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Plaza Blanco

If all you want to know are the highlights of our trip we both agree that the hike at Blanco Plaza was the most memorable.

The tour of the Taos Pueblo was great because our native guide was authentic and very sincere which made for a very good tour.

The moon over the Ghost Ranch at night, the Georgia O’Keefe museum, and the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, all combined with the geography and the ancient and modern Pueblo culture were highlights that combined to make New Mexico a distinct place different from other  western states.

Moon viewed from our room Ghost Ranch

We begin -Wed. October 17, 2018

We arrived late in the afternoon to a cool, cloudy, damp, Albuquerque. “Three Hundred + days a year of sunshine” we are told. There is no need to use the room key we are given. Our motel room door is propped open, a long extension cord leading to a pump draining a large puddle in front of our room door. Not an auspicious beginning to our adventure but we are staying on Route 66, so we hoped to encounter some local color. The Days Inn is definitely not the worst motel on Albuquerque Route 66. We investigate the neighborhood and settle on a remodeled service station for dinner.  This is where we discover in New Mexico any cuisine that could possibly have hot peppers(chilies) added, does.  We had spiced up meatloaf and tuna salad.

Thursday morning we check-out of the Days Inn and walk to the Rapid Rail station to catch the train to Santa Fe only to discover the Moon Guide lied.  The train no longer leaves every hour and the next train won’t leave the Albuquerque station until 4:30pm.  It’s not even 10am yet! Southwest flies luggage free. That’s too good deal to pass-up, so I am dragging a duffel bag on wheels. Lucky for us the Rapid Rail, Albuquerque city bus, Greyhound and Amtrak stations are all on the same huge block.  We check ALL our options. Dennis thinks to call Avis and ask if we can pick-up our rental car in Abq. instead of Santa Fe. The answer is “Yes” and for the same price. 😊 The hitch-  since we are at the bus station we decide to take the city bus across town to pick-up our car.  This is not as easy at it should be since the bus station information attendant sends us to the wrong bus stop, the bus drivers confused us and other passengers by parking our bus one place and telling us to wait at an empty bus bay.  The bus driver is quite a charmer. When we ask him to please alert us when we reach our street, he informs us that we need to listen to the scratchy pre-recorded announcements.  He growls intermittently at several other passengers along the route which makes us feel somewhat better.

Madelines

We drive to a cool, windy, overcast Santa Fe and check into the Madeline, our B & B. We are given a 20-minute orientation and 2 binders full of Santa Fe information. Again, we are assured that Santa Fe has: 300+ days a year of sunshine but today is not one of them.  We don’t want to wander too far as it looks like rain, so we head to the Plaza. Quickly we are overwhelmed by the number of jewelry shops and galleries. It’s sprinkling so we take shelter in the Geogia O’Keefe Museum. We enjoy the museum exhibits because they offer a nice overview of O’Keefe’s life and includes a lot of early art works we haven’t seen. Emerging from the museum we venture further from the Plaza down more streets of jewelry stores and art galleries. Due to the inclement weather the greater Plaza area is nearly empty. Purveyors from spas that seem to be on every corner find me and see my wrinkles as an easy target.  The first guy looks concerned and beckons me over. I think that I’ve dropped something, or maybe my fly is open. His urgency persuades me that some there is some calamity. Apparently, the problem is that my skin needs immediate correction.  Before I know it, I am testing skin cream and pink pearls of “better than Botox” are being spread around my eyes. They try to enlist Dennis to tell me how much better I look. He is in a very difficult situation. They clearly won’t let us go unless he sees some improvement. We are NOT unsophisticated rubes! Studying our maps, we stand too close to spas only two more times. I collect 3 samples and purchase nothing but “better than Botox” flakes off into my eyes and messes-up my contacts.  I’m squinting and tearing so Dennis has to lead me back to our B&B.

The hostess at the Madeline recommended a small quiet Mexican restaurant (Mucho Gusto) for dinner. I didn’t know there could be such a thing as a duck mole enchilada.  We collapse after dinner.

