We're back........!
We arrived back in the flatlands of West Texas yesterday evening and have spent the last 24 hours getting resettled in the humdrum of daily life. It's tough doing that when you've been to a place so wonderful as Northern New Mexico. I'd love to write a prosaic essay about the trip but I'm not enough of a master of prose to do that. As they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words" so I'll let some photo images do the talking for me.
New Mexico photos that speak for me
I do have much to say about the trip and will start off by firstly thanking my bride for arranging it for us. We both love New Mexico, but she knows I don't like to go to long without a trip to the Santa Fe area and this time she made that possible. Secondly we met some great folks at all the spots we hit. In Galisteo I got to talk at length with three excellent photographers and have corresponded with two of them since we got back. As suberb as these men are, they were interested in my ability to use the Internet to sell photos online on my We Were Soldiers website. They want to learn how to do it. Besides these artists and by pure serendipity the fellow who sat next to me on the train trip from Chama was a Vietnam combat photographer. The photo of me via the link above was taken by him. Who could have asked for a more interesting person for us to travel along with. He is already helping me with a project I'm working on to display combat photography at our museum.
Thirdly and the theme of my short essay tonight is the politics we encountered. Coming from downtown Bushville, we were in cultural shock being around so many Kerry/Edwards stickers, banners and pins. Now we're not naive, we know that Santa Fe and places like it tend to be more liberal. What got to us was who was sporting these little Kerry mementoes. Well of course it was the middle class. Middle class if you consider people roaming Canyon Road in tweed, turtlenecks and silk sports coats to be middle class. Middle class people who were having a hard time finding parking spaces for their Lexus's, Jaguars and Mercedes. For those not familiar with Canyon Road, it's the trendy art gallery area of Santa Fe. And not art ala velvet Elvis. Were talking five figure art.
These people are middle class to someone like John Kerry I suppose. With a family net worth of $800 million or so, these people who may only have several million, might as well be common laborers. I don't think that the real middle class would identify with these people either. The real middle or lower class can barely afford to eat on Canyon Road, much less buy art there. And that's the secret to why so many silk sports coats wearers driving Mercedess like enclaves such as Santa Fe, Sedona or Boulder. They don't have to deal with the little people of America at these place...except to wait on them in a fashionable gallery or restaurant. That's why there are so many Kerry pins and buttons on Canyon Road.
The other observation I have is the unusually large number of groups of single slightly past middle aged women I see traveling together in Santa Fe. Not the dolled up Texas style "girl weekend" sort that go to Dallas to hit all the stores. These groups in Santa Fe look like they have escaped from a nunnery. [no offense to nuns meant]. They wear no makeup, usually have short hair or their slightly graying hair pulled back and the clothing, though expensive and trendy, is definetly understated. Not lesbians I think. No, from overhearing their conversations from time to time I suspect that these types are PhD's in humanities at eastern universities or work without pay for some UN organization. They were wearing Kerry pins and buttons too.
We arrived back in the flatlands of West Texas yesterday evening and have spent the last 24 hours getting resettled in the humdrum of daily life. It's tough doing that when you've been to a place so wonderful as Northern New Mexico. I'd love to write a prosaic essay about the trip but I'm not enough of a master of prose to do that. As they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words" so I'll let some photo images do the talking for me.
New Mexico photos that speak for me
I do have much to say about the trip and will start off by firstly thanking my bride for arranging it for us. We both love New Mexico, but she knows I don't like to go to long without a trip to the Santa Fe area and this time she made that possible. Secondly we met some great folks at all the spots we hit. In Galisteo I got to talk at length with three excellent photographers and have corresponded with two of them since we got back. As suberb as these men are, they were interested in my ability to use the Internet to sell photos online on my We Were Soldiers website. They want to learn how to do it. Besides these artists and by pure serendipity the fellow who sat next to me on the train trip from Chama was a Vietnam combat photographer. The photo of me via the link above was taken by him. Who could have asked for a more interesting person for us to travel along with. He is already helping me with a project I'm working on to display combat photography at our museum.
Thirdly and the theme of my short essay tonight is the politics we encountered. Coming from downtown Bushville, we were in cultural shock being around so many Kerry/Edwards stickers, banners and pins. Now we're not naive, we know that Santa Fe and places like it tend to be more liberal. What got to us was who was sporting these little Kerry mementoes. Well of course it was the middle class. Middle class if you consider people roaming Canyon Road in tweed, turtlenecks and silk sports coats to be middle class. Middle class people who were having a hard time finding parking spaces for their Lexus's, Jaguars and Mercedes. For those not familiar with Canyon Road, it's the trendy art gallery area of Santa Fe. And not art ala velvet Elvis. Were talking five figure art.
These people are middle class to someone like John Kerry I suppose. With a family net worth of $800 million or so, these people who may only have several million, might as well be common laborers. I don't think that the real middle class would identify with these people either. The real middle or lower class can barely afford to eat on Canyon Road, much less buy art there. And that's the secret to why so many silk sports coats wearers driving Mercedess like enclaves such as Santa Fe, Sedona or Boulder. They don't have to deal with the little people of America at these place...except to wait on them in a fashionable gallery or restaurant. That's why there are so many Kerry pins and buttons on Canyon Road.
The other observation I have is the unusually large number of groups of single slightly past middle aged women I see traveling together in Santa Fe. Not the dolled up Texas style "girl weekend" sort that go to Dallas to hit all the stores. These groups in Santa Fe look like they have escaped from a nunnery. [no offense to nuns meant]. They wear no makeup, usually have short hair or their slightly graying hair pulled back and the clothing, though expensive and trendy, is definetly understated. Not lesbians I think. No, from overhearing their conversations from time to time I suspect that these types are PhD's in humanities at eastern universities or work without pay for some UN organization. They were wearing Kerry pins and buttons too.
