My Secret Place - May 2009

By Jenna Naranjo, as told to Devon Jackson

My dad’s from the Santa Clara Pueblo. I grew up in Española, but I went to high school in Pojoaque. So my secret place is on our reservation. It’s not on the main reservation but in the mountains, on Indian land. It’s in the Santa Clara Canyon. My dad has a plot of land up there, and I’ve been going there since I was a baby. My parents actually got married there.

It has so many childhood memories for me, especially in the summer when the air is so much cooler. There are a lot of pine trees. Every now and then we’d spot a bear.

I caught my first fish up there, too. I had a Tony the Tiger fishing rod that I’d sent away for. We’d camp out up there, we’d have family picnics. After the Cerro Grande fire [in May 2000], though, that area was affected pretty badly.

I remember going up there to do a story on the damage, and to see it in such a different state was really sad. That was probably the last time I’d been up there.

It’s also been closed to the public since then. I think now only tribal members can go in. Even though I haven’t been there physically in about five years, I like to think of it and fantasize [about] going back. I have a picture of me and my little sister Bryn when we were four and two years old—we’re laughing hysterically.

It’s almost like you’re living inside a postcard up there. The air is so clean. The sky is three shades brighter. There’s this fresh, sunny smell. There’s water nearby. The roads are really windy and all dirt. Sometimes you pass a cow or a deer. Now that I’ve left New Mexico, I realize how special that was, having that place that’s only 30 minutes away from where I grew up, from our house.

The other places I like to go to when I go back are all pretty obvious, and they all have to do with food. I work with criminals all the time for my job at America’s Most Wanted. Sometimes, what these guys on death row ask for as their last meal can be pretty sad, like a Double Whopper and a milkshake. If I were in that situation, I’d want my last meal to be from The Shed [in Santa Fe]: anything off the menu from The Shed. And a margarita.

Jenna Naranjo is a producer for America’s Most Wanted.