Santa Fe, New Mexico

October 2, 2022

Our trip to Santa Fe was relatively short and uneventful, until we reached the edge of Santa Fe where the roads started to get busy, narrow, and more winding--posing a navigation challenge with a 30 foot trailer! But, all went well with no calamities, and we arrived at our wooded mountain campsite just outside of Santa Fe in time for lunch. When we arrived, the weather was sunny and warm, but soon after lunch some rain came in, and the temperature plummeted to the upper 50s. This was to be the general weather pattern for us for the next several days here up in the mountains (with the exception of the warm part--we didn't see warm up here again). Fortunately, our campsite was just a 20 minute trip down to town where it was sunny and warm (70s) most of the time. We ended up heading to town every day.

As we got close to Santa Fe, we noticed that most of the architecture (from houses to strip malls) was of the Adobe style.

Our very pleasant campsite Not a lot of solar to be had here, with all the trees and frequent rain that we got.

Our campground was surrounded by steep (highly edible erodible) slopes, so cell service was a definite no-go.

For our first day in Santa Fe, we had purchased tickets for Meow Wolf. You might be wondering what that is. Well, it is a bit hard to describe.  Their website puts it this way: "Meow Wolf's House of Eternal Return is a mind-bending, explorable art experience for people of all ages in Santa Fe, NM".  That turned out to be a pretty accurate description, and we ended up enjoying the experience. The facility was quite large, having over 70 "rooms" on two levels.  We spent over two hours finding all the secret rooms, interacting with the art, solving the occasional puzzle, and just marveling at the creative use of space. It's hard to really get the feel for the place with pictures, but we'll supply some anyway...

The art spilled out into the parking lot

As far as we could tell, there was only one line to get in.

This corridor was reminiscent of Chinatown.

This was a cool "underwater" scene that you could walk through.

This bus was tipped sideways so that the front of the bus was up against the ceiling. You could "sit" at the back with your back basically against the floor looking up. There were controls that you could operate to change the colored lights. Yeah, kind of weird, but oddly fun.

They even dragged a little camper in here and decorated it with lots of lights

After Meow Wolf we caught a late lunch at a quaint bar and then spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the old downtown area and Canyon Road, the art gallery district.

The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi It was closed for cleaning/maintenance on Mondays, so we couldn't go inside. The original plan called for two spires, but money ran out.

We saw dried chili peppers hanging everywhere.

Some serious hot sauces

Some interesting dynamic sculptures. The animal heads bobbed up and down if you nudged them.

This one's entitled "Ewe and Me"

Our personal favorite--"Stone Paper Scissors"

We also walked around some of the neighborhood. Every house was of the same adobe architecture, with many surrounded by adobe walls that created private courtyards. It was very charming and looked like a great place to rent an Airbnb (if we didn't already have accommodations).

When we got back to the camper, we huddled under blankets and turned on the heaters, as it had been cool and rainy while we were away. We were still full from our large, late lunch, so we just opted for some ice cream treats from the freezer (always the best choice in cold weather), and pretty much fell asleep on the couch at about 7:30. We didn't realize how exhausting the day had been. Rick hadn't brought the GPS tracker with us, so we don't know how much walking we did, but it must have been a lot!

The next morning we headed back into Santa Fe for a farmers market where we got some fresh tomatoes and a bunch of basil so we could make bruschetta that evening.  Afterwards, we headed a bit south to ride a bike path into a more suburban/rural setting.  It was a nice 20 mile ride along a gravel path where we could take in the countryside and view homes which were almost all in the classic adobe style architecture.

You almost don't notice this subdivision, as the homes blend into the landscape.

The fruit of the tree cholla cactus resemble tiny bunches of bananas. Too bad we missed the purple flowers!

After the ride, we stopped at a store to get some bread for our evening dinner of bruschetta. When we entered, it was sunny and pleasant, but in the short time we were in the store, a pretty strong storm had come through with really heavy rain and hail.  We waited about 15 minutes in the store, but eventually gave up and made a run for the truck.  By the way, the bruschetta was awesome--it is amazing how good fresh tomatoes and fresh basil are together!

On Wednesday, we visited the Cross of the Martyrs as well as another city park to hang out and get some internet time (there is absolutely no cell coverage near the campground).  Fun fact: the full name of the town of Santa Fe is "La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís" ("The Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi"). Those Spanish liked their long names! 

The Cross of the Martyrs monument sits on top of a tall hill overlooking Santa Fe.

That evening we had a delightful dinner at Jambo Cafe which specializes in African-Caribbean fusion cuisine. (Santa Fe is quite the foodie town, and we wanted to venture into something other than the standard New Mexican fare that we had enjoyed in other places already.) We both ended up ordering their sampler plate which included a choice of three entrees, so were able to taste six different items. Everything was delicious, but Rick liked the goat stew best, while Julie's favorite was the lamb stew. (Seems like there should be some kind of joke in there somewhere.)

On Thursday the weather at our campground was looking to be not rainy (fingers crossed), so in the afternoon we tackled a short (3 miles round trip), yet exhausting hike (over 1000ft of elevation gain) right off of our campsite. It didn't help that we started the hike at over 8000 ft.

It was a steep climb!

The trail started off innocently enough.

But it wasn't long before it started climbing steeply.

At least we were rewarded with nice views!

Santa Fe is not the fall-color capital of the US, but we did get a few glimpses here and there.

Back to level ground!

We enjoyed our stay in the Santa Fe area, especially because we were able to quickly escape cold, rainy weather by going into town every day. However, night temps dipped down into the lower 40s and even upper 30s which made for some chilly mornings in particular.  So, by Friday we were ready to be moving both south and to lower elevation where the forecast promised low 80's during the day and upper 50's at night. Heavenly!

Hopefully we can chase autumn all the way south this year!

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