travel, anniversaries, travel

Santa Fe

Photo courtesy of Deborah Michel

When last we met, I was awaiting departure from Sacramento to join my boarding school classmates at a reunion in Santa Fe. I actually did make it albeit not until 10:15 PM. By that time everyone had done the cocktail routine in our room, gone out to dinner, had post-dinner drinks in the hotel lounge, and gone to bed. The Welcome mat was rolled up and put away. My roommate ~ classmate Sandy ~ was still awake when I finally stumbled through the hotel grounds and found our room. I rustled up some crackers and cheese, a glass of wine, finished off the carrots I had brought on the plane, got a quick rundown on who had shown up. Then I fell into bed in what bordered on a coma.

The next morning I passed up the opportunity to go on a forced march at some unholy hour, choosing instead to join the group in the very lovely dining room for a full breakfast buffet ~ fruit, yogurt, eggs, quiche, all sorts of breads, cereals, etc. Plans were afoot for the day's activities. A ride out to the Audubon refuge? The folk art museum? Shopping and lunch on/around the Plaza (the hotel is only 2 blocks from the center of town)? It all sounded swell until I began to contemplate the effort any or all of these things would take. Besides all of that, I was suspicious that I had contracted Pink Eye someplace or other. I had all the symptoms. I decided I had to take care of that little problem first. Someone was planning a trip to a pharmacy so I joined in, bought some drops, returned to the hotel and decided that, with a combination of jet lag (remember Paris?), high blood sugar, low blood pressure, and Pink Eye, I needed to rest. So I returned to our room and slept away 3 hours of the first day.



I woke up about 1 o'clock, decided I didn't want any lunch but foraged some more cheese, and headed up to the plaza. I walked around for a couple of hours, looking at the shops, the people, the dogs, the uniform architecture. I saw more silver and turquoise than I could have imagined existed in one place. I didn't see any of the group but did see some great "public" art, including this row of wooden angels lining the street.




Back at the hotel I found this one in the garden outside our room.


Saturday evening we all strolled up to the plaza for dinner at La Fonda, one of Santa Fe's oldest and most famous hotels. First stop was the rooftop terrace which was, on a nice mild evening, jam packed, so we sat inside for cocktails. Then down to the dining room for a sort of Tex-Mex style dinner. After dinner, some more strolling and then back to the hotel for what this group does best; talk. By this time I was so exhausted I could only excuse myself and go to bed. We had big plans for Sunday.

Again I excused myself from a morning constitutional, got myself together somehow and made it over to the dining room for coffee. We were scheduled to drive up to The Bishop's Lodge for brunch. You know, "Bishop's School - Bishop's Lodge"; seemed like a good idea. And it was. This uber luxe place is up in the hills outside of town. It's a gorgeous drive through high desert. The cottonwoods and aspens had turned bright yellow. The Sunday Brunch is famous, and rightly so. Two large rooms serving the most gorgeous food anywhere. One room for breakfast sorts of things ~ eggs, omelets, ham, sausage, etc. ~ and the other serving luncheon things ~ cold poached salmon, oysters, shrimp, salads, ham, turkey, breads. And then a whole table of decadent desserts. How to choose? I managed. And kept the blood sugar under tight control, too!

Back to the hotel for more talking and laughing and reminiscing about the bad old days in boarding school which, as it turns out, weren't all that bad most of the time.

At 5 o'clock we were back in the cars headed out to the home of the sister of one of our classmates. The sister, Barbara, lives in Boston but has this splendid vacation home in Santa Fe. It wasn't easy to find but with a combination of MapQuest and a GPS we arrived. What a beautiful place, quite isolated, but with a view to the west that is breathtaking.


The house is large and spread out with a big front terrace where we had cocktails and dinner. We started a fire in the big fireplace and pulled our chairs into a semi-circle and, yep, talked. It was really the highlight of the weekend. Then Monday morning rolled around, time to pack up and get on another plane to come home. I was back in residence by 6 o'clock, determined not to go anywhere again for at least a month.

We hear a lot about how people don't change, that once the DNA is decided, that's it forever. I have been a doubter of that certainty. But this weekend showed me that, by the time you're about 14 (the age most of us were when we met) it's pretty much a done deal. These women are, almost exactly who they were then. They may have newly found interests or skills, have given up some of their foolish ways, studied new things, gone new places, but basically they are still the girls I grew up with. There's something so comforting about that. It makes reunions so easy, dependable, reliable, without surprises.

Paris

Back to Paris for just a moment. Dinner at Christine's on my last night was fabulous. I was there when the doors opened, without a reservation, and got the pursed lips and furrowed brow of the maître d' that one expects when showing up dressed in one's cleanest jeans and a cashmere sweater at a place where coat and tie and swishy dresses are the norm. He informed me that nothing was available until 8:30 (it was 6:30). I said, "Maintenant?" He brightened and said that Oui I could have this table right by the window and bienvenu et bon appetit! I settled in for a very fine meal of the entrée et plat. I selected a heavenly mushroom ragout (I wrote the chef after I got home and asked for the recipe; so far, de rein). This dish was coarsely chopped mushrooms of various types, lightly sautéed in butter with a hint of nutmeg and something else that I couldn't identify but what might have been Chinese Five Spice. Then they were spooned into a small covered iron pot and baked. When the garçon uncovered the pot the fragrance was enough to make me swoon with pleasure. And the taste? Ambrosial. After that came a poached and grilled fish called "bar." It's a very mild white fish, probably fresh water. The fish was fileted and the skin on one side removed. It was then poached. To finish, the fish was put under a broiler, skin side up to turn it crispy. Then it was all bathed in a delicate champagne sauce. What a circus for the mouth; sweet, tender fish, slightly salty crispy skin, lovely fragrant sauce. And to accompany it all, a luscious glass of really good Sancere, not the cheap screw-top stuff I'd been drinking. I paid the exorbitant bill with pleasure. What a way to bid farewell to Paris.

One last thing I did while here. My sister and I had two marvelous trips to Paris over the years. I did some retracing of our steps throughout my stay. I took this picture of her on the Champs de Mars on our first trip in 1985. We had just bought some goodies at a street market and were having a picnic. As I recall, it was March and very cold.

This time when I went back I found this. Not quite in the same spot, but you get the idea.



Anniversaries

I started this blog four years ago on October 25, right after Mr. C (then known as "The Patient") began his radiation and chemo for tonsil cancer. At that time it was called The Tonsil Wars. The name changed to reflect his recovery. So that's one anniversary. The second celebration is along the same lines, however. He has just passed his 4th year exam by the cancer crew. Looking clear and clean all around.


Travel

In less than three weeks we head off to Mexico for the winter. Mr. C has already started loading the car with the various "musts" that we seem to need there. One of these days we'll decide that we have enough stuff and will just throw a couple of pairs of shorts in a paper bag and call it enough. But until then we continue to cram the car with goods. This year it's the 6 wicker dining chairs from IKEA that are taking up all the room. To be fair, I did search all over our area, including Guadalajara, for such chairs and could find nothing. Then there are the several items we are taking for friends. There may be enough room for our own stuff but I'm not holding out much hope. We will drive to Long Beach to spend some time with Alex, Pete and the kids, then down to La Jolla for two nights to see and say good-bye to friends. Next stop will be Tucson and we'll cross the border in Nogales on Thanksgiving. All things being equal, we'll be at the beach on Sunday, November 28. I have never been too apprehensive about our drive, but things are a lot worse than they have been. We have to drive through the states of Sonora and Sinaloa, both notoriously in the news these days. Even the road from the city of Tucson to the border has been a shooting gallery of late. Think good thoughts.