“You’ve been randomly selected, please pull over to this side here and open all your doors.”
Seriously? I’m super white, short and female and I’m getting searched?? I thought. Whatever…
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So, After a few days in Colorado, one for a job interview, and two with my mom viewing museums and parks, I headed down to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Why? Well, I’d never been and for some reason I’d always had this pull to go and visit. Just this strange feeling that I needed to go because I know I’d probably love it. Guess what? I was totally right.
From the minute I stepped off this tiny airplane that I’m convinced my friends J and L wouldn’t be able to stand up straight in, and onto the tarmac in the super tiny-ass airport where you have to call for your enterprise shuttle from a designated phone, I was already have a great time. The airport was adobe based, of course, as is almost everything else in Santa Fe. I’m pretty sure the airport parking lot was bigger than the whole airport.
So after a wait at Enterprise, I headed to the airbnb location I had reserved for the week. I was staying in a nice old lady’s guest house, complete with skylight, kitchen, wifi, and deer. Yes… a few days later at night I’d hear some loud noises and look out the kitchen window to see a family of deer hanging out on the patio. Her house was separate from the guest house. She had tons of windows in her small adobe home. It’s just what you’d imagine a native new mexican home to look like… rectangular windows embedded in peach/red textured walls, flat roof, red dirt everywhere, dry bushes, some green trees. Pots and small plants hanging and settled all around. Also, a cat.
Anyway, my host was super nice and had everything I needed for the week. We chatted a bit about ourselves, and then I changed out of my smelly airplane clothes and went to trader joes to get food for the week. What? I’m cheap and I like to cook, okay? I didn’t want to spend $30 every time I ate out.
First night in NM was quiet, dark, and full of animal noises running across the roof of the adobe guest house. I spent a great deal of time texting my old coworker who is from Santa Fe. I think in five hours I had about 80 texts from him. He was super excited and sending me lists of things to do, and food to eat. I had to remind him I’m vegetarian.
The next day, I was up and out by 8am (7am pst). I just started driving around and ended up on a freeway somewhere, headed towards Los Alamos. The view from the car was just like I’d pictured in my head: rolling hills/mountains, round medium green bushes, red ground, a few tall trees, crazy rock formations everywhere. I didn’t have the gps on – I know, I know, who these days doesn’t have the gps on the phone one wherever they are especially in a new place? Okay, me. That’s who. I didn’t need it. There were signs – you know, green & blue ones, some brown. Our parents and grandparents used to ONLY have these and paper maps to follow, and I suggest giving it a shot if you’re one of the digital age kids.
I found myself in some small town in white rock (Overlook Park?), following some national monument and park signs to a lookout point. I took some photos, and did the digital thing, and was actually able to call my grandma from the top of this point. The view was pretty amazing, following what I can only figure was the Rio Grande, and some waterfalls. A friend would later make a joke that I was at the Grand Canyon – and no, I was not. There are other canyons in the U.S. It was super windy, but I heard nothing but the water, and the eagle flying over head. I walked out onto the edge a bit, I wasn’t wearing hiking shoes so I had to be extra careful I sat there for about a half hour, and then headed back to the Cruze, to cruise on cruise up the freeway some more.
About an hour later I had thought, Hey, what’s in San Ysidro? So I tried to head there on a different freeway, but one wrong turn and I found myself behind a big truck and then suddenly entering this military stop. They were very suspicious of me, no joke.
“Where you headed?” I was asked twice by two different guards.
“Um, I was just going for a drive…..” I shrugged both times. Seriously, I had no real destination, and I guess that sounds pretty terrible to a guard….
After they wrote down my license info, searched the car with their dog, and checked me out, I was able to head back on the road to.. somewhere? Five minutes later my mom is calling me. I had set up my phone to work with the car, and when she started to mention my taxes, I had to pull over. And again a guard drove slowly past in a giant SUV to see why I was pulled over in the middle of the freeway shoulder… HA… I’m such a suspicious person!
After the call with my mom that was super frustrating because taxes are due next week and mine apparently were lost somewhere on their way to out accountant, I got myself lost on some winding mountain roads, but hey the view was pretty amazing.
A half hour later I was getting another call while driving down a narrow ridge. It was a job interview call I had forgotten about. I had terrible reception and again had to find a decent spot in the middle of the highway shoulder to pull over so I could take the call. Highly interesting morning so far right? It’s just as busy as being home in LA only I have a better view to look at while on the calls than I would at home staring at my cat or the smoggy air over what is supposed to be the ocean.
The call must have gone well because two hours later when i finally made it back to the BNB I had a 2nd call with the same place with another director, and making plans for a third call later in the week. The job search was happening even on vacation whether I wanted it to or not. Then a recruited called about a project for another possible job, and asked if I was done with it yet. Well, no, dude, I’m on vacation and have been traveling for three days so it makes it hard to find time to work. I ended up staying in again on my second night in NM, and staying up all night working on said project. J wasn’t all too thrilled I was working on my vacation, but I was getting paid to work on it, and could have a job out of it so the unhappiness balances out. I think.
Wednesday in NM wasn’t super eventful. I did go for a three hour drive down to Las Vegas, NM, after staying up till 5am, then sleeping till 830am, and trying to wake up and leave. I finally hit the road to LV around 12. I stopped in two more park areas along the way, Pecos was one of them. It was super empty, tiny, and seemed like straight out of a western movie with little to no civilization, and a lot of red dirt, awesome rock formations, and Ford trucks. When I reached LV, I found it to be a small town with nothing super exciting other than some old buildings, interesting people and an actual destination. Just seemed like a quiet old historic town. I was back home by 4, and at 3 again I had another interview call. So many calls. Balancing my vacation time, and job search has been quite the challenge. I wanted to run away from responsibilities but alas, one cannot.
Around 8pm, my host came by with a free ticket to the movie theatre she works at. She suggested a couple of movies, and I figured I’d take one in Thurs or Friday. They sounded interesting. I was so tired from working all night, I ended up staying in again, which turned out to be a good idea because I met a family of deer who were just wandering through patio and front area, around my rental car searching for food. That was probably the best part of the day.