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DESTINATION My own Santa Fe story follows a similar narrative arc.


My freshman-year roommate in college, Devin, was from Santa Fe. I had traveled to the Southwest before, but the place he described — where all the food is slathered in red or green chile, all the buildings are brown and fl at-roofed and all the kids are afraid of La Llorona, the ghostly woman who haunts the arroyos that interlace the town — had a hint of magical realism that my Wisconsin-raised, Puritan brain had a hard time comprehending. I decided I had to see it for myself, and moved to town for the summer following our sophomore year. Like a lot of people, I instantly swooned over the obvious Santa Fe. The historic churches, the galleries along Canyon Road, the rich history down every narrow, maze-like street. The postcard-perfect plaza at the heart of downtown where everyone from local hippies to art connoisseurs congregates and, at night, the cholos do hot laps in their lowriders, peacock- ing slowly around the square in their custom creations with colorful paint jobs, spoke rims and hydraulic systems. But what really hooked me that summer — and to this day — was more rooted in the landscape. The way the dirt roads take their time winding through the high desert. The way you can only really smell the junipers and piñon trees after a good hard rain. The way the sun hits the Sangre de Cristo Mountains that gently loom above town, bathing the foothills in the slanty and cinematic light that artists and photographers crave. I didn’t get my fi ll that summer. Not long


after college, Santa Fe beckoned me back. Over the next few years, I learned to mountain bike in the foothills, rock climb at the cliff s that overlook the Rio Grande and telemark at the ski resort just above town. My vocabulary expanded to include Frito pies and faux-dobe. I traveled north to the tiny town of Chimayo, where a fabled adobe church has a seemingly endless supply of “holy dirt” that reportedly possesses a special curative power. I’m skepti- cal by nature, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t moved by all the eye patches, crutches and other physical evidence of healing left behind in the inner holy shrine. I also fi nally understood the deep and endur-


ing aff ection for the town’s main ingredient: the green chile. For the few fi rst few years, I’d just nod my head as my friends discussed the nuanced diff erence in fl avor profi les between green chiles grown in the town of Socorro


versus those from Hatch, which bills itself as the Chile Capital of the World. (Short version: Socorros are generally bigger, meatier and milder.) And I think I still have PTSD from my fi rst trip to Horseman’s Haven, a no-frills local joint attached to a Giant gas station on the outskirts of town that serves up some of the hottest chile around. The special sauce comes in two diff erent spice levels, and just one spoonful of the level two caused me to break out in a full-body sweat and induced a case of interminable hiccups. Santa Fe has evolved a lot since I fi rst fell in love with


it. There aren’t nearly as many lowriders cruising around town, and Horseman’s Haven Cafe is now in a (slightly) fan- cier new location. It’s still on the fringes of town, but is now


HAPPY TRAILS Mountain bikers and hikers escape to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, located just southeast of the city.


JULY/AUGUST 2015 • DORADO


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