When the Balloon Festival in Albuquerque was over, we packed up the Airstream and headed an hour north to Santa Fe. Our first stop in Santa Fe was the Walmart near the campground we were going to be staying in. We stopped there to pick up some food and other supplies including about ten new bike tubes. We are still in New Mexico and our battle with the dreaded Goathead seeds was not yet over. It’s always sort of fun to pull up to a Walmart or a grocery store while pulling the Airstream because we can unload groceries right into the refrigerator and get some good practice maneuvering the Airstream through tight spots in parking lots.
After we unhitched the Airstream at the campground, we headed into downtown to explore a little and get a feel for Santa Fe. Our first impression of Santa Fe was that it is a cool little town. The architecture here is dominated by adobe homes with flat roofs and large log columns and beams. It is a welcome change to the brick and vinyl homes of Virginia. Santa Fe has a vibrant historic downtown area and a huge arts district. We could not believe the number of art galleries for a city of only 84,000 people. I looked it up and there are 240 galleries – apparently, it is the third largest art market in the U.S.
I also went for a quick run on our first day in Santa Fe on some trails out of the back of the campground and quickly found a nice rails to trails. As it turns out, Santa Fe is a town with a robust system of bike trails and bike lanes. We picked up a map at REI and saw that the rails to trails I was running on ran all the way to downtown. So, the next day rode our bikes on the trail six or seven miles into downtown and explored even further. It was Indigenous Peoples Day, so there was dancing and music in the plaza in the middle of downtown. We also visited a Native American Art Museum and an old historic church, St. Francis Cathedral. We capped the day off with a stop at a brewery on the side of the trail on the way back to the campground. We found some Goatheads along the way – good thing we had plenty of tubes from Walmart!
After homeschooling the next day, we drove up to Ski Santa Fe and went hiking. As we drove up the mountain, we could see all the Aspen leaves changing for fall. They have vibrant yellow leaves which contrast brilliantly with their white trunks and the dark green of the surrounding evergreen trees. When we got to Ski Santa Fe, we went hiking on the slopes of the ski resort. At first, we were wondering what in the heck we were thinking hiking up a ski slope. Once we got higher on the mountain, the views provided us with the answer to those questions though. It was beautiful. The resort seems like it would be a really fun place to ski if you lived here. It is only 15 miles outside of downtown – yet another reason to like this town.
On our last day in Santa Fe, we decided to go to a place called Meow Wolf. The name is awesome but the place is even better. Meow Wolf felt to me like a cross between a modern art museum, a children’s museum adults love as well, an interactive Doctor Seuss experience, and the upside down from Stranger Things. The layout of the building itself is a work of art. There are all sorts of secret passages and portals (such as a refrigerator, a fireplace, and a washing machine) to explore between the different rooms, all of which are different varieties of interactive galleries. And then, there is the awesome modern art everywhere – music, films, paintings, sculptures, and probably several other types of art I am not familiar with. Words can’t do it justice, so hopefully the pictures here will. Better yet, do yourself a favor and be sure to visit it if you are ever near Santa Fe.
We loved our time in Santa Fe. Once again we find ourselves asking why we did not stay longer to explore even further. I think that we could have spent another couple of weeks in New Mexico and still be left wanting more. We didn’t even get to visit Roswell and hang out with the Area 51 raiders. Oh well – next time, I guess.
I have first hand experience with the Roswell thing, so you can always ask me questions – that I can’t answer. Glad y’all are having fun