Jemez Mountains, NM. (Photo by the author)
1,161 words
It was said of Jim Bridger, that pioneering explorer of the Old West, that he liked places better than he liked people.
This Jim can relate. I love to travel far more than I like to socialize.
But places, just like people, are not all equal. Most are bland and forgettable. Some you’d want to avoid altogether. But a magical few will mesmerize and bewitch you the moment you lay your eyes on them. You can never quite get them out of your mind.
In the summer of 1971, my parents took me on a three-and-a-half-week road trip from our suburban Philly row home out to Phoenix, AZ and back. Our former next-door neighbors had relocated out West because the family patriarch had developed a debilitating case of arthritis. Whereas Philadelphia is muggy in the summer and damp in the winter, Phoenix is in the Sonoran Desert. Although Phoenix broils under the naked sun like a giant parking lot in hell, it’s what they call a “dry heat.”
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Dad drove, mom rode shotgun, and I sat in the back, poring over baseball box scores and calculating batting averages in my head. Our route to Phoenix took us from Pennsylvania down through the spectacularly unspectacular Midwest, then into Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle. The most I remember about the latter two states were tumbleweeds, oil rigs, and flat, dusty plains. Nothing I’d call “breathtaking.”
But about an hour after we’d crossed over into New Mexico—the “Land of Enchantment”—I looked up from the newspaper sports page to behold eye-popping scenery that reminded me of what I’d seen on the Road Runner Show. That was a popular 1960s animated cartoon in which the mischievous protagonist led the hapless Wile E. Coyote on endless danger-laden chases through the desert Southwest’s psychedelically colorful mesas, buttes, canyons, hoodoos, and gulches.
I was enchanted. It felt like being on another planet. It would be my first real-life exposure to the magisterial desert.
Our trip took us further westward into Arizona and to the Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, and the Painted Desert. Later forays out West took me to Death Valley, Monument Valley, the Valley of Fire, Canyon de Chelly, Bryce Canyon, and Zion National Park. It all staggered me. Nothing back East or in the Midwest could hope to compare to the desert Southwest’s soaring grandeur.
As I told you last week, my wife and I have wanted to leave Georgia for years. We briefly considered Sarasota, FL, but it’s even rainier than Georgia. Plus, it’s Florida. The meme “Florida Man” refers to the fact that if you hear a news story about a naked gent with a bone through his nose who, while high on paint thinner, microwaved a baby at a local convenience store and ate it, odds are that it happened in Florida.
We also pondered relocating to the charming little mountain town of Chattanooga, TN. It’s better than the ATL, but Chattanooga raises similar climatic and demographic concerns—it gets more rain than Atlanta and almost a third of its residents are Chattan**gas.
Regarding rain, Hurricane Helene recently dumped more inches on Atlanta over 48 hours than Albuquerque averages in a year.
So where does an American man of meager means take his wife if he’s tired of both coasts and has never been impressed with the Midwest?
In my experience, the Mountain Time Zone is by far America’s most scenic. Statistically, it’s the country’s most sparsely populated temporal quadrant. For someone who likes places better than I like people, that sounds heavenly. Utah is the only state—and this happened twice twenty years apart—where the landscape was magnificent on such a surreal level that I spontaneously burst out laughing. But Utah is too cold for me, and the Mormon vibe is too palpably cultlike for my tastes. Idaho, likewise, is too frigid. Don’t even get me started on Montana. Or Wyoming. Though Colorado has its charms, its residents always rubbed me the wrong way. It’s hard to explain, but it’s been a constant ever since I visited my brother out there in the 1970s.
To me, no other place felt as serenely hypnotic as New Mexico.
Although the Land of Enchantment is America’s fifth biggest state—only Alaska, Texas, California, and Montana take up more space—its total population of 2.1 million is one-third of the Atlanta metropolitan area’s. Only Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas have fewer people per square mile than New Mexico does.
There are roughly as many black people in the Atlanta metro area alone as there are people of all colors in the entire state of New Mexico. If 2020 Census stats are accurate, New Mexico is only 2.1% black.
When my wife and I visited New Mexico last October and this past April scoping out whether it was a viable place to live, we played a game of “count the blacks.” Over the course of about nine days, we tallied fewer than one sub-Saharan per diem.