View of Santa Fe

Friday, we rush to the hills because the sun is shining and who knows how long it will last. We are headed for an easy hike on a Nature Conservancy acreage in Santa Fe Nature Preserve.  We begin at the Randall Davey Audubon Center because we miss the turnoff for the trailhead. There are nice hill loop hikes and we brave the warnings about a black bear cub and don’t notice the one about the cougar until we have completed our brave hike up Bear Canyon. Fortunately, no bears or cougars, unfortunately the only birds we saw at the Audubon Center were at feeders outside the visitor center. The 7000’+ altitude gave us a good workout.

We got specific directions to the trailhead we originally wanted but paid scant attention to the trail map.  We missed an obvious turn and found ourselves hiking up some steep foothills in the Dale Ball trail system.  http://www.sfct.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Santa-Fe-Foothill-Trails-Map-2015.pdf

This was a fortunate mistake.  The hike was rigorous, and the view was well worth the climb. Another plus was a bit of cultural orientation.  We both led and were followed 4 enthusiastic, very bilingual, Hispanic “kids.”  They mostly spoke Spanish among themselves, English to us, and always cursed the steepness of the hills in English.

To make the most of our first full-day of tourism we followed our hikes with a visit to Museum Hill. In the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture we mainly concentrated on the collection of very ancient artifacts and early native history.  After a short refreshment break we visited the Museum of International Folk Art.

Folk Art

There is quite a fascinating but eclectic collection of dolls and models. It was wonderful but so much and so many cultures it was hard to take it all in.

What are the chances?  We meet Dennis’s cousin Sheryl and her husband Art for dinner. Sheryl found a bracelet in one of the many jewelry stores in Santa Fe that she really liked.  On inquiring the price, she was told that it was a bargain at $40,000. We all conclude that Santa Fe shopping and the “300+ days of sunshine” are oversold.  We’ve only seen 1 sunny day.

At D.’s request Saturday we devote the second sunny day to exploring the non-shopping parts of the Santa Fe Plaza. We started with Loretto Chapel.  Next, we go to the New Mexico History Museum because I am foggy on the history of the conquistadors versus the Indians, and all that.  It turns out to be far more complicated that we had imagined. In short “Anasazi” is no longer PC replaced by Ancient Pueblo. Seventeenth century Mexico was bigger than the U.S. and there were many conflicts between the Pueblos, the Spanish, and then the Mexicans. Somehow the U.S. and Kit Carson won.

Adobe Painted to look like brick

We did a short walking tour of a few historic homes, outsides only. My favorite house was the adobe mud house painted to look like brick.  Of course we found the library.

The library always finds us

For us the New Mexico Museum of Art was the highlight of the day.  The current exhibit featured the artists displayed with the New Mexican art crowd they hung out with. Don’t ask me to remember the differences between the Taos Society of Artists, Los Cinco Pintores, Transcendental Painting Group, the Rio Grande Painters, and the Stieglitz Circle. I can’t remember all the group differences. It seemed that some of the artist just liked to have a decent dinner together and didn’t really agree on any artistic style or aesthetic philosophy.  Most groups got together to do shows and send paintings back East. Did they have bulk rate shipping? Still the groupings were a great way to display the paintings.  We also loved the adobe architecture of the museum and the two sculpture courtyards that were part of the museum.

Courtyard New Mexico Museum of Art

I did some last minute shopping at the Indian Market, without Dennis of course. I don’t know how to bargain, especially when you see the whole family in the crafting or sales.  Santa Fe seems to be all about shopping.

Indian Market

Shopping

Sunday we left overcast Santa Fe and drove to Bandelier Natl. Monument for some challenging hiking at 6000 ft. elevation. The sun emerged from the mist (one of the 300+ days! 😊) and it was quite hot near the top of the canyon.  I didn’t have a clue that we were going to hike to reconstructions of the ancient Pueblo structures we’d learned about in the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.

Hiking to an ancient Pueblo cave

It’s just hard to imagine this dry rocky place had a village of 600 rooms in the 1400s. The partially reconstructed Kiva still felt like a sacred place when the ranger described it.

