Hot Springs, NM

Ever since I experienced the magic of the Chinati Hot Springs, I've been looking high and low for more springs with a delicously high lithium content. I've been meaning to get up to Ojo Calente, but haven't had the time for the long drive in to the Taos high country, so I settled for a stop over in Truth or Consequences, NM on the way back from Tuscon. Truth or Consequences is a New Mexico town that was re-named for a game show in 1950. The quiz show is long gone and the town formerly known as Hot Springs, is now referred to as T or C.


The town has a snazzy website that lets you book a room online. I picked La Paloma hot springs for their pet policy and was not disappointed. The retro motor court lodging is comprised of CCC worker cabins that have been moved to the site from nearby Elephant Butte.

While the cabin/motor court accommodations are a bit rustic (there were no showers in the rooms) The main attraction here are the baths which are first-come-first-served private enclosed rustic tubs with pebble floors. Soaking is unlimited with an overnight stay in the motel, and there is 24-hour access. Inoffensive new age-y music is piped in the rooms and the water is HOT. The various natural (but privately enclosed) tubs rage from 109 to 104 degrees. The inn provides heavy terry cloth robes and the temperature in T or C, about 150 miles south of Albuquerque is generally mild enough that you can scurry from the bath house to your room through crisp, but not cold, mountain air.

Twenty-four hours of napping and soaking here is just the right amount of time to detox and unwind. I look forward to visiting in the spring and fall when the conditions will be right for some good hikes at Elephant Butte, right up the road.

More Beer = Holiday Ale Fest

Shortly after the trip to Tuscon, where many delicious beers were consumed, I was off to Portland for the Holiday Ale Fest. I was introduced to this notion by my serious beer friends R&J. They've made the pilgrimage from ABQ every year for about 8 years. I was very excited, because ever since I had my first Harpoon Winter Warmer as a teen in Connecticut, I've been a sucker for the winter/holiday beers.
I was also looking forward to seeing a big group of college friends from the Seattle/Portland area. What better than a beer fest with the Iowa peeps!
The trip was over a long weekend, so maximizing beer time was essential. After our late arrival Thursday night, Friday morning we got right down to business when the 'fest opened. It was a lovely day of sampling delicious beers. There weren't many people at the fest on a work day, so we enjoyed the beers lots and lots of beers.

After the beers, there was lots of silliness.

More beer at the Widmer Gasthaus. A long cold walk under the highway invoking David Byrne and the Cathedrals of our modern age, then more beer with Albuquerque friends at Amnesia Brewing, directly next door to where we were staying.
Saturday was the day of the 'fest. We kicked things off recovering at the Country Cat with a serious bloody mary... yes, that's a beef jerky garnish.

Back to the fest for day 2, which was mostly drunkeness and catching up with the Iowa peeps. Even my tasting notes reflect a serious beer-tasting burnout, which ended up with me being physically removed from the ill-tempered gnome tent. Of course I was only removed to go to Deschutes Brewery for more fish and chips and MORE BEER.

Sunday was our last day in Portland.

We woke up early to explore (make a bee line for the waffle sandwich cart!)
YUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We wandered around North Portland on foot eating more! After some post-breakfast coffee at the darling Patisserie Pix (no photo's because I was too engaged in my latte with HOMEMADE CARAMEL) killing time until the new-old-fifth quandrant Lompoc opened at 11 am so we could get our taste on.

Lompoc was the perfect sleepy sunday morning beer tasting spot. Even though our belly's were full, we found some room for delicious beer cheese dip and savored the yummiest beers of the trip.

