A couple of Fridays ago, I saw a side of Santa Fe I’d never seen up close. I had dropped off my car for repairs, and the dealership didn’t have rentals available. I walked five minutes in the 92-degree heat to the car-rental business next door.
Again, no luck. That was a problem, as I had an important mission that night: taking photographs at KMRD in Madrid. I’d enjoyed writing a story about the station’s history and volunteer DJs (“To air is human,” June 14), but we needed images.
Large, detailed photos are the coin of the realm in Pasatiempo ; without them, a story isn’t going to get much attention. So I walked along Cerrillos Road in the heat, calling one car-rental business after another. Finally, I walked into an establishment that had one last vehicle available.
I made it to Madrid while flipping through the rental car’s satellite radio, wondering why so many stations were playing The Eagles. That terrible band does not exactly give me a peaceful, easy feeling. The same can be said for walking along Cerrillos Road.
You already know that the arterial lacks aesthetics, but I learned the hard way that the constant roar of traffic obliterates one’s sense of well-being. The average non-commercial vehicle weighs about 4,000 pounds, and I saw probably 800 cars during my sweaty trek. That’s 3.
2 million pounds of noisy, fast-moving metal. I actually recommend that others make the same walk, if only for three blocks. It’s a valuable reminder of what some San.
