Return To Joshua Tree

Recently, we made our annual trip to Joshua Tree and Palm Springs. We stayed at Green Acres as usual, but this time we got to check out the second amazing cabin on the property. The best part was

Southwestern Escape: Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, New Mexico

If you drive about an hour and a half Northwest of Santa Fe, you'll find yourself in a little town called Abiquiu, New Mexico. In Abiquiu you’ll find Ghost Ranch, and at Ghost Ranch, there’s a lot to find. Most well-known as the place where Georgia O'Keeffe lived and worked for much of her life, it’s still a functioning ranch and retreat center, and an incredibly unique place to see.

The landscape alone is enough reason to visit, with its painter’s palette of colors, sweeping views, Southwestern mesas, geologic formations, winding rivers and famous light. But there’s also the idiosyncratic history of O’Keeffe’s life there, her adobe house (the inside of which we know is incredibly chic, but which is not open, or not regularly open to the public - yet) and some pretty impressive paleonotological finds, like the discovery of some of the oldest fossils in North America.

On the way we stopped at Bode’s, a gas station and general store with excellent sandwiches, in Abiquiu.

On our visit, we took the Georgia O’Keeffe trail ride which takes you on horseback through the landscape surrounding her adobe house.

The colors, shapes, sky and plants of the landscape were so beautiful it felt like being in an almost surreal dream, or maybe like being in heaven. In a way, O'Keeffe thought so too. Of the nearby mountain mesa Pedernal, she said that God told her if she painted it enough, she could have it.

We were led by two guides who seemed like hip city folks who packed it in to move out West. Really who better to steward the next generation’s love of Georgia O’Keeffe's landscape than tattoed perhaps former art majors who loves horses and sometime Brooklynites who now only wear Western denim?

I hadn’t ridden a horse since I was little, and I was nervous. My horse, Pancho, was a little cagey. He champed at the bit and was prone to unauthorized snacking on the surrounding plant life, but once we got on our way we began to understand each other, and I loved every minute of the trail ride. It was made even more perfect by all the facts and stories our guides laid on us. They were the kind of yarns I imagined you’d hear from real cowboys on a trail ride. Here are a couple of the best stories:

Gerald's tree: A poet friend of Georgia O’Keeffe's used to come visit her at Ghost Ranch. He studied meditation in the Far East and would walk around a dead juniper in circles until he achieved a meditative state. Then, he would write a poem in the circle of sand. One day O’Keeffe noticed the circles around the tree and a poem he had written in the sand. She painted the tree and called it Gerald's tree.

El Rancho de los Brujos: People thought the area now known as Ghost Ranch was haunted (hence its old name, El Rancho de los Brujos). So some cattle-rustling brothers, Nacho and Matteo Archuleta, took up residence there hiding their stolen cattle in the Box Canyon. They were also stagecoach robbers, and one day, Matteo hid some gold by burying it. Nacho immediately sussed it out, and when Matteo wouldn't share the money, Nacho shot him. Nacho also knew that Matteo's wife knew where the gold was. He told her she had until the morning to tell him where it was, and figured she'd never run away across the haunted Rancho de los Brujos. But Nacho was wrong. She did run, and she made it back to her home in San Juan Pueblo. She spilled the beans on the whole operation, and men from the town raised up a posse and went back to Ghost Ranch where they hanged the whole cattle rustling gang from the tree right in front of the Ghost House, which they still call the hanging tree.

Southwestern Escape: Santa Fe

We spent the recent long weekend on a whirlwind Southwestern escape to New Mexico. In just four days, we aimed to take in all we could in Santa Fe, at nearby Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu and on a mini-road trip to Taos. At every turn, there was something to be inspired by: regional New Mexican food, art from contemporary to traditional, amazing Southwestern vintage (more cowboy boots than you can shake a stick at), tons of museums, breathtaking landscapes and the very special high desert, high altitude sky that changed the mood of the day from hour to hour. They don't call it the land of enchantment for nothing, and I came away with a ton of recommendations. Here I'm starting with a mini guide to Santa Fe — stay tuned for the next installments on horseback riding through Georgia O'Keeffe's Ghost Ranch landscape and staying in an earthship in Taos.

