Santa Fe

Ruins at Bandolier National Park

We left home about 8 AM on Wednesday heading for Santa fe.
In Salida we stopped at a Mexican restaurant and had a great
lunch including the best sopapias I have ever had.

The afternoon went quickly and we were soon in Santa Fe at
the Santa Fe Motel and Inn. We checked two rooms, a regular
room and a Casita. The Casita was $10/day more, but it is
very private. We have our own walled patio. The casita
also has a frig and microwave. It is very quiet and cozy.
We love it.

I made us some snacks for supper. We were ready to put
our feet up for the night.

On Thursday we discovered that breakfast at our motel was
pretty spectacular. The makings for breakfast burritos were
supplied; eggs, beans, green chili, tortillas and cheese.
We made ourselves burritos and helped ourselves to fresh
fruit which was available in abundance. In addition, coffee
of course and very good coffee and a variety of juices. If
you wanted cold cereal that was available and so was oatmeal
with a variety of toppings to go on it, including real maple
syrup. We all sat at one table and our neighbors were from
the Netherlands and touring the US in a rented RV. Because
the RV park in Santa Fe is south of town and because they
didn't want to have the hassle of driving the RV around
Santa Fe they had decided to stop at the Santa Fe Motel.
They are in the country for 2 1/2 months and have been here
about a month. It was fun talking with them and they spoke
excellent American. They announced how happy they were that
we had Obama for President. We agreed on that, for sure.

After breakfast we headed to the O'Keefe museum. On the way
we stopped in a Peruvian shop, just to look. They had many
lovely hand made wool clothes. I spotted a felt hat in gray
with ribbing of black. It was quite attractive and looked
good on me we both agreed. I glanced at the price and was
happy to discover it was only $25.00. In the meantime
Robert was looking at wool cardigans. I've looked on-line
and locally trying to find him one (we did find one at
Saveurs, but it isn't very nice and I have yet to see him
wear it). Wool cardigans seem to all have zippers and
Robert wanted one with buttons. They had stacks of them,
but few in his size. The weird things was the prices
varied. They all looked alike to us, but some were 145.00,
some were $85.00 and some were $59.00. In addition they all
were reduced another 30%. Robert found one for $59, less
discount which ended up with tax at $44.00. It is
beautiful. I went to pay for our purchases and the clerk
rang up the sale and said that'll be $200 and something. I
looked startled and said how could that be. She showed me
the price tags and I saw my hat was $325 and marked down to
about $200. I apologized and said it was a lovely hat, but
not that lovely. We bought only the sweater.

We continued on toward the O'Keefe Musuem. I was curious to
know more about her history so we watched the video. It was
interesting for many reasons, but one was that she admired
the flower paintings of a famous artist whose name I forget,
but she knew if she painted little flowers as he did no one
would notice hers because she was not famous. She decided
to paint big flowers so people would notice and of course
they did and do. Her history is really interesting. Her
affair with Stieglitz and later marriage helped her become
famous, but for her it was very upsetting. He had a
photographic show in NY of his photographs of her. From
that the critics decided she was very sexy and sensual so
from then on her flowers were critiqued as to their sensual
meaning. This upset her greatly, but it did make her famous.

From their we walked to the Museum of Fine Art where they
wee having a special showing of Puppets by Gustave Bauman.
He was born in Germany and had a varied career, but when his
daughter, Ann, was born he started making puppets and his
collection is enormous and fabulous. He did all the carvings
by hand and obviously with love and care. His wife did most
of the costumes and he did the sets which included a
backdrop, but furniture or wagons, plows, etc, depending on
the story. I really enjoyed seeing them, including a video
of one of the presentations.

We walked across the Plaza, actually around the Plaza
because it is being totally restored so you can't walk
across. We admired the Indians and their jewelry and pots
as we walked by. Then on to the Loretto Church. Robert had
never seen the miraculous spiral staircase with no visible
means of support. Except there now are very visible means of
support which are not mentioned in the literature.

By that time, I was ready to head back to our casita which
we did.

For dinner we headed to Garfield street, on foot, for a
recommended restaurant, but passed the Cafe Cafe and decided
to stop there. It is primarily a pizza restaurant, but has
many other entrees, too. We sat next to a table with two
guys who were having pizza and it looked really good. We
asked the waiter what size it was and one of the guys
volunteered it was 12 inches. It looked much bigger. We
decided to order salads and a 10 inch pizza. Talking with
our neighbors they announced that this place has the best
pizza in Santa Fe. They used to think another place that I
think is on San Francisco. Anyway, the salad was
spectacular. It consisted of a variety of fresh greens, feta
cheese, black berries or boysenberries (they were huge and
sweet), and nuts. The dressing was a slightly sweet
vinaigrette. The pizza was excellent, too. The crust was
very tender such that you didn't skip eating the edges. We
had fun talking with our neighbors and enjoyed the food.

On Friday, we had another interesting and delicious
breakfast. This time our neighbors were from Anchorage,
Alaska and down here on a business trip and taking a few
days to enjoy the weather and Santa Fe. For them the
sunshine and 60 degree weather were heaven. They had had
two weeks in January when the temperature had never gotten
above zero and they had had lots and lots of snow and ice.
After all that cold it rained and then froze again so the
snow was totally hard. Didn't sound good.

After breakfast we drove to Los Alamos. Robert and I had
both been to the labs in our working days, but had never
really looked at the town. This time we drove through and
around in the town. We were both having a hard time
recognizing anything until we hit NM 4 road and then things
looked familiar. We'd obviously come into town that way or
rather to the lab that way and never really gone through the
town.

From there we drove to Bandolier National Monument. The day
was really fine. Sunny and about 50 degrees. We checked
out the museum and then walked the loop to see the ruins.
Unfortunately, although it was fine and warm and sunny it
was still very snowy and icy many places so the trail to the
Long House was closed and yo couldn't do the loop. We had to
return the way we came. But it was interesting and we met a
young couple from NY. I took a picture of Krys sitting on a
ladder into a Kiva (it looked like a cave, but the sign said
it had been a Kiva). I teased that I was going to put his
picture on Facebook and he grinned and said that he was on
Facebook he would try and find me and his picture.

After our walk we had a picnic in the picnic grounds. Many
of the tables still sat in snow, but we found one that was
not. We had a lovely picnic in the sun. We got back to our
motel about 3 PM.

Saturday was another gorgeous day. We have been so lucky
with the weather. We spent the day at Museum Hill doing three
of the four museums there; the International Folk Art, The
Colonial Spanish and the Indian Cultural Museums. We had
lunch at the little cafe there, or rather an afternoon
snack. We tended to have very late and very light lunches
because of our generous breakfasts. It was another good
day.

Sunday morning, with threats of snow and ice en route, we
packed up and decided to take I-25 home. It would be
faster. As it turned out the weather was fine, dry and
cloudy. We arrived home safely about 3 PM.