Wild West - Free Style entry


Santa Fe is dope and New Mexico is fascinating. Colorado prison towns give me the creeps, but the newly renovated BNB was quite pleasant. As I read Wikipedia about the notorious criminals that had been caught and were located in a high security prison a mere nine miles from my abode, I couldn't help but feel that crime series-type obsessive interest. 

Living with family in Colorado, it was time to give them and myself some space. The Air BNB in Santa Fe was a cute adobe style casita and had the same square footage as my small DC apartment. I had nothing to complain about except the sofa was kind of itchy. I wasn't sure if it was the fabric or critters. I didn't want to leave a bad review because everything else was nice and the hosts were very pleasant, but I should probably message them to check it out. Being paranoid, once I got back, I left all my things in the car for the last two days because I read that bed bugs die in the hot heat created from the car sitting in the sun. I'm not sure if I buy that because I would think then they would not be as much of a problem as they are.

The hiking in Santa Fe was great, I did the same trail every day, but a few different ways. I didn't realize when planning the trip that the elevation was over 7,000 and thus a few thousand more than Denver. My original travel intent was to get to a lower elevation because I was having some trouble sleeping at Denver’s 5,000 feet. A day before my trip my brother's girlfriend's sister asked about my plans and then corrected me on the idea that I might get some better sleep by being at a lower elevation, since Santa Fe was higher. I think figured I was going south, so thus down.

Lack of research and planning was basically the theme of the trip. I feel like trips are so much different now that we have Google Maps and Air BNB type apps. Even with those, I usually plan ahead and do my research as if I could possibly lose internet at any point, but this trip, I let myself be completely relient on tech.

I hadn't planned to stay in prison vally, Colorado, but up arrival to Santa Fe, I decided the trip from Santa Fe to Denver was too far to do again in one day. I found a nice spot in Cañon City. Despite it's location in Colorado's prison-filled county, unless you search for "Canon City + Prison" all you get are nice websites for Cañon City rafting and viewing the Gorge. Gorge is one of my least favorite words - Gorge and Gulch - in my nonexpert opinion, both of these could be replaced with other geological terms like canyon, valley, etc. I don’t really care if those terms aren’t as descriptive, I just don’t want to say the word ‘Gulch’ outloud anymore.

I had originally found a place to stay in a normal ski town that was mid-way, but I mentioned in the initial message to the host that I had my chihuahua puppy with me. The host was not having it and denied the booking request. Something about having a white rug and already using a ton of cleaner. It was kind of ridiculous knowing a muddy boot would cause way more damage to a white carpet than my 2.4 pounds of responsible puppy. Why did you get a white rug for a BNB anyway? She seemed stressed.

So I ended up in Cañon City. It was not super cheap. I think the hosts are upping the cleaning fees, I swear they could buy a month's supply of cleaning products for what they are charging.

I didn't sleep well at my prison town apartment once I started doing my prison research. There was a low security prison on the next block. The host said they had stopped putting a guard in the tower that faced the the town, but then someone escaped, so they started manning that tower again (she also said her kids begged her not to buy in this town - I agree, her taste was far too refined for the area). A few more miles away was a state prison and less than 10 miles was the super max prison housing El Chapo, Ted Kaczynski, and various terrorists. I'm not normally a True Crimes kind of person, I but I did have the urge to drive by this place on my way out of town.

It's not exactly logical that I got the creeps from the fact that these prisoners were close - it's not like there's a high probability the notorious killers are going to escape a supermax prison and knock on my door, but I guess it's the depth of the networks and corruption related to these types that makes it creepy. Maybe Chapo's crew is around these towns and has it out for some corrections officers. Maybe I watched too many seasons of Orange is the New Black and am wary of the whole prison-y culture, even if  workers are just people who need a decent job. Maybe it is just energy and vibes.

The town also just had a shaky history, being run by the KKK in the 1920s, I guess much like the rest of Colorado was, but still. I'm a big believer that an area's history can show the "why" behind current culture. Why do traffic problems never get solved in DC? Because historically, many people who live there are residents for two to four years of government service for which they are serving the interest of there own states, not DC. Maybe that's not the exact same point, but DC has a transient history, so if somewhere has a racist history, I'm a bit skeptical that it's now all family rafting tours and great hiking trails.