I took her soaking at natural mineral springs down south in the shady little spa town of Truth or Consequences and up north in the majestic Jemez Mountains and Santa Fe. She said she found both the scenery and the hot springs very “soothing.” During our second trip as we barreled down I-25 ogling vast red mountain vistas, she said, “I could see living here.” She liked the sunshine. And the food. And the wide-open spaces. Given that she’s spent her whole life in New Orleans and Atlanta, she said it was refreshing to find a place so atypically schvartze-free.
Despite its paucity of ex-Africans, people have warned me that New Mexico is a beaten-down, impoverished, perilous shithole. According to a 2024 analysis, it’s America’s second-most dangerous state—behind only Alaska. But Alaska and New Mexico rank first and third in their quotient of what are known as “Native Americans.” They also rank first and fifth in total size. When you factor in the population per square mile and the abundance of Injuns, does this skew the crime stats?
Yes, New Mexico is pockmarked with desperately dissolute patches of crime and dysfunction. But I’ve been to the Land of Enchantment at least twenty times and have probably spent an aggregate total of two months there, and the only places where I wouldn’t want to sleep at night are the dilapidated reservations set aside for the haggard and weatherbeaten Injuns.
I’ve never felt the sort of stark-feared, hairs-standing-on-the-back-of-my-neck sense of menace and danger in New Mexico that I have in places such as East St. Louis, Camden, Gary, or Atlanta’s near west side. On a recent overview of America’s 25 Most Dangerous Cities, Portland makes the list, but Albuquerque doesn’t. Until I’m given reason to feel otherwise, I’m going to stick with my hunch that New Mexico is “dangerous” because of the Injuns out on the rez, and they’re mainly a danger to themselves.
Unless something happens to break my spell, I’ll remain enchanted.
38 comments
We moved a ton while I was growing up and it was great fun every time. Now I’ve lived in the same house for over 23 years and I couldn’t be more jealous of you if I tried. Blessings for your family in this new adventure.
So who was the leading hitter in the AL for 1971? I know it wasn’t Belanger, but he was still my hero at the time. Damn oakland cockroaches
Not sure, but the only way I was able to confirm it was 1971 was because Joe Torre of St. Louis seemed like he was top of the list all summer. He ended up batting .363 that year.
Torre led the NL. We used to play Sports Illustrated baseball the tabletop game and the Pennant Race game year was the 1971 season. New Mexico and Arizona have some amazing scenery. I used to muse about buying a cow farm and retiring in northern Arizona. Alas too many California transplants drove up the prices. I would live there in a heartbeat. But my suburban Kansas City neighborhood is pretty good too.
What happened to your cat and dog
Coming with us.
Good man.
So you’re relocating to NM (I didn’t actually see you state that affirmatively)? Which part of the state? I believe there is considerable geographic diversity there. Also, isn’t much of the state really poor (and nonwhite)? I’ve heard Santa Fe is still mostly white, and Los Alamos is supposed to be pretty nice (by the state’s, not the country’s, standards), though I bet most people there are government-affiliated.
Alas, too bad California has been ruined by the liberals (and diversity). It was for a long time the Golden State, the really idyllic place to live in America.
Why not consider West Virginia? Climate is not frigid, state is very white (and Republican). Plus, it’s poor, too, so the cost of living is low.
BTW, that “25 Most Dangerous Cities” is the most laughable index I’ve ever seen. San Francisco is more dangerous than … neighboring Oakland? Was the writer smoking hash? Myrtle Beach gets listed … and bombed out Baltimore doesn’t? No mention of Chicago, LA, NYC, etc? I would discount that list completely.
Good essay. Good luck.
Scenery-wise, New Mexico sounds like a good choice. Best of luck.
I must add that in today’s world with general overcrowding any place, even the better ones, can be difficult. They do find a way to get at you.
It does get cold in New Mexico, even snows sometimes. I remember driving through there 30 years ago, boring drive. Lots of dirty Indians. Anyplace with less nig nogs though is definitely a plus. Congrats on your move
If you want to live in a city of more than 10k people, you are gay.
Best of luck, Jim.
Funny thing is the desert wasteland is literally the furthest thing away from an environment white people should be inhabiting. We are not meant to be there in the same way Bantus aren’t meant to be in Sweden.