Although our taste buds were weary, on Sunday afternoon we rallied and went to the Brass Horse pub, which I had been obsessing about the entire trip. The Brass Horse is a serious pub. There was a man in the corner that looked like the Old Man and the Sea, fer reals! The beer list was exhaustive. There were so many good, local beers, that despite the Ale fest, and the 4 other breweries we had already visited, that we had not tasted. After much deliberation over the extensive tap list, I went with a Walking Man Cherry Stout. It was so good. It sounds gross, but the cherry was sublime, and the stout heavy and chocolate-y. It may have been my favorite beer of the trip. Thanks again to our awesome hosts! We will be back... hold on to your hats... did someone say barleywine festival...
Cheers!

Thanksgiving = More Beer!

I went to Tuscon to visit family for thanksgiving. I found the drive to Tucson, while long, to be fairly pleasant. Perhaps in the future I might even stop in Hatch, the high point of excitement along the journey.
I stayed with Dixie at the Lowes Ventana Canyon resort. It's a very fancy resort (where my parents were staying) but they are 100% cool with dogs of any size. The room had a balcony that overlooked a xeriscaped cactus land and tile floors, making it easy to have the puppy crate and the smelly puppy along.
The day after thanksgiving I went to the Nimbus Brewery and Barrio Brewing. Both were in odd industrial parts of the city, and not 100% easy to find until I saw the giant beer sticking out of the side of the building...

But it was lunchtime and it was pretty empty. The best thing about the Nimbus was the cool monkey logo... and that their guest beer was BELLS! from Kalamazoo. I had a Bells Oatmeal Stout, a delicious smoked gouda caramelized onion cheeseburger with bacon fries. Delicious, if not done 100% justice by the photo.

I tasted all the beers in addition to the burger and the Bell's, they were all pretty good.

Not outstanding (damn Marble has my palate soooo picky). I think we filled a growler with some nut brown and were off to the next stop, Barrio.
At Barrio Brewing, one of my dreams came true. I was able to purchase a growler "outfit." I've been carrying my growler in a soft cooler from the dollar store that looks like a diaper bag, so I was really excited to have a proper growler cooler, perfect for hiking on hot summer days.
The beers at Barrio were more... carefully crafted, less mass produced than Nimbus.

Unfortunately, some of the ones we were most excited about, were not as delicious as anticipated. I'm thinking of a coffee porter, perhaps. Some of the beers had the odd taste of chile when they weren't supposed to either. The standouts were a raspberry wheat and a dunklewisen that we filled our growler with and enjoyed all the way to T or C.
After our beer tasting day we spent another night at the resort and headed to the healing waters of Hot Springs, NM.

After a long few days with the familia, it was nice to watch the sunset and drink our growlers at the hot springs, even if the gusty winter winds made the cabin at La Paloma a bit chilly, we had a great time and returned to Abq refreshed and ready to take on the next adventure.

I drink too much beer and don't blog enough, Part 1 Telluride

This first trip of the fall ale season was to Telluride in October. It was advertised as a fall color tour, but of course, it's Colorado, and there were many beers to taste along the way. We drove up to Farmington after work, passing through Chaco Canyon. You can feel the "mystical" powers and energy, as captured in this electrical-storm sunset photo

The point of stopping in Farmington was to sample the beers from 3 Rivers Brewery. Frankly, I was disappointed. The had a very limited selection of pre-filled growlers, and a bar full of unfriendly locals, so we didn't stick around and taste and sample. We did get a perfectly good IPA that kept us going through the night and in to Durango the next day.
The drive to Durango was short and scenic, we rolled in to Durango just in time for breakfast beers at Culver's. It's a smaller pub, with good food and excellent beer. I believe they are known for the bread the bake with their beers. It's been a while since we were up there, and I didn't have my 33 Beers book (http://www.33beers.com/) so I'm not sure what we drank, I will venture a guess, that J. had an ... Oatmeal Stout and I had the IPA.

After Culver's we headed to Steamworks. Steamworks ruled! They had so many yummy, yummy beers. A wonderful helpful friendly tender who gave us free appetizers. It was one of those times you almost wish the beer was non alcoholic so you could sit there and try pints of them all, all day long.

