I’ve been in and around Santa Fe for 22 years. Over that time I’ve learned that my beloved northern New Mexico hideaway is a town, a city, and a place that really wants to be known. It’s not closed off, with dark, hidden pockets. It’s open, welcoming, and accessible. I’ve prided myself on how intimate I’ve become with the place, how connected with it I feel. So how did a simple excursion train upend all that? Can everyday events like a train ride cause you to shift your perspective?
The recently restored depot at The Railyard
I know Santa Fe like few do. I know every inch of the road bike climb up Hyde Park Road to the ski area. I know the incline of just about every hill in town. I know the views from Sun mountain, from Picacho Peak, and from Atalaya. I know how annoyingly difficult it is to get out of that stupid parking lot across from El Farol on Canyon Road. I know exactly where the crucifix is at the top of Tesuque Peak, what a non-event it is to realize you’ve summited Penitente peak (total buzzkill), and where the big blob of snowboarders will be as you slide off the triple chair at Ski Santa Fe.
On any given day when I drive into downtown, I know how crowded it will be and what the vibe on the Plaza will feel like. I know the city on foot, from a car, from a pair of skis, a set of snowshoes, and from a bike. But there was one way I didn’t know the place.
The passenger cars waiting in the depot
A few days ago, Heather and I experienced Sky Railway’s New Mexico Wine Train. It was loads of fun. A project of George RR Martin, Sky Railway has been running since 2020, but we hadn’t yet hopped the train. And as the cars pulled out of The Santa Fe Railyard rolling south, elevated only by the tracks’ sitting seven or six or seven above grade, the city looked a little strange. Familiar intersections looked odd and the rail trail entirely different. The landscape unfolded from funky angles I’d never seen on foot, from a bike, or from a car. A little weird.
We rumbled south with the Santa Fe foothills on the left (looking unfamiliar and unknown) drinking New Mexico wine. As you roll toward the destination of the Galisteo basin, you first follow the modern tracks that Sky shares with the New Mexico RailRunner (the commuter train that runs between Santa Fe and Albuquerque). Then the ride becomes bumpier as you roll onto the old Santa Fe Southern tracks, laid down in 1883 or so.
One of many unfamiliar views of the Santa Fe foothills
We stepped out on to the flat car to take in the views and the cool air. I looked over toward the Jemez mountains, all of which are remnant of a giant dormant volcano. There too, toward the west, were unfamiliar angles and views. After all the traipsing around Santa Fe I’d done over two decades, I realized I actually don’t know the place like I thought I did. And this was all by virtue of the fact that my eyeballs were just six or seven feet higher and perhaps 30 feet away from their usual points of perspective.
Is it so with everyday life? Are the things you thought you knew that way, but also a bit different?
In every situation and place, with people you’ve known for decades on end, with relationships that feel well trodden, there will always be another perspective, a raised vantage point, one which you have always missed because your view was blocked.
Is your view blocked? What are you missing?
Kenneth Koch hits on a similar idea in my favorite poem, One Train May Hide Another.
A 360-degree-ish video view from the flatcar
Heather taking a picture of…some really cool dirt?
On the 1880-vintage Santa Fe Southern tracks
For more astoundingly valuable life lessons, visit More Life Lessons from The Company Dog.
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