Sloan: Many surprises at Enchanted Circle

With some Texans and my foster dog, Chance, I recently visited New Mexico’s Enchanted Circle of Taos, Questa, Red River, Eagle Nest and Angel Fire.

At the Taos Pueblo, where multi-storied adobe buildings date back 1,000 years, an angry yellowjacket attacked my Cowboys shirt.

Wendel Sloan

On Taos’ hilly streets, we ran across a violence-awareness craft fair with so many large tents I hallucinated clowns, elephants and mustached ladies riding unicycles. While the fair inspired me to give peace a chance, Chance cared only about thoughtful shopkeepers’ water bowls.

Three nights in Red River proved the “small world” adage.

While Chance and I hiked an isolated trail under chairlifts — where I later clicked a feet-selfie from 10,000 feet — I encountered Texico basketball coach Richard Luscombe. I didn’t recognize him in fishing gear, but I guess I haven’t matured much since the ’80s because he recognized me immediately.

That night around a river-side motel campfire, an Oklahoma woman turned out to be a cousin of Portales’ Dean Overton.

Her husband met her while visiting her younger brother. “She came out of a room naked and I thought, ‘That ain’t too bad,’” he twinkled.

An accountant from Oklahoma told me all newspapers are owned by Communists. (I need to ask my editor about revenue sharing.)

He also claimed gay people had been turned that way by childhood rejections.

While tactfully demurring, I felt empathy about his Stage 4 prostate cancer.

We also rode go-carts in Red River, where my confusion with bumper-carts elicited a stern warning.

On the way back, after leaving The Range Café in Bernalillo, we encountered a 70ish homeless woman who seemed enamored of Chance.

She waved us over, then asked for a cigarette. After I told her I didn’t smoke, she yelled, “Leave me the #$%& alone!” I offered to ask Chance if he had any, but she was not mollified.

My final day, during a tournament at the Santa Ana Golf Club, I putted from 115 yards off the green. Unfortunately, I used too much club and the ball slid 4 inches past the cup.

Contact Wendel Sloan at [email protected]