Inside looking out

Ancient Walls

After doing all the loop trails at the visitors center we drove to the Tsankawi area where there is less reconstruction of the Pueblos. Climbing to the top of the cliff we saw house foundations, shards of painted and unpainted pottery, and chips from making stone weapons. Thanks to training by my cousin Sue Sanborn I felt very proud that I was able to spot some pottery and stone shards without a park service number right beside them. It restored my faith in humanity that no one had run off with the very obvious, painted pottery pieces. In a tree at the top of the cliff a brave raven was unafraid of our presence and crooned or scolded. I’m not sure what he was trying to say but he certainly was not afraid to repeat it.

We had a reservation at the Ghost Ranch made famous by Georgia O’Keefe, so we had to move along faster than I would have liked.

Thankfully we arrived at the Ghost Ranch in time to buy tickets for dinner, but not before they ran out of food.  The frustrated chef assured is he had more pasta in the oven.  We were very grateful.  We got some nice pictures of the moon over the ranch and our digs in the Coyote building.

Coyote, Ghost Ranch

Monday morning, we went on a two-hour walking tour of some of the sites on the Ghost Ranch made famous by Georgia O’Keefe paintings.  We knew a lot about Georgia O’Keefe but Wendy our guide knew a lot more especially about O’Keefe’s life at the ranch.  Wendy lugged along copies of O’Keefe’s paintings and we compared them to the landscape. 

Hike to Chimney Rock

Before leaving Ghost Ranch we took a hike on our own towards Chimney Rock and enjoyed the view.

Leaving the ranch we followed Wendy’s directions to Plaza Blanca which was a highlight of our New Mexico trip.  The trailhead was unmarked, but we weren’t the only ones there.  The white gypsum cliffs and the canyon were majestic and other worldly.  Although there were other people hiking around the area it seemed unusually quiet. We reluctantly left the warmth of Plaza Blanca and drove the low road to a cool overcast Taos.  The canyon scenery along the Rio Grande was stunning. It was getting late in the afternoon, so we made just one stop along the way, the Classical Gas Museum.  The purpose of this stop was to allow me to dive into the car trunk and retrieve the name & address of our motel in Taos & program the address into my phone GPS.

Gas Museum

Classical Gas was not a not the best choice as there was no wi-fi or cell signal in the narrow canyon. Dennis gamely listened to the museum owner explain the history and economics of collecting and selling rusty gas pumps, old signs, and other rusty equipment while I dug out the motel information and tried to get a cell signal. We did a cursory survey of the gas collection but didn’t find rusty items we needed to ship home.

We found our Taos motel in a light rain but without difficulty much thanks to GPS.

El Pueblo

We walked downtown for dinner near the Taos Plaza but it was too dark to see much. Our motel room included a fireplace.  While Dennis speculated on how much it must cost to insure a motel with fireplaces in the rooms, I followed the very specific instructions for laying a fire in a traditional NM fireplace.  I was successful, smoke went up the chimney and not in the room. Dennis relaxed quite a bit when he realized that I was not going to burn down the motel.

It’s predicted to be one of the less than 50 days a year of rain in Taos so we start early heading to the Rio Grande Gorge for a hike.  It was overcast, cool, and very windy, but we were prepared for our hike. 

We were not prepared for the bulldozer at work and “trail closed” sign.  We took some pictures of the Gorge instead of hiking.

Rio Grande Gorge

We noted the sign urging us NOT to jump.

On the way back to Taos I got law-biding Dennis to pull over in a federally restricted area, so I could take pictures of the mountains with the rain turning them a beautiful blue.  We could also see some of the mountains turning white with snow.

We headed to the Taos Pueblo and were just in time for a tour lead by a young native woman, now a college student, who grew-up in the pueblo. Dennis says this tour was the highlight of his time in Taos. All the rooms in the Pueblo are claimed by Native families but not all are equally used or kept up.  Depending on the weather, rooms in the Pueblo need a new layer of adobe added once or twice year.  There is no running water and no electricity in Taos Pueblo so only about 40 residents choose to live there full-time. Doors are an accepted innovation. Ancient Pueblos would have been entered through the ceiling.  We went in a few of the Pueblos to view the arts and crafts for sale. It was cold and rainy outside, but the rooms were warm enough and the Indians had figured out ways to light the art displays.

