Texans Travel: New Mexico

They love us; they really love us! That’s the No. 1 impression I take home after several days traveling as a Texan through New Mexico - a state that I knew began just past El Paso but had never given the attention it so clearly deserves. From outdoor adventures like hot-air ballooning and rafting on the Rio Grande to four centuries of history and gallery hopping in Santa Fe and Taos, with plenty of room for opera, eating and wine tasting, New Mexico is a state that has more appeal than I ever thought possible. And yep, it’s official: Texas is New Mexico’s largest tourism feeder market. See what I mean about loving us?

I meant what I said about the Rio Grande, though few who know the river only in Texas will recognize these clear, often fast-moving waters fed by the melting snow of mountains in New Mexico and all points north. As a result, the river creates a forested green belt (known as The Bosque, except pronounced more in English than Spanish) that follows its route through Albuquerque, and makes for a route that’s lovely to follow when you balloon with an accomplished local company like Rainbow Ryders.

If you’re lucky, waiting at the end of your balloon trip is a glass of chilled champagne - and wonder of wonders, that “champagne” will probably come from just up the road in New Mexico. On our way north from Albuquerque (which, by the way, hosts the popular Balloon Fiesta each October), we stopped for a glass or three at Gruet. French name, and French style too. Officially, it’s “sparkling wine,” of course, since no amount of Frenchmen (or Frenchwomen, since Gruet is a family business) can turn New Mexico into the Champagne region of France. But trust me, after touring and tasting Gruet, that nitpicky nomenclature is the only thing you’re likely to miss.

For much of your New Mexico visit, Santa Fe may prove your single best homebase. For one thing, it has plenty of charm even if you never get out of town. For another, it’s positioned for day trips in several directions, including to Taos with its own native American pueblo, not to mention the memories of D.H. Lawrence fantasizing about Lady Chatterley and Georgia O’Keefe painting flowers, which worked out to pretty much the same thing. A great base is the historic La Fonda hotel right on Santa Fe’s lovely main square.

Lovers of fine and folk art, whether it’s Southwestern or the kind of contemporary work you typically find in New York, will know enough to head for Canyon Road. The “arts district” began in the early 20th century, when it ironically offered cheaper real estate to - you guessed it - starving artists. Nobody’s starving around here anymore, with an entire stretch of the road dedicated to galleries, upscale restaurants, wine bars and class-act coffeehouses.

Many impressions and impulses come together while browsing along Canyon Road. It’s all best done on foot, naturally, though a couple of different jitney tours take a swing at it. The walk is beautiful even without art, since in the warm months Sante Fe is blessed with flowers at almost every turn. And then there are tongue-in-cheek surprises, like this blending of sculpture garden and putt-putt. That’s not something good King Louis ever quite managed to work in at Versailles.

If your taste in art runs more to the musical, there is the ever-terrific Santa Fe Opera - putting on five different operas all summer long in a dramatic, mostly open-air setting. We were lucky enough to take in the season-opening performance of Puccini’s deliciously melodramatic Tosca. The only thing even more so was Santa Fe’s version of “tailgating” in the parking lot. No shortage of tuxedos, bola ties and bubbles by Gruet.

Since Santa Fe is a whole lot like real life, only better, food plays a ridiculously large part. Some of the best restaurants serve the equal of any food anywhere, with impressive diversity for a population of less than 70,000. Must-see (and must-taste) places include La Boca, Il Piatto, Restaurant Martin, the Corn Maiden at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort & Spa and, only a few steps off Canyon Road, The Compound pictured above.

With a James Beard award winner as its chef and owner (Mark Kiffin, Best Chef in the Southwest), The Compound outlines the kind of cuisine Santa Fe most wants to serve to the folks it most wants to visit. Happily, the stuffy ”bad old days” of this four-decade favorite are gone: no more silly white gloves on servers. What remains is glorious American Cuisine, including this local love… chicken schnitzel. It’s a lunch item, really, but it’s available from the bar menu at night. You’ll be very glad.

A couple days a week in summer, but at least once a week yearround, Santa Fe sprouts one of the finest, busiest and liveliest farmers markets I’ve visited anywhere. Fact is, it makes most of the farmers markets you find in most American cities (except maybe in San Francisco when Marin, Napa and Sonoma come calling) look and feel pretty lame by comparison.

To make sure customers can’t resist what he grows, Santa Fe celeb-farmer Matt Romero always keeps some vegetables cooking in his pans - which makes total sense, since Matt went from cheffing to farming and doesn’t seem to consider them different jobs. Along with chef-owner Matt Yohalem of Il Piatto (spotted behind, dressed in black), Romero is part of the dynamic duo ”Matt and Matt,” teaching people young and old (and yes, for once in farmers markets) both rich and poor the value of eating fresh, seasonal and local.

If you want to take your farmers market experience to the next level - or at least another step closer to the dirt, where all this good stuff comes from, you need to visit Los Poblanos Historic Inn and Organic Farm. A tour of the growing areas, especially accompanied by the head farmer named Sean Ludden, can offer a dramatic look behind the scenes of how many of today’s chefs are turning the food clock forward by turning it, in a good way, backward.

Before there was a style of rustic Spanish Colonial weaving sold as “Chimayo,” there was a town of that name. And within that otherwise quick-to-pass-through town, there have been eight generations of the Ortega family. The looms here are ancient - or at least ancient in design - but the blankets, coats, purses, pillows and anything else that comes off them are amazing. And if you ask real nice, a member of the Ortega family might even show you how they do it.

Any visit to New Mexico is likely to involve overeating - what else can you say about a state that asks, instead of Hamlet’s time-honored “To be or not to be,” “green or red”? So many dishes, you see, ride on the color of chile pepper you prefer. So when you get to do something not about eating, in fact something involving exercise, you need to grab on with both hands. On rafting trips organized on the Rio Grande by a company called Los Rios, you’ll not only get to ride but to paddle as well.

And finally, since by now you’ve worked up an appetite on the river, here’s one more highlight. In New Mexico, it seems, even places surprisingly fancy offer green chile cheeseburgers - it’s a New Mexico Thing, but after you taste one, you’ll certainly understand. To do the deed right, however, let a local take you past all those gourmet palaces to a statewide fast-food chain called Blake’s Lotaburger. Besides some “nouvelle Route 66″ nostalgia, you can chomp down on a double with extra green chile.

You’ll always remember the moment you bite in, just as you’ll always remember the balloons, the rafts, the farms, the markets, the fancy restaurants, the art and the opera. You’ll be the opposite of “runnin’ on empty,” of course, but it’s a safe bet you’ll be plotting your next trip to New Mexico from the moment you head home to Texas.