Bandelier National Monument
I haven’t budgeted enough time for this place. This is obvious the second the road starts down into the canyon, where the long shadows of one wall already reach across the aspens for the other. The old-man ranger by long practice seems to recognize the error in my expression: he offers a minute-by-minute sequence of things to see, optimized—without my asking—to avoid crossing paths with the other late visitors and their loud, sticky children. That’s a professional.
I follow his advice and have a few minutes in the cliff dwellings with no one else in sight. I can run my hands along the polished wooden ladders, lie flat in the whitewashed cave, and imagine ritual fires spitting sparks into the night.
Ghost Ranch
This is Georgia O’Keefe’s old place, now a retreat center for the Presbyterian Church. A low-slung ranch building houses a dusty museum with reconstructed pottery and unlocked drawers full of fossils; table signs in a clattering mess hall welcome attendees of a men’s wellness clinic and an art camp. I feel, unusual for me, both conspicuous and safe.
The trails trace white-sand river washes edged with cottonwoods that light up in the morning. They traverse the base of flawless red rock walls, smooth as if they’ve been cut from butter, ascend boulder-strewn gullies and top out on the mesa. The horizon is empty and the desert enormous.
I thought the ranch was named by its new owners for the ghost—father and son—but when night falls in the campground the wind comes moaning through the canyon to change my mind.
La Cieneguilla Petroglyphs
This is my favorite kind of BLM site: a clear sign on the road followed by a dirt lot and no explanation. And the other classic feature of a BLM site—that is, hard-eyed, meth-y men staring at me in the parking lot—doesn’t appear until I’m getting in the car to leave. I’m so pleased with this timing that I smile and wave.
The petroglyphs themselves are excellent: there are more, better preserved, than I’ve ever see anywhere else. You’ll spot one—maybe a thunderbird or Kokopelli—and be impressed enough with that, then find that dozens more materialize out of the boulder field before your eyes. Turns out they’ve been there all along.
The World Gay Rodeo Finals
I like a nice set of three and a rodeo anyhow; this year I’ve been to a black rodeo and a Mormon rodeo and am obviously not about to miss this. Except that when I arrive—to the massive fairgrounds complex on Albuquerque’s sprawling southern edge—there is no sign of any such thing. I wander past empty parking lots, a Chinese lantern festival, the FFA barn (prominently sponsored by McDonalds), a furniture expo in teardown … no trailers, no signs, nothing.
I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve fallen for a mean Trump-country joke when I hear, on the shifting wind, the faintest notes of Diana Ross. A-ha, I think, and when I follow the sound to its source I find, with his eyes closed, clutching the microphone, under the steady gaze of the brick-house drag queen judge in a rhinestone vest, the final contestant in the lip-sync contest.
Honey, you’re my one shining moment
And if I never have another
I’m glad that I’ve known you
If I never have another
I’m glad that I’ve known you
e.alia.salim 