by Matthew Jaffe, Sunset senior writer
For a week during our trip to New Mexico, my wife Becky and I and just about everyone else in the state, awaited the arrival of the summer monsoons.
Each day the skies would threaten, as massive anvil-shaped clouds formed over the mountains. Walk into restaurants or shops, and invariably we would be asked:
“Get wet yet?”
And the answer was always no: couple drops on the windshield, maybe. Not even enough to quench a scorpion's thirst.
(At this point, especially for anyone who lives outside the Southwest, it may be important to first explain that yes, New Mexico does get monsoons, and to further explain what they are. Which we will leave to the good folks at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):
“A monsoon is generally defined as a seasonal variation of wind, cloud cover and precipitation that is controlled by the annual cycle of the sun. In climates that are strongly influenced by monsoons, most of the annual precipitation is received during the monsoon season.
Portions of the southwest United States, including New Mexico, are influenced by the North American Monsoon System (NAMS), which is also referred to as the Southwest Monsoon. Many locations in New Mexico receive 40 to 50 percent of the annual precipitation during the period from July 1 through August 31…”
Or as I understand it, moist air flows in from Mexico, gets lifted 50,000 feet or so into the sky by hot air rising off the desert and mountains, and forms those big clouds, which eventually can’t hold all the moisture.)
Walking around Santa Fe last Monday, which was June 30 and hence, climatologically speaking, Monsoon Eve, the day hardly looked promising for rain. But by early afternoon, while we were checking out one of the contemporary art installations in Lucky Number Seven, the Site Santa Fe's 2008 biennial (that rope-like adornment on the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum is among the works), the skies began to look more ominous.
The light was beautiful: bright on the ground here in the courtyard behind the museum, deepening purple above the mountains.
Which is where we were staying, roughly at 8,000 feet. at the spa resort, Ten Thousand Waves. Becky and I had visited Ten Thousand Waves a few winters ago and savored a 104 degree soak among the pinon pines and juniper in the middle of a snowstorm. We reminisced about how beautiful that day had been and how we needed to come back again in winter.
No need. Instead winter, or at least a summer semblance of it, came to us. The rains began as we drove the road up into the Sangre de Cristos and by the time we reached our room, it started to hail. And hail. And hail some more.
We were now essentially somewhere inside the clouds that we had seen from town. Soon the ground was white, covered by a half inch or so of hail. Muddy cascades ran down the steps to our room and we later found a half-frozen snake buried in the ice.
That snake’s timing could have been better but with the monsoons right on schedule and the spa’s New Ofuro tub already reserved, ours was perfect. A soak, a sauna, and then treatments: Becky went for a massage while I opted for a facial that included a traditional geisha cleansing masque made from processed nightingale droppings. I am not only enlightened but now aglow.
By the time we returned to the room, the storm had passed, the snake had thawed out, and it was cool enough to light a fire. We listened to the burning logs crackle in rhythm with the steady drip of melting hail.
