Derailed

Sunday 21 March, 2010

Today was action-packed and yet stood still. After scoring a free breakfast downstairs, I walked down the Old Santa Fe Trail again to town. I stopped off first at the railway station in Guadalupe St and bought my ticket for the 2pm train from Santa Fe to Lamy and back. Then I walked towards the Plaza and bought some books from a second hand dealer- a book about Pocohontas and one about Andrew Wyeth's paintings and 5 photo postcards of old photographs of Native Americans. Then I walked over to the Loretto Chapel to see the spiral staircase that defies gravity. It has no central support and is considered to be miraculous in its construction. What a beautiful Chapel with a gorgeous white holy table and surrounds.

I stopped at The French Pastry Shop just down from the Cathedral for lunch. I had a ratatouille Crepe (with zucchini, eggplant, tomotoes, green peppers and onion) and coffee. I resisted the pastries after last night's pie episode.

There has been way too much coffee consumed on this trip. It seems to be what keeps me functioning so I will seriously have to be weened back to 2 cups per day on my return to Wellington.

I sat down on the train with my spicy moccha coffee ready for a fun trip on the Santa Fe Southern Railway to Lamy and back. The music playing was Johnny Cash's “Walk the Line”. After less than 15 minutes, the train was derailed. It was so freaky. The train was shuddering so much and I could see from the look on the train conductor's face that it was not normal. I wondered if the train was going to tip sideways but luckily we were going too slowly for that to happen.

The funniest part of the situation was that the woman in front of me started complaining that the last time she had been on the train in October, it had broken down. Apparently these two events are the only times such things have happened in the 3 years the conductor, Billy, has worked on the train. Some of the passengers joked that she must be jinxed. Someone asked her which flight home she was taking so as not to take her flight. She was not amused and scowled. This made me want to laugh even more.

We had to wait for a bus to come and get us from the middle of nowhere. Lucky for GPS and cellphones, they were able to locate us. We walked up a dirt track to the road to meet the bus. After nearly 2 hours sitting on the derailed train. I was thinking we should have “walked the line” like Johnny Cash back to Santa Fe but the track was too dangerous. That's what we would have done pre-GPS.

Before coming on this trip, I saw the film “Sunshine Cleaning”, set in Albuquerque. In the film there is a scene where Emily Blunt is sitting under a bridge. According to Billy, this is the same bridge where our train got derailed, so that was a bit of trivia for the day.

Where we were stopped, we could see the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range (meaning Blood of Christ). The mountains are named this because at sunset they turn red. At this point in Billy's commentary, one of the ladies from Arkansas said:
“If the mountains are pink, it's time to drink!”.
The passengers erupted into laughter.

I am fascinated by the story of Los Alamos, where the Manhattan Project was conducted in top secret in the early 1940s. Billy told us how the best scientists were recruited to Santa Fe, taken to a cafe in town, blindfolded, taken out the back and driven to the then secret location of Los Alamos so that if tortured or questioned, they would have no idea where the town was.

We finally got off the train and walked up to the bus. When I got back to town, I had to stop at my favourite bookshop Called “Collected Works” fro some therapy. I bought a book about the architect Mary Coulter who was responsible for some of the major buildings in Santa Fe. What a pioneer in the field she was. I also got a book about Billy the Kid and one about Ted Kennedy. I love reading about completely different people.

My excess luggage is getting ridiculous- mostly books. I am buying books that I know I can't get back home- they are each very specialised and of specific interest to me. Also, I feel that each book is a souvenier of my trip.

I was reading in The New Mexican newspaper that a man called Stewart Udall passed away yesterday, aged 90. His life was incredible. He was a pioneer for environmental reform and cultural heritage in the USA, serving 8 years under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. He worked to protect endangered species, National Parks and Reservations. He fought for the rights of victims of radiation poisoning from the Cold War nuclear programmes.

Tonight, we had our class dinner at Quail Run Resort. This week it's Black and White landscapes with Carlan Tapp. Two guys called Carl Shortt II and Carl Shortt III are in my class. They are a father and son from Oklahoma City- two larger than life characters who kindly car-pooled tonight. A lovely group of people who seem more chilled than last week's group- fortunately.