We headed back to Taos. It was raining harder so we added another layer under our raincoats and did a daylight walking tour downtown Taos and the Plaza. Dennis kept saying he didn’t need to see Kit Carson’s grave

Kit Carson’s Grave

or home however in retrospect with the map in Dennis’ capable hands all roads seemed to lead to Kit Carson. I was more interested in the Mable Dodge Luhan house. I’d read about Mable and the house but I didn’t think we would be able to go in. The house is a retreat center and a B & B.  We found our way in just as some yoga retreat ladies were leaving after finishing their lunch. The nice lady in the office gave us a brochure, told us we could look around on our own and to read any of the books about Mabel and Taos in the living room. The only thing off limits were the bedrooms where the B&B guests were staying.  She even told us to help ourselves to cookies and coffee from the dining room. That was awfully nice, maybe the yoga ladies weren’t consuming their coffee and cookie quota. We didn’t partake of the goodies, but we did sit in Mable’s living room & rainbow room, peruse the books with her story, and enjoy the views from her windows.

The window framed views of the outside and the small dimensions of the house reminded us of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin which we toured with Leigh and Mike in Wisconsin this summer.

Leaving Mabel’s cozy house, we continued our Taos walking tour. There was a slow drizzle of rain and we found ourselves paying the admission to shelter in Kit Carson’s house. For a man who lived big the house was small. We kept dry watching a History Channel movie and looking at Kit memorabilia. Carson and his wife purchased from slavery and adopted several Native American children. That made me feel better about the old Indian fighter. We pretty thoroughly walked downtown Taos but we were “museumed out” so there are art and history museums yet to see. We also missed some mountain hikes because we weren’t prepared or willing to deal with snow.  We drove (in pouring rain) to Taos Mesa Brewing for dinner.  The brewery symbol is the raven.  We learned that a flock of ravens is a conspiracy.  Naturally we needed to buy the beer glass to remember that factoid.

Wed. morning Oct 24^th we took a rainy trip back (definitely not one of the 300+ days of sunshine) on the high road from Taos to Albuquerque only stopping twice for churches. This is my link to pics & explaining that Oldest churches are really a thing in New Mexico.

We arrived in time to hike in the Rio Grande Nature Center and see a rain swollen Rio Grande and a bunch of very happy ducks at the Nature Center.

Rio Grande

Albuquerque had experienced 2 days of record setting heavy rain. Not one of the the 300+ days of sunshine.

Where is the door?

We drove to Old Town, did a quick tour, and discovered that we were near the Museum of Natural History & Science so we tried to find the entrance to the building. We had purchased a New Mexico Cultural Pass in Santa Fe. Our admission was free but only if we could find the entrance.

Finally gaining entry, we had 45 minutes to view the NM state dinosaur fossils. The exhibits are arranged on circular ramps. We checked the map for the spot we wanted, but which ramp would lead us there? We ran up the ramp called: “The Beginning of Life.” Oops too early, we saw nothing bigger than protozoa. We run down the circular ramp and try again and this time succeeded in finding a circle that leads to dinosaur fossils.

Coelophysis

As we are viewing the bones of the most recent tyrannosaurus unearthed, we hear an announcement that the museum will be closing. Again we have a hard time retracing the circuitous route to exit. I was afraid that the lights would go out and a surly guard would find us and accuse us of being dinosaur snatchers or natural history terrorists.

Irish pot pie with chilies

Our last night we eat dinner at an Irish pub back on Route 66. This is definitely a New Mexican Irish pub because there are hot peppers in my Irish chicken pot pie. Thursday, we managed a 4:30am wake-up and flew back to Spokane in time for lunch. We went out to lunch while we waited for the house to warm-up to 68. There were no surprise hot peppers in my salad or D.’s burger in Spokane.