I see where you’re coming from, but at this point that argument falls flat as Whites basically seen as not belonging anywhere.
Au contraire, mon frère! The Aryans are people of the Sun, and they have always left their frigid homelands for sunnier realms, such as India, the Sunbelt, or even the postwar craze for Hawaii and the lands of Tiki. In my review of a book on Tiki culture (from Trader Vic to Richard Spencer) I address this point:
Nevertheless, isn’t the Southern land of Sun and fun now the anthesis of Aryan man? Esoteric Nazism explains the paradox as well: in Wilhelm Landig’s novel Wolfzeit zum Thule, the character SS Major Eyken expounds thusly:
“The North Pole is … associated with Lucifer, the light-bearer of the north, and Prometheus and represents the spiritual source of all Aryan strength. As its counterpart, the South Pole is the place of greatest materialization and all demonic energies. Using the ying-yang symbol as a model, he indicates that this “white” northern spiritual zone has spawned a “black” point: materialist forces of high finance and Masonic lodges prevail in the United States superpower; the Americans are usurping the Aryans with their own “Thule” base in Greenland; and the Soviets are seeking to develop their own military presence in the Arctic. The Aryans must therefore shift their spiritual potential southward and form a “white” point in the “black” spiritual zone in order to tap its powers for their own purposes in the reclamation of the North. Their goal is the repurified, white sun, the sol invictus of Mithraism, which will ultimately succeed the Black Sun, their present symbol of revanchist military power.”
This is Tiki Culture: a beachhead – a “white point” – of Aryan culture, within the American zone (or at least the West Coast thereof), tapping the powers of the Pacific Islands. The American veterans thought they were constructing an escape; actually, they were opening up a second front.
https://counter-currents.com/2019/01/con-tiki/
Seems to me it’s all about flexibility; can white people learn to tolerate both uncomfortable levels of heat and cold, as they once did? It appears to be an ominous development that more and more are running to hot spots for the winter months or year-round. Yet they could not endure the too-hot weather without air conditioning.
Here’s the bottom line: before whites developed reliable modern heating systems, they could still thrive in 4-season climates with cold, sometimes brutal winters; but non-whites would not be flooding into our lands without that technology, as someone else here on CC pointed out. Maybe a collapse of electricity, technology-dependent fossil & other fuels, etc. is what is needed to right this ship. The men will be separated from the boys and real women from sissy spoiled girls.
That is an interesting extract indeed from Landig’s book. Thanks.
Spent 3 years in Albuquerque in the early seventies, Air Force duty at Kirtland Field. Loved the place — and it was a lot smaller city, then. You’re in the town until, in a moment, suddenly you ain’t. Majestic vistas everywhere. Fits my soul.
Then in the early Nineties spent a year or two in Mountainair, N.M., a little town perched on the high desert not far from T or C. Tiny population, mostly Mexicans, very slow-paced. Fantastic.
The spirit soars free in New Mexico. The spaces are grand and wide-open. I miss the place tremendously. Recommended, Jim.
The Southwest has beautiful scenery. Everything else about it leaves a lot to be desired. Now that I think about it, that goes for everything west of the Mississippi — although Texans are generally likable.
I’ll never forget seeing the sky FILLED with tons of dazzling stars my first time camping in New Mexico. It made quite an impression on me. It was very novel to be so far from any artificial overnight (city) lights.
Carlsbad Caverns were a hoot. I was told by the tour guide, I couldn’t take flash photos of the giant black funnel of upward swarming bats. They’re blind, yet evidently their eyes are photo-sensitive. ?
Enjoy the change of scenery & new neighbors!
47.7 percent Hispanic, 10% American Indian, 36.5% White. Not sure about N Mexico. Democrat governor, both senators and all the reps. You might miss Georgia’s republican suburbs. Arizona you have 56.5% White, 30.7 Hispanic, and still just 5.5% black. Rent before you buy. Good luck.
Yes, Jim doesn’t mention the burro in the room: the Hispanic element. NM has always been the most Hispanic part of the USA; it’s capital is “Santa Fe” and Spanish has always been an official language. I recall they had a governor who, despite being named William Blaine Richardson III was 3/4 Hispanic, and gave speeches in Spanish while running for the Democrat presidential nomination.