Sadly there was driving, and high mountain passes to be negotiated so we moved on up the road to Telluride.
Not far outside of Durango, the mountains grew steeper and the Aspens more vibrant.

We climbed and climbed in to the mountains and watched the temperature drop. More Aspens, more mountains, and a stop in Silverton for more beer.

Silverton is very sleepy and small, and would probably not exist anymore, were it not for the Silverton-Durango scenic railroad. There was a sleepy local pub, that brewed its own beer, so we stopped in for a pint. It was not very good, and the locals were not very nice. They suggested we head over the pass, and shave our time to Telluride by an hour. I love a good 4x4 challenge, but the jeep roads at 12,000 feet, are best left to people with more expertise than myself. J sensed a rat in their claims and we stuck to our original route over Slumgullion pass and in to Ouray for the hot springs.


Once we got to Telluride we had a great meal and lots of red wine with my aunt. My uncle brough home some steak from the CSA ranch he's been working at. He tried to recruit us to go out and ride the next day. There were calves that needed porcupine quills removed from their snouts, but I thought I was a bit too green to be riding a horse on a working expedition, so I politely declined. Instead we thought we'd tackle and easy "locals" hike recommended by my aunt.

For starters, NOTHING is easy at 10,000 ft, not even for those who are acclimated at 5,000 feet and eat 2.7 mile hikes for an afternoon snack. My friends, this 2.7 miles, felt like 13.1 of a half marathon and took nearly as long. This locals hike afforded absolutely stunning views, herds of elk on the valley floor, the ski mountain, the Tomboy Mine, Bridal Veil Falls, Mt. Wilson (aka the Coors Can Mtn)more mountains clear to Utah and of course, beautiful aspen forests.
I laughed, I cried, I found a lost great dane named George. Then we headed to... the brewpub, to refresh our souls with MORE BEER!

I figured Smugglers was alright, after all my college aged cousin had left an empty growler in the kitchen of our guest house. Well, it is just that, alright. It's the only game in town, but it did not hold up to the high standards put forth by our local Albuquerque pub, or Steamworks or Culvers. Nevertheless, we drank all our tasters and hastened back to the house to rest our weary legs. Our trip was nearing it's close and the next day we were heading back toward Creede, to check out more snowy mountain passes, more pubs and more abandoned mining towns.

Canoncito Hike

Another beautiful sunset hike in the east mountains. Last week I hiked an easy out and back from the Sulphur Springs picnic area. Last night I stopped a bit closer to the interstate and hiked the Canoncito Trail, up to a waterfall, across on the Faulty Trail and back to the Cole Springs picnic area. This hike was more strenuous than last week's and took a lot longer. I got the info from my 60 hikes within 60 miles book.

I parked on the side of a dirt road next to a graveyard, and proceeded through an ominous looking gate. Apparently the private land owners have gated the road (and a about 3/4 closer to Hwy 14 than is indicated in the book) but you can still walk up the road, to the trailhead, and even further to the now desolate Cole Springs picnic area. After chugging up the dirt road (pace yourself, the elevation gain is here!) I came to the trail head for Canoncito. At this point there are options, you can go straight up Bart's trail, known for being "the hard way up" or take the rolling Canoncito. Not in the mood for a challenge, I took the Canoncito up to a series of waterfalls and a spring. This would be a great place to kick back and relax in the summertime, as the spring has formed shallow pools good for wading and splashing. Dixie enjoyed the mud. The trail is steeper and slippery with a good bit of deadfalls as you make your way past the springs, but no worries, less than half a mile from the waterfalls is the left turn on to the Faulty Trail to loop back to the car.
I had hiked the Faulty Trail the week before out of Sulphur Springs and found it to be similar, gradual ups and downs (heading back to the car it was mostly downhill). It's well maintained and offered some spectacular vistas of the Sandias and Tijeras melting into sunset in the distance.


