer in their right mind would have wanted to sift through our motherlode of Oaxacan treasures that filled both the inside of our van and a bulging tarp on our rooftop. We chatted with the officer and she waved us through.
Our jaws dropped at the beauty of New Mexico – looked a lot like the spine of Mexico we’d driven north on, during which time our jaws also dropped. The sense of magic subsided somewhat when we got into Santa Fe sprawl, malllandia, although it did house Horseman’s Heaven, a fabulous breakfast nook dripping with horse chachkis. The stunning Folklore Museum was full of Oaxacan crafts and the Taos Puebla was remarkable, but felt sadly marginalized compared to Oaxaca’s quite vibrant indigenous culture.
We drove north a couple of hours to Mora, a mostly Chicano village where our friend Paula Garcia lives. Paula is the executive director of Las Acequias Association www.lasacequias.org, a state wide organization defending the rights of small farmer irrigators to their traditional water rights. These are communities of farmers trying to make their traditional water rights count in the face of an explosion of development. Las Acequias association provides legal counsel and helps keep alive local small farmer traditions.
Paula raises her boy with sister and dad at the foot of a gorgeous hillside.
Dear friend Jackie Rice - one of the people that introduced Tyler and I, with her kids Sergio and Lila in Columbia, MO.
Hiking with cousin Susan outside of Boulder, CO
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