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| Big sky high desert |
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| At the 7000 ft elevatio |
In
need of a good vacation or retirement destination?
A place where the weather is
great year round, puffy white clouds fill blue skies, the mountain air is
clean, sunrises and sunsets color the sky, desert wildflowers and cacti bloom, history is
rich and cultures come together.
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| Adobe flourishes |
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| Overpasses have art work |
It occurred to us that maybe we shouldn’t
write about this lovely city in the Southwest, wanting to keep the secret to ourselves.
But then we realized (1) it’s not exactly a secret that Santa Fe is cool,
artistic, and fun and (2) our obscure little blog is hardly going to make a
dent in Santa Fe’s tourism industry. It doesn’t take anyone long to discover that
Santa Fe's
intriguing mix of Native American, Southwestern and Spanish influences is
reflected in the city's vibrant arts community, as well as its architecture and
ambiance.
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| Oldest Church in America is San Miguel Mission |
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| San Miguel Church altar 1741 |
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| Loretta Chapel |
Visitors to the
older sites of Santa Fe won't want to miss the Palace of the Governors, the
oldest continually inhabited building in America, filled with 400 years of
history or the city's plaza and landmark churches. It is no wonder the term “Santa
Fe “ in Spanish means “City of Faith”.
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| St. Frances Assis Cathedral |
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| La Conquistadora Madonna chapel altar relic at St. Frances Basilica |
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| Zuni pottery |
Along Canyon Road we browsed through galleries galore and saw some incredible creations of contemporary and Native American art work.
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| Indian beaded belts |
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| Indian jewelry |
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| More beadwork |
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| Bronze art weaver |
Among several prominent art museums, the Georgia O'Keeffe and the Museum of International Folk Art are perhaps the best known.
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| Alexander Girard folkart village set |
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| Beaded dolls |
One day we hiked outside the city to an amazing canyon. Another day we drove northward to the
small desert community of Dixon to visit Lee and Shelby Leonard. These are
wonderful folks we met while camping in the Florida Everglades who helped us
launch our dory. They invited us to come for dinner at the house they’d built on
their three-acre property out in the country. We had a grand time seeing them
again, enjoyed a terrific meal Shelby prepared, and had the chance to sleep
overnight in their guest house yurt.
Gazing up at stars through the yurt’s dome skylight was a neat experience.
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| Viewing a 6:00 a.m. sunrise outside the Leonard's yurt |
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| Crossed the Rio Grande Canyon Bridge |
Lee went out of his way to drive us around
the following morning to locate some petroglyphs in the high desert mountain
and view the Rio Grande Gorge Canyon. It was a thrill to reconnect with such
great people whom we’d met along the way in our North America journey.
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| Rio Grande River cuts north to south through the heart of New Mexico |
