Illustration by Chris Philpot.
Ramblin’ Railroad Blues
Ann Barnett wanted to escape Staunton, Virginia, to take a ride on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, so she went hunting for a Chama vacation rental on the Vacasa website. “Every choice that appeared was in Mexico,” she says. “So I tried to search for a place in Albuquerque, because Chama is a small town and I wanted to give Vacasa a pass on that.” No luck. Every “Albuquerque” rental was south of the border, too. “Maybe,” Barnett speculates, “they think the Cumbres & Toltec line has been waayyy extended?”
Amo Nuevo México
They live in Georgia, but Diana West says her husband loves New Mexico so much that she went to a shop to have an “I Love New Mexico” T-shirt made for him. “You’ll need to write out what you want, because I don’t know how to translate that into Spanish,” the clerk said. “I tried to tell her that New Mexico was one of the 50 states and that I did not speak Spanish either, that I wanted it written in English, but at that point I gave up.”
Even We Get It Wrong
Kathleen Gabhart lives in Tucson and subscribes to a number of other states’ magazines, including ours. When she received our January/February issue, she noticed an in-house ad that asked readers to go online and complete a reader survey to be eligible for prizes. She hopped right on it. When she went to pick her state from a drop-down menu, she happened to notice that New Mexico was missing. After choosing Arizona, she cheekily pointed out in an email that it’s “that state between New Mexico and California where all the saguaros grow!” (Yeah, we fixed it.)
HAVE A “MISSING” MOMENT?
Send it to fifty@nmmagazine.com, or Fifty, New Mexico Magazine, 495 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87501. Include your name, hometown, and state. ¡Gracias!