New Mexico Pt. 1 - Santa Fe

Our grand adventure began in Albuquerque where through some unfathomable magic we arrived within thirty minutes of my Dad's arrival.  We spent the evening catching up with family in the area, where we laughed off warnings about the "big snow storm" that was coming before heading North to Santa Fe.  This is called foreshadowing.

As we drove the hour to Santa Fe, the snow did indeed become heavier and visibility went down.  As always in a new area, weather is as much about how the locals handle it as it is about how you yourself do.  Other than a detour around a jackknifed truck though, the ended up being pretty uneventful.  When we went out for dinner on night one we discovered that the hill and uncleared road that the vacation rental was on had us actually snowed in!  Thankfully we had an assortment of trail snacks and food sent from family to tide us over.  Probably karma for mocking the impending storm.

Santa Fe is an aggressively quaint town.  It's historic downtown is centered around a Spanish-style plaza and all of its buildings are in the adobe style.  It's very cute, though the snow and cold did slow us down a bit.  In what was to be a theme, one of the two big churches was closed but we did get in to see the other.  The main draw of this church was a set of stairs which, legend says, was created by a mysterious carpenter who showed ups, created them using no nails, then disappeared.  The stairs are pretty cool, though the pictures of them before the railing was added for safety are definitely cooler.

Santa Fe also has a thriving art scene and we spent an enjoyable afternoon wandering their main gallery drag.  We nearly dipped into sculpture for the first time, but ended up passing on the piece.  We attempted to visit several other museums and shops, but kept encountering "closed due to weather" signs.  This was extra frustrating for us when juxtaposed with the locals telling us that this weather wasn't that uncommon.

Overall, Santa Fe was a cute start to the trip, even if the weather put a small damper on it.  Next up, Las Cruces!

New Mexico Bound

Next week we will be heading out on a two week trip to New Mexico, and I am going to make an effort to actually keep the blog vaguely up to date about the trip!  We'll see if that comes to pass, but it's a nice theory.

Our main goal was to get away from Chicago's lovely winters while staying domestic (stupid Covid) and avoiding some of the more crowded options like Florida.  We'll be flying in and out of Albuquerque and visiting Santa Fe, Las Cruces, and Carlsbad and their surrounding areas.  While Santa Fe will be around freezing, the bulk of the trip should see highs in the 50s and 60s, which will seem downright tropical to us.

We're aiming for a good mix of cultural stuff, hiking, and nonsense.  Culture will come in the form of the museum and galleries of Santa Fe.  Hiking should be throughout with White Sands, the Organ Mountains, Carlsbad Caverns, and the San Guadalupe Mountains all in the area.  Nonsense will, of course, include a day trip to Roswell, but also a visit to the world's largest pistachio.  Sadly, there will be no visit to Pie Town, New Mexico to eat at one of their several pie-themed cafes due to it being three hours out of the way.