Although I fairly certain this hike is too challenging for non-acclimated visitors, I can see myself hiking up there with a bottle of wine and some cheese to enjoy the sunset again in the not to distant future. Knowing what I know of the Faulty Trail, thus far, I would also like to hike it up from Cole Springs on a longer day hike. It's terrain is fairly groomed and someday, I see a better trained me practicing some trail runs up there.
Night was falling as I emerged from the woods at the Cole Springs picnic area. I guess because the gate is lower on the road than indicated in the book, I was going to be hiking the rest of the way to the car in the dark. I would estimate this was about 1.5 miles. It was truly a study in being observant when heading out in the daylight, so as to have my bearings in the woods as the sun fell below the horizon. Out of the forest and on the road, I did have enough ambient light to keep walking without my headlamp, enjoying the dusk and hoping that I would not get eaten by a bear. It was a ways on the road, but it was all downhill. Down, down, down until I reached the gate, the cemetery and the car. I stopped a moment to take in the stars (a night so clear, and just obscured from the city lights enough you could even begin to see the faint outline of the milky way) hopped in my car and was back in Albuquerque for a tasty dinner of green chile stew and pumpkin beer in 30 minutes. I'm not sure it's the best idea to be hiking through cougar country on a new trail in the dark, but me n Dixie lived to tell the tail and will be back next Tuesday with more hiking adventures.

Marble Septemberfest

I like beer, and I like tasting. I also like the Marble Brewery, and hang out there a good bit, so it makes sense I was present for Septemberfest!
Several breweries from around New Mexico came together for an afternoon of tasting. It was pretty hot in the early afternoon hours, but I was able to soothe my sweaty soul with tasty treats like Apricot Wheat and IPA 1000. I drank a lot of tasty beer that day. I could drink a lot more with out the sun beating down on me. I got a free pint glass... and a temporary tattoo. In the words of Ice Cube, it was a good day.

Ft. Davis

Another 3-day weekend, another trip to Texas. Ft. Davis, Marfa, (again) for the Marfa Lights Festival and back to Chinati Hot Springs for some well-needed hot springs relaxation.
Ft. Davis was new to me as a destination. After a lovely drive down Rt. 118 after the boredom of I-10 I arrived in Ft. Davis in the mid-afternoon. It's only 26 miles from Marfa, but has a very different family-vacation kind of vibe.
I stayed at the Stone Lodge Tourist Camp. An old motel restored with "camp rooms" two cool stone walls, twin beds and a sink, with a screen door and a bathroom down the hall. The room was cozy, just right for beating the heat of the high desert sun, but the main attraction here was the pool. After a long day on the road it was nice to unwind with a cold lone star while looking out on the mountains.
I spent the evening in Marfa at the festival (have you ever heard a Beatles cumbia??!) and at Padre's and was in bed early enough to get up early and spend some more time reading by the pool.