Eat

Modern General

We stopped by this cute spot twice while in Santa Fe. As advertised, it's a modern take on a general store and they carry home and garden wares like ceramics, biodynamic seeds and a curated selection of books. There's also an airy open cafe in the back which was the perfect place for a light, tasty breakfast of kale and pineapple smoothies, coffee, granola and kolaches that were enough to charge you up for the day while leaving room for New Mexican comfort food for lunch and dinner.

La Choza 
Sister restaurant of the popular Plaza tourist spot The Shed, La Choza (a 5 minute drive over to the Railyard area) was much less crowded with a much shorter wait. Probably the best New Mexican meal we had on our trip, they offered a vegetarian version of their satisfyingly spicy pozole and blue corn enchiladas with equally hot green or red chile. 

Santacafé

When I heard this spot was a favorite of Tom Ford's, it was clear we needed to go. It opens later for weekend brunch, so show up right at 11:15 to get seated right away and avoid the crowds at every other brunch spot in Santa Fe. We sat in the pretty outdoor courtyard long enough to try their signature calamari with 4 chile lime dipping sauce (delicious) before clouds rolled in and we took refuge at a table under the eaves. Our other dishes — poached eggs on a brioche-like house-made english muffin with avocado mousse and perfectly pan-seared scottish salmon with baby bok choy — were delightful too. Be sure to take a trip inside where you can walk over the building's dizzyingly cool original well.

Cowgirl
This downhome spot known for BBQ was right around the corner from our Airbnb, so we decided we'd check it out even though we don't eat meat. Luckily they had a great vegetarian red chile quesadilla, and we also tried their crazy, unique ice cream baked potato dessert.

Shop

Shiprock Santa Fe

An incredible space on the second floor of a building on the corner of the historic Plaza, Shiprock carries a stunning collection of museum-quality, Southwestern vintage pieces — think squash blossom necklaces, traditional pottery, and an entire light-filled room of Native American textiles dating from the 1800s to the 1970s— along with mid-century modern furniture, contemporary art and new items from the Americana-inspired Japanese brand Visvim. It's so beautifully curated and the staff were so friendly (refreshing in a rarefied gallery setting), I can't recommend visiting enough.

Double Take Vintage

We stopped in at Double Take on our first day when we only had about 15 minutes before we had to take off for Ghost Ranch, and so I actually had to do a double take at Double Take. It's huge, with room after room upstairs and a thrift store next door, but the heart of their selection is right there on the ground floor as you walk in. You'll definitely want more that 15 minutes to go through their collection of turquoise jewelry, embroidered western shirts, cowboy boots, concho belts, woven ponchos and more.

Kowboyz

Boots, boots, boots! This is the place if you're looking for a vintage pair of cowboy or cowgirl kickers. They also have men's and women's vintage clothing, hats and accessories.

See

Museum of International Folk Art

This unique museum houses the vast vision and collection of Alexander Girard. An architect and designer who worked for clients like Herman Miller, he was also an obsessive collector of folk art. The exhibition is laid out in a really interesting way that visually communicates the similarities of folk art throughout the world by juxtaposing pieces from different countries and minimizing textual explanation.

It's a lively, colorful riot of chockablock dioramas depicting entire Mexican towns, masks, textiles, woven birdcages, grave decorations from Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris and so much more. Another exhibit revealed the history of natural red dye cochineal. It traced its rise as a highly prized commodity on the level of silver, and the ways in which it traveled from the old world to the new and back again, influencing the fashion across the globe along the way.

Stay

We stayed in a cozy casita with a spiral staircase and rooftop terrace close to the Railyard/Guadalupe district. The neighborhood was made up of traditional adobe buildings, and was beautifully green and leafy. A half mile from the Plaza and a short walk to spots like Cowgirl and Kowboyz on Guadalupe St., it was close enough to everything to serve as the perfect jumping off point, yet felt far enough away to feel secluded from the crowds.

