Sabbatikos

When I was 17 my friend Ross and I asked our parents if we could take a road trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico in my new (used) mid-80s Subaru Brat for spring break. To our surprise, they said “Yes, but why do you want to go to Albuquerque?”

We, of course, had visions of adventure inspired by Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. But we couldn’t tell our parents that, so we improvised, “We want to go to Sadie’s Mexican Restaurant, it is supposed to be the best!”. The road trip was an epic and formative time of our lives. We did eventually make it to Sadie’s for some damn fine Mexican food, and afterwards we drove to Santa Fe on our way back to Seattle. I remember thinking, “Santa Fe is great. Someday I’ll come back here.”

Fast forward ~35 years and Tawny and I are trying to get tickets for Weyes Blood. We had tickets to see her in 2020 opening for Nick Cave, but the show was cancelled due to Covid-19 and never rescheduled. In 2023, we ended up buying tickets for Weyes Blood in two different venues, one of which was at Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, NM. In March of 2023 we visited Santa Fe for what was an amazing few days with friends exploring the area and attending a great concert in a small, intimate, and unique venue.

Fast forward to Christmas 2023. I’m opening my stocking and inside there are two tickets to see Caroline Rose at Meow Wolf, Santa Fe! Caroline Rose is a favorite artist of my daughter Clara and I, and we’ve always wanted to see her live. It would seem the FOMO of missing out on seeing Weyes Blood with us inspired Clara to get tickets for the two of us. It would be a repeat experience of what I did with friends a year earlier, but the Daddy/Daughter version. I spent the months between December and April anxiously awaiting the opportunity to share Santa Fe with my daughter.

Late April, 2024: we took separate flights (me from Seattle, Clara from LA) and met in Albuquerque where we rented a car and drove the 1-hour to Santa Fe and checked into the La Posada De Santa Fe hotel, dropped off our bags and walked a few blocks into the heart of Santa Fe for an decidedly spicy yet delectable meal at Cafe Pasqual’s where I had eaten my first meal in Santa Fe a year prior.

After dinner I surprised Clara with a trip down a dark staircase to a punk-rock dive bar I had visited a year earlier – The Matador. Located in the basement of an old building only a block or two from Pasqual’s, we had a few beers, checked out the old punk-rock show posters adorning the walls, and watched the “so bad it’s good” heavy-metal horror film Trick or Treat on the bar TV, before heading back to our hotel. It was a fun evening. Tomorrow we’d explore more of Santa Fe.