Albuquerque Urban Assault

This weekend has been all about experiencing Albuquerque. Friday night started out at the Marble Brewery (big shocker there!) I tried their new beer... The Other Blonde, and found it to be quite delicious. Then I headed to the student ghetto for some more cocktails with a friend, and finally downtown to Burt's tiki lounge via the Rapid Ride. I really enjoyed being car-less and it was fun to watch all the new UNM freshmen interact with a city bus for the first time. I went to Burt's Tiki lounge, which kind of reminds me of tortilla flats in nyc. There was some sort of band that ended their set with a mosh pit where people were throwing stuffed animals with one another?! Apparently it happens at every show? Who knows. I had a drink called a Zombie, and the things are hazy at best... Oh yeah, that and the walk from the bus back to my car was precisely 17x as long as it had been earlier in the evening.
On Saturday I continued to savor the flavor of Albuquerque. Wine tasting at Savoy. 4 small plate food parings and an assortment of 6 red wines, all rated 90 or higher by wine spectator. Pinot Noir, Malbec, Syrah... all very delicious and paired with salmon with a raspberry jalapeno glaze, egg chorizo pizza, fingerling potatoes with taleggio and a apple fritter. All very delicious. The rain poured down as we tasted the autumnal wines, and cleared up when we were done, with the cooler temps leaving me in the mood for some scotch. I passed the rest of the afternoon at O'Neills on the patio. Drinking beer and sipping scotch while a pinky purple sunset smoldered low in the Western Sky over the Desert Sands motel (the OTHER no country for old men motel).
On Sunday, after all the weekend's debauchery, I decided to go for a hike. Nothing strenuous, something local, something different. I went to Montessa Park. It's mostly a frisbee golf course, and would be most easily described as "across from the motocross tracks you see before you hit the runway as you land at the Sunport. The short hike wanders through an ... apcolyptic landscape. It's out by the bio containment area (ZOMBIES!) and you can hear the pop pop pop of the Zia gun club as you wander into the scrubby desert. Aside from some weird "obstacles" (abandoned junk) on the disc course you hike out following a wash to some abandoned railroad tracks. The soil was soft and dusty with lots of ants and a good sprinkling of wildflowers. I didn't encounter another soul the entire time I was out there. The disc golf course was empty and Dixie traveled confidently through across the sand off her leash. I'm not sure if it was the mid afternoon sun and hotter temps, but since I didn't see another person I look forward to more hiking on the martian landscape I discovered today.

Summertime Rolls

I've had many adventures in New Mexico this summer. Mostly, I have been out adventuring so much, my actual blogging has suffered. Now I am attempting to go back and re-tell the tales from my summer adventures.
1. Cloudcroft, Marfa and Chinati Hotsprings
This trip other than the expeditions to Austin, was probably the most ambitious. I left Albuquerque on a Thursday night and drove to Cloudcroft NM. My professional opinion, there's just not much happening in Eastern New Mexico. Once you are past San Antonio (NM)(Owl Cafe!) its pretty empty country. The wide open spaces make it easier to track the afternoon thunderstorms that rained down on the mountains of Cloudcroft as I headed that way. I didn't get to the campsite until after dark. There are not a lot of options in the mountaintop town... lots of gingerbread-y cottages I'd like to stay in, but my luck was good in getting a campsite with trees and I did have a small, short lived campfire. Temps were COLD in the high altitude and damp weather.


This chilly night in the hammock... would influence the rest of the summer's adventures to high altitude:

1) always bring extra thermal layers
2) it always rains, so always bring the tent
3) bring dry wood from home because a campfire is good when the air is cold.

Cloudcroft was a quick stay. In late, out early with lots of miles to cover to Marfa, and a deadline to get to the Chinati Foundation to see the Dan Flavins by 2 pm. Much of the morning drive was spent skirting the White Sands Missle range, then meeting up with I-10 in El Paso for the most soul-less part of the drive. Hour after hour unfolds on the freeway until you exit at Van Horn and make your way into the desert. As the ranchland unfolded storms gathered in the eastern sky toward Marfa. I stopped at Prada Marfa. The dark sky made for some good pictures.


The hipstamatic was a lot of fun on this trip, and the desert around Marfa is particularly lush this year, making for more vibrant green shots than you might imagine. Despite driving through one of the heaviest rainstorms I've ever been in and being fully convinced I was going to drive in to some crazy arroyo and be swept away, it was dry when I pulled in to Marfa and barely squeaked in to Chinati for the 2 pm tour. The Dan Flavin installation (part of the permanent collection) was something I had been looking forward to seeing for quite sometime.