Thing is, these are olde tyme Hispanics, like from New Spain days, and likely have been in the USA longer than anyone whose ancestors weren’t on the Mayflower. They’re no more “immigrants” than the Cajuns of Louisiana.
In fact, there are few “immigrants” there; ironically, you would think Mexicans would naturally want to invade “New Mexico” but they shun NM precisely because, being so heavily Hispanic, its economy is a mess, and so they head for Arizona, CA, and NY.
Are the injuns Jim mentions technically “Hispanic”? I’m thinking of types like Castaneda’s fictional guru, “Don Juan”.
I went to college in Santa Fe back in the late 80s and early 90s, it was a great place, the art was kind of boring (depictions of serene Indians and howling wolves mostly) but even with the occasional ranting drunk Indian (oops, Native American) downtown, it was very safe. I was back in ABQ and Santa Fe a little over a year ago, and not much seemed to have changed, except that marijuana is legal in NM now (I don’t smoke MJ now but I did when I went to college there) and there were lots of weed shops. We did go to Meow Wolf in Santa Fe while I was there, and it made me feel stoned, or maybe I just got a contact high from the obvious stoners who were also there looking at all that psychedelic crap.
Regarding hot springs soaking places, Ten Thousand Waves just outside of Santa Fe is very nice, and Ojo Caliente a good bit north of Española is great. Fun fact, Española used to be, and might still be, both the “lowrider capital of the world” and the “heroin capital of America”. I recommend just driving through there, and not stopping, on the way to somewhere else (if you are driving from Santa Fe to Taos, you will go through Española).
I highly recommend the Tinkertown Museum, it is only open for part of the year (their website says it is open until October 28th, 2024 for this season). It’s a nutty fun place mostly dedicated to funny automaton dioramas that an eccentric man built over 40 years of work. I found it to be highly entertaining, and it’s cheap ($6 for adults, $3 for kids). Check their website before you go to make sure they are open (hours vary). https://tinkertown.com/
“The Burning of Zozobra” in Santa Fe is a fascinating spectacle, I’ve been 3 times (late 80s and mid 90s), but if you don’t like crowds, don’t go. The times I have gone, there were actually more people there than the entire population of Santa Fe. It’s worth seeing at least once in my opinion, if only for the weird red pointy-hooded Catholic/Klan outfits the guys who eventually burn Zozobra wear.
Carlsbad Caverns is a must-see if you’ve never been, I have been there 4 times and will always go back if I get a chance, it is jaw-droppingly amazing and almost overwhelming visually, at least for me. I like to walk down into it, and then take the elevator back up.
Roswell is kind of dinky but all the alien stuff is amusing, and there is a good art museum combined with the Robert Goddard laboratory museum, which I enjoyed.
I hope you enjoy New Mexico!
Did you go to St. John’s, the twin of the one back east?
I spent a lot of time in New Mexico when I lived in El Paso, TX, backpacking, skiing, & visiting art museums with various women friends. Loved it. But unless you’re a government worker, military, a teacher, or a successful artist (ic, writer) it’s difficult to make a living there. Of course, there are all those eastern trust-fund chicks around Santa Fe – Taos, hanging out in the arts scene, teaching yoga.
I didn’t much care for Ten Thousand Waves, although it’s OK, once. Too regimented – my friend & I had only bought an hour or so’s time in a private bath area on the hillside, then we had to get out to make room for the next couple.
A New Mexico town that doesn’t get much notice is Las Vegas, east of the mountains, but still with a nice laid-back ambiance, interesting buildings (Plaza Hotel), plus New Mexico Highlands University, the Rough-Rider museum, etc. I like Roswell too. Southern NM used to be “undiscovered country” by wealthy eastern Anglos, with places like Las Cruces, Cloudcroft, & the Mesilla Valley.
Yeah, St. John’s. Probably could be outing myself a bit since there were only about 400 students there, graduate students included. I do agree with you about the regimentation at Ten Thousand Waves. I prefer Ojo Caliente. There are places in the hills that are just totally natural hot springs that I know how to drive to, but I don’t know how to give directions to.
Another New Mexico town I enjoyed was Madrid. It might be a little too hippie for some people’s tastes though.
