by John Bear
Daily Lobo
We were just outside of Bernalillo, on the edge of the desert, when I shrugged and began to fake cold.
"It's like 80 degrees out here, dude," my driver said. "Why don't you just shut up and enjoy the ride?"
He had a point, I guess. We had survived the "Road Warrior" driving conditions on I-25 and now rolled gingerly through the time warp of Bernalillo, City of Coronado. This was supposed to have been the big city in New Mexico, but some railroad contractor miscalculated and a small cesspool named Albuquerque got the honor.
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You will pass a store called Jackalope on the way to Jemez. If you stop here, you immediately lose any Albuquerque street cred you may possess. They do kind of have cool stuff, though. It's quirky.
After feeling concern bordering on disgust at all the sprawl, we launched into the desert on our way to San Ysidro. You will pass Zia Pueblo which resembles gold from off in the distance. A historical marker on the side of the road says Coronado once smoked a cigarette or something at this exact spot. Skip it.
Watch out for savage motorcycle gangs - mostly bankers, lawyers, dentists and public relations people - who come barreling up this road out of nowhere. Crazy.
Once we arrived at San Ysidro, we slowed down a great deal. Don't speed here. You will get caught.
We entered what I believe to be one of the two genuinely mystical places in New Mexico: the drive between San Ysidro and Jemez Springs, with Jemez Pueblo lying in between. The landscape is more colorful than a Richard Pryor monologue, the most striking hue being the red cliff faces that suddenly rise up as you approach the Pueblo. Stop and get fry bread.
Then on to the Springs. We stopped, and I sprung for lunch at the fabulous Los Ojos, the sole biker and gunfighter joint in the middle of a decidedly hippie village. Guns and dead animals decorate the walls, and it is the best place to find cowboys doing shots of Stoli - at 11 a.m. We had Jemez burgers with cheese and green chile. The tab came out to less than $30 - a real bargain.
There is plenty of artsy-fartsy stuff to do in Jemez Springs if one feels so inclined, but we were in one of those collectively antisocial moods and opted to take the road straight out of town and head for the hills.
Our first stop was Soda Dam, a rank-smelling but fascinating roadside oddity. It's just a big rock with a small river running through it. Hot spring water gurgles out of the odd crack and that sulfer stench really opens up the sinuses.
Next we went to the hot springs by Battleship Rock, on the same road. We hiked up from the parking lot and immediately got kind of lost. This was particularly embarrassing as I could still see the car and smell the dirty diapers surrounding it. I yelled at my driver who was ultimately responsible for getting us lost.
"You fiend," I said. "What kind of guide are you? I'll tell you what you are. You're a sherpa, a sherpa to nowhere."
He told me where to stick it. Eventually we reached the hot springs and were subsequently disappointed to find around 20 morbidly obese simpletons guzzling electric blue wine coolers and tossing the bottles on the ground. I saw this and my eyes bled. We left.
The Jemez falls are around here somewhere, on the same road. We were sick of hiking by this time and decided to roll back down the mountain. We saw the Stoli cowboys playing golf on the side of the road - only in New Mexico.
On the way back toward Jemez Pueblo, I remembered the tunnels. As you approach the pueblo, turn right on N.M. 485. Be warned it eventually degenerates from a road into a Salvador Dali painting, the double yellow lines melt into one another then disappear completely.
The canyon at the end of this nightmare road is beautiful, if not liberally slathered with graffiti. Please don't write your name on the canyon wall.
We called it a day at this point. If you come up this way, there are hundreds of little nooks and crannies in which to get lost. Please refrain from throwing your dirty underwear on the ground. We found no less than nine pairs. Disgusting. Don't litter. It's bad karma. Other than that, have a good time.
