For some reason—that may never be completely explained—I have a friend who believes that New Mexico is a place of alien abductions.
All I know are my own New Mexico accounts.
My boyfriend and I drove from AZ to CO. We were exhausted driving in a crazy-relentless night storm through a New Mexico reservation and needed to stop for the night. After turning the wrong way off the highway in a giant moving truck with Stella attached to the back on a flat bed trailer, we got stuck in the mud—and were promptly rescued.
Stella
We were completely, and what seemed like irreversibly, stuck in a mud lake that sucked the tires in like quicksand. I don’t know if you’ve ever had to back up a flat bed truck attached to a moving truck. It’s not easy. I was standing in the rain out by the the attached trailer trying to direct my boyfriend while he was backin’ that thang up, and then we switched with him trying to direct me. We were both soaked, tired from driving, and I might add, fairly irritable at that point.
In my mind I remember thinking, “If there are any angels around here, showing up now would be a miracle.”
Not 5 minutes passed and a weird thing happened. Out of nowhere a reservation popo rolled up. He jumped out and into our moving truck, backed it up and out of the mud perfectly and left the scene faster than we could figure out what had just happened. We were on our way fairly quickly after that. I don’t know if it was an alien or angel, but it was in New Mexico.
While on a road trip a year later, and over our initial upset in the rain, my boyfriend and I visited Johnny’s Kitchen, a seriously tasty New Mexican restaurant.
Apparently Johnny was sitting at the front of the restaurant when we walked in, though we had no idea yet. Sinead was blaring “Nothing compares to you” in the kitchen and old Mexican guitar music in the dining area. When we walked in they turned Sinead down.
As we ate, we noticed that the men who entered all shook “Johnny’s” hand before sitting down at close-by tables. One of them got up and introduced himself to a nearby cowboy eating alone. We had the non-local vibe, I guess, and no one even looked at us.
They all talked quietly amongst themselves in their group. Johnny and another man sat reading the paper looking like they hung out there all day long conducting business. What do you call Hispanic cowboy mafia? It was like watching the Sopranos during the day at Bada Bing! Definitely a family place.
Moving on, the food was genuine New Mexican yum (and I’m not just saying that because I’m being threatened). Deep fried corn tortillas for my shredded beef taco and cheese enchilada. The enchilada sauce was amazing. I would go back, perhaps out of my way even.
Johnny got up and walked us out when we were leaving. He had a little smile on his face and in a low voice said, “Come back, now.” I’ve always wondered if they were waiting for us to leave to get some business out of the way… or if they just kept reading the paper.
