Hello Readers!

Actually, we are now in AZ, but this is a post of our time and my new love for New Mexico.

Those of you that know me well, know that I spent some time studying and enjoying life in Durango, CO at Fort Lewis College.  During that time I had the terrible misfortune of living on the edge of New Mexico, which I dubbed the actual armpit of America.  I hated going there, but Farmington had the nearest thing to a mall AND they had a Chili’s that gave me my first taste of a mango margarita.  So occasionally we would pile in a vehicle and head to Farmington. :( Or even worse was the long trek to Albuquerque to catch a flight.  Blechhk!  These experiences formed a very poor and very firm opinion of the entire state of New Mexico.  I tell you all this as a preamble to the following statement:

I was wrong!

I fell in love with Santa Fe. Sure, it felt a little living in Old Town (in San Diego, or any other uuber touristy area of a really great city).  And sure, we were the youngest couple walking around the area.  But I couldn’t bring myself to care, I really loved our 5 days there.

It really was enchanting!  We were lucky to receive an email detailing places to visit and eat from our good buddy James who knew of Santa Fe’s beauty before we did. Thanks James!

Armed with a checklist of places to go and see we set off on foot. The spring air was sweet with everything blooming.  There was visible pollen and cotton floating through the sky making me feel like I was living in an southwestern snow globe.  So what if my red eyes were burning and I sneezed now and then.  It was so magical that I didn’t even care.  The night sky was the most amazing deep blues you can imagine.  We walked around the Plaza, visited churches, we lingered in art galleries and jewelry stores full of turquoise.  I laughed for hours when we walked by The Adobe Photo Shoppe. Usually I don’t like the looks of dried chilies hanging around pretending to be art, but in Santa Fe it worked for me.  I actually loved the way they looked hanging from those very square buildings.  Even the Whole Foods was flat topped and had chilies hanging around the outside.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that we got our new car stereo installed for $49!!  That’s right Santa Fe’s cheap too.  Well, that may not be true, the statement is only based on the low price to have the new stereo installed.  (A stereo that we bought hoping to be able to play Pandora off our phones through the stereo… but can’t.  Sad faces!)

On one of our last day/nights in Santa Fe we drove out to the Shidoni Gallery and Sculpture Garden on the advice of our friends Vlad and Rachel (thank you btw!).  It was soooo cool!  Not only were the 8 acre grounds of massive bronze statues and random formations of art really cool, BUT we got to SEE THEM POUR BRONZE!!  The process was out of this world hot and so amazing to see.  Listen in the video for Matt commenting on the fact that they are in full on HAZMAT suites while we stand a mere 5 feet away in our t shirts.

After the really incredible pouring of the bronze we inquired from Kern, the really nice guy working there (turns out his dad started the place and his brother, Scott, is the current owner) a good place to hike around and a good place to park and sleep for the night.  He was so helpful on both accounts.  For hiking he turned me on to an android app called My Tracks that would track us where ever we went allowing us to return the same way.  Brilliant!  With that downloading he showed us some options and we choose our route.

As for sleeping he called his brother and okay’d us to sleep on the grounds IN THE SCULPTURE GARDEN!  It was unbelievably awesome! They only asked that we didn’t let the dogs pee on the bronze because it messes up the patina.  We fell asleep surrounded by a “Time Machine”, some massive wood and metal circles and a larger than life statue of JFK (see the bottom left of the pics above).  Truly a once in a lifetime experience.

The last thing I’ll rave about is not special to Santa Fe, but to NM and the southwest in general.  I LOVES ME SOME GREEN CHILIES!!  I mean LOVE!  I miss them and all the meals that contain them.  While we were in Santa Fe, I don’t think I ate one meal that didn’t have green chilies on it.  We had it on our pizza, on all burgers, covering our Mexican food, and basically any other way we could incorporate them into our meals.  I was in GC heaven!

Okay, so that is my take on Santa Fe and all the reasons to love it.  I really suggest going and falling in love with the place yourself if you can.

Tally Ho!

Breezy.