Spring Break in New Mexico

Sign on the wall at LaLecheria.

Some time during the winter I confided to my youngest daughter, who lives in Virginia, that I would like to see New Mexico again in the springtime.  In the 70s, the husband of my youth and I had traveled to Las Cruces, in southern New Mexico, for graduate school. and I came to love the high desert. Tony Hillerman became my favorite author, Ojos de Dios my favorite craft activity, and Santa Fe my go-to city for feel-good meals and shopping sprees. But it had been many years since I had been there.

My daughter clerked for a judge in Santa Fe after law school and before marriage and children. She and her husband had courted in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, where he worked, with side trips to Taos, Chimayó, hiking trails and ski slopes. She thought spring in New Mexico sounded good, too.

Sometimes Wishes Come True

Talking on the phone on a dreary day in January, Deb and I agreed to meet in Santa Fe over spring break. She booked a three-bedroom adobe and flights for her family. All I had to do was pay my share and figure out how to get there.I decided to take Amtrak to Santa Fe, and that was a good choice. I sleep well on trains, and the views from my sleeper room turned out to be amazing. I called a car service to reserve a ride to and from Union Station. When April arrived, I packed my smallest suitcase and a backpack and waited for my driver.

Back Story

Between Covid and my cancer diagnosis, I had only visited Deb and her family twice in the last several years.  During lockdown I often read to her oldest daughter on Zoom while Deb worked at home, but we hadn’t spent much time together in person. Her younger daughter, Quincy, was born during the pandemic, and I didn’t know her well. She was shy with me on Zoom, and even when I flew out for Thanksgiving in 2023, we didn’t really connect. I hoped to rectify that on this trip.

Deb turned out to be a wonderful travel planner. We visited several child-friendly museums, including of course the one devoted to Georgia O’Keefe, which will be moving to larger quarters in a year or so.  We enjoyed New Mexico cuisine in some of the best restaurants to do that, including sopaipillas, ice cream tacos, enchiladas with an egg, and amazing chile rellenos. We visited churches, craft and jewelry markets, and an amazing toy store with its own play yard and climbing equipment, where I spent way too much money. We cooked New Mexico-themed breakfasts in the shared kitchen, and packed picnic lunches to take along to playgrounds and hiking trails.

Plan Thoughtfully

This experienced Mom also planned for several hours of down time each day so no one would go crazy. We worked on a jigsaw puzzle together, rehabbed a neglected hummingbird feeder, drew pictures and played with Perler beads. We bought groceries and cooked meals together.  Dad and their oldest daughter slipped out before dawn one morning to hike up a mountain and see the sunrise. Later in the week we all climbed a big hill to watch the sunset. And we talked. Eating all our meals together, in restaurants, at the dining room table, and as picnics in the park, we had time to savor one another’s company and allow for everyone to enjoy the vacation in their own way.

While Sydney and her dad were hiking one morning, Quincy and I washed the bird feeder and made sugar syrup from a collection of sugar sachets we found in a kitchen cupboard. When her sister returned, she poured the sugar syrup into the feeder and we hung it from a tree in the front patio.The Perler beads were a hit, and the girls spent hours making craft projects together.  By the end of our time together, I finally felt I knew both girls.

My daughter’s family returned home before the end of the week, but I planned to stay two more days to revisit the downtown area. Deb suggested I also treat myself to a hot tub and a sauna at Ten Thousand Waves, a health spa a little way out of town. I made the reservation, ubered to the retreat, took the robe I was offered and enjoyed a decadent 90 minutes in a private bathing suite open on one side to a lush tropical garden. Beside the large soaking tub and sauna, I had my own private shower, toilet, and soft mat to rest on inside a cozy wall alcove.  After I emerged, refreshed and relaxed, I strolled around the spa garden for a while then finished the evening with a Japanese meal called izakaya which consisted of several small plates of elegantly served food, washed down with hot sake. It was a lovely way to end the week.

Coming Home

It was snowing as I boarded the train back to Los Angeles, a reminder that spring may take a little while longer to arrive in the Southwest. Back home, however, fragrant freesias welcomed me and I discovered a pair of house wrens nesting in a plant pot on my back patio. The three spotted eggs hatched today, and as I write this I can hear the babies chirping.  It certainly smells and sounds like spring.

What did YOU do over Spring Break?

Marlene Anne Bumgarner writes primarily about food, family, and traditions. Her 2020 memoir, Back to the Land in Silicon Valley, is about raising children, animals, and vegetables on a rural plot of land in the 1970s.   Organic Cooking for (not-so-organic) Families will be out soon, and she’s working on an update to The Book of Whole Grains while also crafting a cozy mystery, Death on a Sunny Afternoon – a Harriet Palmer Mystery.