Hatch, New Mexico is the chile capitol of the world, and I dare you to tell me otherwise. The streets are lined with vendors eager to sell you the chiles with which their town’s name has become synonymous, be they in dried bundles or served in a meal. And nowhere (and I mean nowhere) has green chiles chopped up in more kinds of food than Sparky’s.

There was a line out the door when I arrived, which gave me more time to soak in the atmosphere, but within minutes, one of the owners, Teako, was out to greet the waiting crowds and serve us samples of his barbeque to get our bellies rumbling. And rumble they did. We had worked up a hell of an appetite trekking around White Sands National Monument, and we were ready to throw down whatever food landed within arm’s reach.

When we got inside, we ordered their famous Hatch green chile cheeseburger, a plate of all of their various types of barbeque, sides of pineapple coleslaw and corn with green chiles and onion, and not one but two shakes featuring green chiles: mango and apple pie. Green chile everything. Green chile up to our eyeballs.

AND I LOVED IT. Every bite punched me in the mouth with utter deliciousness, owing to the inclusion of the hatch green chiles, which are packed with flavor rather than being punishingly hot. The burger was juicy fall-apart perfection, the barbeque was tender and flavorful, both sides sung, and the incorporation of green chile spice into the sweet fattiness of a mango or apple pie shake is genius. And they weren’t stingy on the fruit in the shakes, either–I fished out entire wedges of soft cinnamon apples and huge chunks of mango, making it definitely a spoon-y dessert rather than a thin shake drunk with a straw. My only criticism is that I wish the shakes were sold in smaller sizes because as delicious as they are, it just ends up being a lot of richness to stomach and it felt like we barely put a dent into either of them before throwing them away, which is more wasteful than I like to be.

That’s right. My one complaint is about getting too much shake. I’ve become everything I always hated.

But it’s not just Sparky’s that has a flair for fiberglass–the RV place down the street has a restored Muffler Man holding a teeny tiny RV, and even the drive through wasn’t complete without a roaring T-Rex up top. Hatch, I am charmed. Should I find myself in that neck of the woods again, I will definitely be back. Get my armada of mini shakes ready.

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Well, more like half a day. It was my birthday and I wanted to spend it in Santa Fe, eating delicious food and window shopping. My first stop was at Meow Wolf–I wouldn’t have had time to tackle The House of Eternal Return again, though I’ve heard there have been some changes since my last visit. There’s too much to see and it’s too well done to half-ass it. That, and I think every schoolkid in New Mexico was there that day which made it another hard pass, but I definitely wanted to browse through the gift shop as they have all kinds of neat stuff made by their artists. I ended up picking up a pair of earrings and Jason brought home a smaller plush replica of their space owl and after that, the shrieking reverberating around the lobby grew to be too much and we both beat a retreat back to the parking lot.

Our next stop was the Jackalope Mercado, a most excellent garden center/home decor/little bit of everything place. If we’d road tripped it to Santa Fe, I would have had a difficult time not packing the trunk full of pottery and mirrors and all the other stuff that would never fit in a carry-on/ would never survive being thrown onto and off of a plane. So we mostly browsed around, checking out their wares and their chubby, deeply suspicious prairie dogs. Because, yes, in addition to all that other stuff, they also have a few prairie dogs burrowing around, doing their prairie dog business. I also saw a kind of insect I’d never seen before, the hummingbird moth. They’re really neat and supposedly they summer all around the US, so maybe I’ll get lucky and attract some to my garden when my hummingbird/butterfly attracting flowers start blooming.

Post Jackalope, we checked into our hotel and started wandering around town, window shopping, checking out galleries, and occasionally getting pulled off the street into jewelry shops where we got to practice our best “That ring is only $17,000? What a bargain, I’m considering buying three” faces. Jason is better at it than me, I caught a glimpse at my reflection and what my eyebrows were doing could best be described as “confused and constipated” so I don’t think I fooled anyone. It’s especially hard to feign that kind of casual buying interest when the jewelry in question looks like it was rejected from Baublebar for being too ostentatious.

For dinner, I found myself back at The Shed, because while I COULD have tried something new, I wanted something that I knew would be out of this world delicious. This time, I got to sit out on the patio and enjoy my green and red chile smothered steak and enchiladas out in the sunshine. It was everything I’d been dreaming about the entire dreary winter and by itself made the entire trip worthwhile. Jason was also well pleased with his newborn size christmas-style burrito–all of these dinner photos? He took ’em. I was too busy chowing down.

After dinner, we had hit that 6pm magic hour where all the shops in Santa Fe simultaneously close, so we walked over to the Jean Cocteau Cinema. I’d checked their schedule the week before and had seen a magic show on the docket that looked interesting–I hadn’t wanted to plan the day around it so I didn’t prepurchase tickets, but I kept my fingers crossed that two would be available the day of. When we arrived, they had a few “showing now” posters up, but none were for a magic act. Confused, I inquired of the ticket seller what was playing that evening, and there was indeed a magic show and they did, in fact, have tickets.

Photo by Robin Dawes

The magician in question was Francis Menotti, a veteran performer so skilled at his trade that he is one of the rare few to have fooled Penn & Teller. His show was delightful in every sense of the word–he was funny, and kind, and really engaged the entire audience in a way that would have been vastly more difficult in a larger venue, but I would absolutely go see him again, regardless of the venue. In the rain, on a train, whatever.  I don’t go to see magic shows often, but Francis’ show made me deeply glad that I had. I only wish there had been some more butts crammed in the seats for him–I know it’s easy to be a backseat business owner when I have zero skin in the game, but it still seems like even a couple of bucks’ worth of posters would at least let people passing by the cinema know what’s going on inside.

I wrapped up the day by grabbing a drink at the hotel bar, Secreto, and taking it out to the candlelit patio to read and savor the evening. I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday, and there was still plenty of road trip time around New Mexico to come.

Save

Save