Saturday, June 30, 1984
Santa Fe, NM
00 miles
Locator map
I’m reprinting the day-to-day journal entries of a cross-country bike tour my friend and I took in 1984. More about the TransAmerica Tour 1984
Bis’ Journal
I seem to keep repeating this in my journal — “this place reminds me of Annapolis.”
Of course Santa Fe doesn’t really remind me of Annapolis, but there are aspects that are similar. Same with Taos, Ouray, Ste. Genevieve.
Santa Fe is steeped in the Hispanic culture, Annapolis isn’t. Annapolis sits on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. Santa Fe sits at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. The similarities? Neither are the largest cities in their states, but they are the state capitals. Both have campuses of the liberal arts St. John’s College. A large part of their economies are based on eating and drinking and partying downtown. Both have long histories.
Bruce and I did what we always do on an off-day, we started with laundry. We found a laundromat, dumped our panniers into two machines, and sat around reading the newspaper.
We returned to the hostel, then went our separate ways. I walked out to a gallery displaying Allan Houser bronze sculptures.
Then walked into town, met Bruce, and walked around the plaza at the center of town where folks were selling turquoise and silver jewelry spread out on blankets. Bruce and I later visited a poster shop where I bought a couple of Pena posters to send home.
Later we found a rooftop bar where we drank Tecates and watched the scene in the plaza. Much later we wasted our money on the dreadful “Conan, the Destroyer” and returned to the hostel.
Headline: June 30, 1984 —
US Commerce Department announces the average price of a new,
single-family home, broke the $100,000 mark for the first time ever
in May… (In May 2014, that average price had risen to $319,200)
Bruce’s Journal
Woke up early, feeling refreshed. We did our laundry and I fixed my flat and re-trued the wheel as best I could. Bis had walked into town ahead of me and we met later for lunch. Santa Fe is a nice town–adobe, galleries galore and a central plaza like Taos where people sit and relax and the kids break dance on a stage.
There are lots of Native Americans selling turquoise and jewelry (silver) on the sidewalks, and there are interesting museums here of the Southwest. We did quite a bit of walking, and ate in a small courtyard restaurant called The Shed: blue tortilla burritos and red raspberry soup (served cold) with a Tecate with lime. Good stuff.
We were probably two miles from the hostel, so we hung out in town, went to see Conan the Barbarian at the Paseo Theatre. The film was so bad it was funny–very entertaining, however unintentional. The theater had a cafe in the lobby where you could eat before or after the film. And the first three rows in the theater itself were all sofas. What a great place–a good idea for movie houses in downtowns in the East trying to compete with the six-theater mall operations.
We had a bad pizza at the Upper Crust and then walked back to the hostel. Bis bought two posters in Santa Fe and I wanted to buy some also, but I just didn’t see anything I really liked.
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