6 buildings with two hallways, a study in florescent light, color and general post-modern weirdness, right up my alley.
After Chinati I had some time to kill before meeting my friend, so I drove up 117 to Ft davis It was cool and overcast, and looking stormy again so I turned back and headed in to Marfa for a burger at Padres.
Padre's is one of my most favorite bars. It's got comfy, rambling patio and is filled with vintage pinball machines, shuffleboard, beer stuff of the funky vintage variety.They always have yummy Texas beers (Lone Star, St. Arnold's Lawnmower) and delicious food... gumbo! burgers! I spent an evening under the stars chatting with my friends relatives who had just arrived in town for campmeeting ... a traditional Texas gathering that's 3 parts family reunion, 1 part tent revival and 100% old timey Texas.
Even though I stayed up late at Padre's I was up early the next morning to gather provisions for my excursion deeper in to the desert. First stop, the Marfa Farmer's Market. Armed with good advice from my hostess. I was there at 10am when they rang the bell and made a beeline to the bread lady. Oh my. I got a huge onion flaxseed loaf. That bread might be the best I have EVER had. I still have dreams about it. I made delicious roasted veggie pesto sandwiches out of it... yum! I got some onigiri with fresh cucumber for my cooler for snackin, some local honey from an old timey man and a breakfast burrito for well, breakfast (delicious carne adovada!) Now, all my cooler was almost filled... I needed one more thing LONE STAR BEER! Only available in Texas, and truly economical and delicious.
It was still early enough in the day(gotta get up and at em when you're in the desert!) I decided to throw a detour in the mix and headed off to Alpine to buy some pickle salt at the Murphy Street Raspa Company. Intersected with some pickle salt in Austin on my last visit and haven't been able to get it outta my mind. I had a fruity raspa with chili salt and set out for the desert oasis of Chinati Hot Springs.

What goes up?

On Saturday I headed up to Santa Fe to find a sporty little hike just off of the ski basin road. Santa Fe's mountain breezes make a mid-day hike possible, even when it's hot in the 505.
The Chamisa trail is right off the road, and very well traveled. It would probably be even more well traveled were it not for it's ridiculous, immediate vertical. The hike is 2.5 miles one-way to the junction with the Windsor trail at the Tesuque Creek bed, which I found to be dry.

In those 2.5 miles, you ascend/descend 1000 ft. Which, for those of you who suck at reading a topo map as bad as I do... you're gonna feel it in your hips and glutes.
There wasn't much to see except these wacky martian plants. Not sure what they are, but the sure looked Suessical!

Fairly worn out from the hike out, and somewhat docile (for her) I let Dixie have some free range time as we retraced our steps back to the car.

I liked this hike for its ease of location and serious altitude hill work, but the best part of the day was relaxing at the Santa Fe brewery with a sampler tray of delicious beers and purchasing a new growler to add to my collection.



*HIKERS NOTE: Cell service sucks in S.F. so plan your hike before you leave home, and don't think you will be able to google trail numbers, or directions once you start driving up Artist Rd.

8-bit

Last week I went to see a movie at Fab Lab on 2nd Street. They have a Wolf Parade video on their website so they MUST be cool.. heh. Basically, its across from the Marble. Here is the blurb about the movie from their website:

“8 BIT ably chronicles the modernist and post-modernist tendencies in the relatively recent history of video game-based art, but also suggests that the bit- bending antics of the post-video game generation hint at a new current in the uncharted waters of 21st century art history.”

Yeah, that's what she said.


The movie was was a documentary about gaming hacks that make techno music. It traced the roots of people hacking early Commodore 64 games and putting sexy ladies on the intro screens, and followed that all the way to some current first person shooter games where the artist has imposed anti-war graffiti on the walls of a battle scene. Some of the techno created with a program for the gameboy was pretty cool and offered an interesting glimpse of electronic music as a bunch of geometric patterns. There was also some Hunter College professor who kept talking about the epistemology of Object Oriented Programming, I think she just learned the word and wanted to use it a bunch. Still it was sort of relevant to my work stuff. It was in a hip outdoor setting, and there was even a Nam Jun Paik reference to make my post modern heart go pitter patter.
I would see this again on netflix, and certainly recommend it to all my nerdly programmer friends.