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Sunday, May 21, 2023
"On
the Atchison, Topeka and the SANTA FE"
Albuquerque to Santa Fe and back
Lindsay is up bright and early to do laundry at the nearby Wash Tub Laundromat.
I'm finished before 9am, so sneak into McDonald's for a light breakfast. Today
is a catch up / rest up day with nothing planned, so we decide to roll up I-25
to do a little tourist-ing in Santa Fe. Mark has never been there before, but
Baolu and I visited there many years back.
Meep! Meep! Southbound in the center of the freeway comes a 3 car
Rail
Runner Express train. The locomotive is an MPI MP36PH-3C pulling 3 bilevel
coaches from Bombardier.
It being Sunday, parking was free and Mark found us a dandy spot close to the
center of town. We started off in the Plaza Santa Fe looking at trinkets and
baubles. Mostly white folks selling mostly made-in-China things. Then, I got
Mark across the street where all the natives sell their hand-made stuff. I met
this very nice Navajo couple - she does the marketing and he is the artist
producing everything they sell. Thus, Baolu scored a beautiful carved Navajo
silver bracelet with gold accents and quite a back story on what all the symbols
mean!
Across from the plaza was the famous
La Fonda (did Henry sleep here?) hotel. In the center of the park is
the end of the Santa Fe
Trail along with this fellow dancing for dollars. We both slipped him a few
shekels.
I believe this cafe (2nd story) on the plaza, is where Baolu and I ate lunch on
our previous visit; Another neat old, Adobe building -- It's the
New Mexico Museum of Art, just off
the plaza.
After a uh... rather unappetizing lunch at the local Subway, we headed back to
our hotel, dodging another yuge rainstorm.
Only, we couldn't get back in our rooms. Neither of our keys worked. The office
was locked and the sign said, "Back at 3pm". It was now 2:30pm. Further reading
revealed a phone number which upon dialing, quickly disconnected the caller as
"the mailbox is full". Still more reading stated we could get assistance next
door.
OK, I'm game. The note had said something about the Monterey's manager was over
at their sister property, El Vado, which I quickly morphed into "El Vapo". Next
door we trudged, finally finding the extremely small check-in desk hard up
against an extremely noisy bar. It was difficult to hear or think clearly. Of
course, no one was at reception.
Like a scene from The Hotel
Inspectors - Fawlty Towers, we took turns banging on the bell at reception.
Finally, the extremely agitated bartender came stomping up and asked what it is
we wanted.
We explained we were locked out of our rooms at Monterey and were basically told
to get lost: "The manager's busy right now and there's nothing I can do for
you", he thundered. So we left.
With nothing better to do, we stood/sat under the Monterey outdoor lobby,
dodging raindrops and getting progressively pissed off as time went by. Finally,
after 45 minutes, the trainee girl from yesterday who checked us in, came by.
True to form, "there was nothing she do for us", but said she'd contact the
manager.
15 minutes later, here comes Mr. Manager. Mark just lit into him. How he managed
NOT to use profanity was remarkable, but he got his point across that this was
no way to run a business and he was mad as hell. I haven't seen my brother so
angry since I got dirt on his new AMC Gremlin X floor mats (old family story).
Finally, we got this guy to make our keys work again and retired to our rooms.
Dinner tonight? Applebee's for the win!
Epilogue: The manager wound up comping us for BOTH nights of
our stay! At least, I don't see it on my Visa statement.
 
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