Big Sur

2015. 33. To ring it all in, we took a trip to Big Sur, a place so close and so beautiful I can't believe I'd never really been. The weekend was unseasonably, freakishly warm, and the drive down was a bit like a dream. 80 degrees, sunshine, the glinting Pacific, and whales. Tons of them migrating. You could see spouts everywhere. At one point we pulled off at a roadside vista where we stood with an older couple with binoculars and an aging hippie fixing his moldering VW. We watched whales pass by, announcing them to each other, and saw dolphins playing in the surf while we listened to sea lions bellowing below.

We stayed at Deetjen's, a very cool old collection of wooden cottages from the 1930s originally built by Helmuth Deetjen after the style of buildings in his native Norway. Inspired by the room they offer with a record player (it wasn't available), we brought our own along with a tote full of vinyl. The restaurant was just as charming as the rest of the place, and we had an evening drink at the bar as well as a great breakfast in the indoor garden-like dining room.

We spent our nights at Nepenthe, which is like heaven. It's hard to imagine a prettier place. Our fears that Big Sur in January might mean freezing wind and rain seemed laughable on warm nights drinking rose and watching the sun set into the ocean. I liked to snag a seat at the back deck for sunset and spend the rest of the time at the long wooden table overlooking the southern coastline.

Instead of the ambitious hike we'd planned on Saturday we did the short walk to McWay Falls and part way up the Canyon trail on the other side of the highway. There we found another waterfall, a stream, and plenty of beautiful wooded spots with rays of sunshine beaming through the forest.

Other must-dos were Big Sur Bakery in the morning for pastries, coffee and people watching (we also had a great, cozy dinner there) and the Henry Miller Memorial Library. Apparently they've stopped doing shows there for the time being, but you can stop in to browse and buy a curated selection of books and records, and wander around the quaint grounds of what was once the house of the author's best friend.

We found so many places I can see becoming favorites. I already can't wait to get back and do it all over again and explore what more Big Sur has to offer. Next time: bring binoculars for whale watching and call Esalen at 9am sharp to get a night bathing reservation. More pics over on Instagram.

Joshua Tree

For the third time in as many years, we drove to Joshua Tree for a much-needed high desert getaway. We stayed at the same cabin as we did last year, a special spot rife with weird, wonderful, decorative details the owners have put into the place. It was originally a chicken and turkey ranch until it became a full-on hippie commune in the late 60s and early 70s. According to Green Acres’ owners, Gram Parsons (whose specter and Cosmic American music still casts a near-spiritual vibe over J Tree) and Keith Richards spent time hanging out at the ranch. A fact like this is impossible for me to ignore and imbues the place with even more mystique than that provided by the otherworldly landscape and sound baths at the Integratron. This year I read Keith Richards’ autobiography Life as a companion piece to last year’s Gram Parsons biography Twenty Thousand Roads.

I wore my new Flax by Jean Englehart dress, we ate seitan sandwiches at our favorite restaurant in town, Crossroads Cafe, and I stopped by the new and more visible location of bkbceramics where I picked up a small ceramic dish and a post card by High Desert Test Sites. A non-profit organization with an inspiring mission to enact temporary, intellectually rigorous and culturally relevant conceptual art in the high desert, HDTS seems to embody the draw of this place and to gather the people drawn by it.

During the day we passed red barrel cacti on a hike to the beautiful and serene 49 Palms Oasis before heading over to Pappy & Harriet’s and spending the afternoon traveling down dusty unpaved roads in search of the real estate listings I stalk year-round. At night, we shut off all the lights, stretched out on outdoor lounge chairs and hunkered down under Mexican blankets and in my case, a newly acquired vintage Levi’s shearling jacket, to stargaze. It’s easy to forget what darkness looks like living in a city — a fact thrown further into relief when we got back and I listened to an interview with the author of The End of Night, a book which explores how little darkness is left on Earth and the impact it has on its inhabitants. We saw some of the biggest, brightest shooting stars we’d ever seen.

On the way to our second stop in Palm Springs, we drove through Joshua Tree National Park stopping at Cap Rock and Cholla Cactus Garden and watching the high Mojave desert turn into the low Colorado.