Santa Fe, New Mexico on the other hand has a fasinating history for different reasons. It was connected to Mexico City as part of the Spanish empire in the Americas.  The achitecture in historic Santa Fe was mostly of an earthy adobe style. As I ventured around all I could think of was how much better the Spanish must have melded with the Native Americans compared to the US's east coast slaughtering (better being anything but killing everyone). I don't see any architecture of the east inflenced by the native settlement styles. I know the Spanish did horrible things and are guilty of their own radical abuses, but there seems to be a bit more of a history of mixing the cultures than just killing all people who were native and taking over. With a little research, I proved myself right that at least this area had a history of being more collaborative - for example, once New Mexico became a US territory, it was US lawyers that came in and strictly divided the land - even areas that had been communal for grazing cattle or whatever, the land got distributed and others locked out. USG also created the reservations. Being midwest raised, I mostly missed out on learning the history of this region. My US history knowledge only went as far west as the Louisiana Purchase and mostly left me hyper aware of John Smith, Jamestown, and Plymoth Rock.

Anyway, I don't know how wise it is to be traveling during a pandemic, but I will say it was decent for my mental health and I think I had pretty minimal exposure being in my car, at gas stations, hiking, and staying at places that were hopefully well cleaned with some time in between guests. 

Traveling across country is also a very American value. I'd be willing to give it up for the greater good, but I can imagine how others would react if any level of government tried to tell people they couldn't leave their neighborhood block for five days (Melbourne, Australia) or couldn't cross state lines even in private vehicle (Peru). The USA is just so vast every state in this is becoming like it's own country, (sometimes each city). I went from seeing highway signs usually reserved for construction notifications reading "Wear a Mask, Protect New Mexico" to feeling like I was making some kind of political statement if I had my mask on at the gas station (eastern Colorado). This trip and history tour is making the current environment make a lot more sense, being in close proximity to serious criminals was just an accidental bonus.

Popular posts from this blog

Not Optimistic

Image
The following reflects my argument and conclusions at this time, knowing that the internet is forever, I caveat that with additional information or changes, my view may change. I hope it does. I am not optimistic that the US is going to come out of this pandemic with much strength because of the division among the population that has been solidified by a lack of respect for expertise and because disinformation has made its way into mainstream beliefs. As an example of our inability to unify, I believe that if there was another 9/11-like attack we would have two widely different reactions from our divided populus.  Culturally, there is a lack of respect for experts, which has lead to conspiracy theorists being your nextdoor neighbor rather than the guy deep in the woods with a doomsday surplus. Additionally, the various false premises that were initially spread by US adversaries over social media ( government citation , also DoD ) have become rooted as truth in many people's mi...
Read more

Expectations - Boot Style

My friends and I thought that Coast Guard boot camp would be like a militant version of Bay Watch. We would train on the beach, practice valiant ocean rescues, and learn advanced first aid. However, t he only thing Baywatch-like would be our cheap and ultra thin bathing suits that showed every crevice and nipple detail.  As three woman who signed up for this in Ventura, California, we received tons of athletic swag from the recruiter (who took us surfing on base like he had some kind of backstage pass, which he kind of did). It was a tough reality to find out that the Coast Guard was not sponsored by Billabong and pushups were not going to give us a Pam Anderson physique. We were about to have eight weeks of bootcamp nonsense led by three dudes of varying respectability. Of the three company commanders (CC’s) in charge of leading our group, one was mostly respectable, another was half-way decent, and the third was a grown man taking out his Black Sabbath tee shirt and...
Read more

Ok. Youth Chapter.

Overall, I did not apply myself fully to academics and came out just fine. It was confirmed for me that I came out just fine a year ago when I ran into a former high school  classmate in the halls of my DC job. He had taken every advanced placement (AP) class growing up and went to a prestigious university, where I had dropped my only AP course two weeks into freshman year because I didn’t realize people would actually do the summer reading. Here we were with the same job and grade. I get a mild inner chuckle whenever I think about how different our lives were during those teenage years, have fun actually reading the Scarlet Letter?  But good for him, I wouldn’t realize I enjoyed school and learning until my second semester of college, when I would veer in the opposite direction and dedicate myself intensely to each class, in place of socializing like a normal person. It was what happened when I could choose my area of study and start my classes mid-morning.  I eventual...
Read more