One time I was in Santa Fe with a woman who was friends with the guy in charge of landscaping at St. Johns, an Anglo. I had read way too many Tony Hillerman books & had become fascinated with the Navajo. We had lunch with this guy at that sprawling outdoor restaurant southeast (?) of town & I asked him if he knew any Navajo. He rolled his eyes, “Oh yeah!” Most of his workforce was Navajo, only they seldom showed up to work, being on Navajo Time. He said they were impossible to deal with, but he wasn’t allowed to hire anyone else.
I wish I had known about Madrid. We were trying the back way into Santa Fe and got stuck in a one-hour traffic jam there on the main drag, a state highway through town, because of some festival they were having. One guy in the car said not to argue with the locals (I don’t remember seeing anyone not Hispanic) about getting through faster – they had their own version of Navajo Time.
Still, a great place. I miss it.
St. John’s was pretty fun, but it confers what is probably one of the most useless degrees in existence. We used to joke that we were getting degrees in “Reading and Talking”.
I was born in Atlanta, grew up in Macon, moved to Birmingham, then Memphis, back to Macon, then Augusta. In other words, I’ve lived and worked among blacks.
Then escaped to Utah. Heaven.
Then moved way north to one of those cold, sparsely populated states you mentioned. Incredible mountains and scenery, innumerable lakes, endless prairie. I know one black person. One.
We definitely have Injuns, though. Here’s the thing. They are basically no threat to you. They for the most part interact with Whites easily and cordially. I’ve never had a moment’s friction with a Native American. Then they go back up to the rez and chug firewater and stab each other, beat the hell out of their women, and pass out blind drunk outside in February and freeze to death.
To each their own, I suppose.
I grew up in Albuquerque, and couldn’t wait to leave. I guess the soaring scenery didn’t make up for the lack of the greenery I love so much in Virginia. I’m not a big fan of bare dirt, fire ants, and tumbleweeds.
Three observations:
1) New Mexico is the Mississippi of the Southwest. It is very poor, and it’s run by lunatic Democrats.
2) Albuquerque resembles a giant strip mall interspersed with tract houses. Santa Fe is charming, but it’s full of rich woke morons, and the housing prices are very high. Taos, ditto. In Espanola, the people hate you if you are white.
2) The crime rate is very high because there are a lot of Hispanic immigrants there, and the border is not very far away. If your car is stolen, it usually winds up in Juarez before you know it’s gone.
JG: just in case you don’t know any songs set in New Mexico, here are two:
Snowin’ on Raton (Townes van Zandt)
Billy Grey – (Norman Blake) cover by Caleb Klauder & Reeb Willms
Thank you. Here’s another: “Taos, New Mexico“
Love it! During my first visit to Taos I got chased out of the Taos Pueblo (which I had decided to explore) by an angry old Indian woman, “You don’t belong here! You need to leave!” But I discovered fry bread, so it was worth it.
Tucumcari – Jimmie Rodgers:
— https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqHyYu-Y-vI
New Mexico is, without question, the most beautiful state in the country.
Have you considered Santa Fe? (I have lived there.) It is unlike anywhere else in this country in many impressive ways. Natural surroundings are a constant source of wonder. Plenty of intelligent and eccentric people to meet. Touristy, especially in summer, but as a resident you can easily avoid the visitors if you want to. There’s a huge gap between the prosperous — independently wealthy Anglos and upper-class Spanish (they are not Mexicans) — and the poor, mostly working-class Spanish as well as struggling white artistic types. But a similar gap is common in today’s America.
Unless you’ve been already I recommend visiting Santa Fe. Even if you don’t wind up living there you’ll be glad to have experienced it.
While I certainly agree that New Mexico is quite beautiful, I also find the “tumbleweeds, oil rigs, and flat, dusty plains” of Texas and Oklahoma to be aesthetically pleasing, too. In fact, I’d say the entire Great Plains region is pretty gorgeous—there’s something about the nothingness and empty space and the skies that go on forever that speaks to me.
The song Wichita Lineman comes to mind with your description of the Great Plains states.
A fun and opinionated assessment of the west. I’d add that elevation matters for the cold weather. Flagstaff, Arizona is 7000 ft elevation and surprisingly chilly in the winter. The top of the Grand Canyon may be icy in winter but warm at the bottom.
Here’s hoping the move doesn’t soften your humor… all 4 humours, especially the bile.
Carlsbad Caverns are worth a visit.
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