One last view from our Santa Fe terrace

Today it was time to say farewell to Santa Fe, and head off for our last couple of days in Albuquerque.  This was heading down in both the literal and figurative sense, as Albuquerque is a couple thousand feet lower than Santa Fe, and correspondingly warmer.

Even though it’s only an hour’s drive away, it’s a completely different ecosystem.  By the time we got here the snow had vanished, and deciduous trees with bright fall colors had taken the place of pinion and juniper.  The city itself appears fairly flat, but there are still mountains in the distance everywhere you look.

Our first stop was Petroglyph National Monument, just a little ways outside the city.  There are a few different disconnected areas of this park, but we elected to go to the Rinconada Canyon section.  We walked through the canyon alongside a steep hillside covered with volcanic rocks, many of which had been decorated with petroglyphs.  We learned that in addition to the Native Americans, the early Spanish settlers also copied the technique — so in some cases, it’s not known which culture created a given piece of artwork.

For lunch we headed into the city and found the Sawmill Market, a large, upscale food court with just about any kind of food you could imagine.  Zoe had lemon parmesan pasta, and I decided to be virtuous after all the heavy food we’ve been eating and get a large Cobb salad.  Both were delicious, and we capped off our meal with paletas, a sort of Mexican popsicle.

The afternoon turned out to be my very favorite part of the trip.  Just outside the city, which is at around 5000 feet, you can take an aerial tramway to the top of the Sandia mountains, at over 10,000 feet.  As you can imagine, the ascent is quite dramatic.  It reminded me of a similar trip we did in the French Alps, but with a very different landscape.

We had decided to go in the late afternoon, do a short hike around at the top, then watch the sunset and the emergence of the city lights of Albuquerque.  We didn’t get very far on our hike due to the snow, which was several feet deep here.  We followed a packed-down path in the woods for a while, but eventually decided that it was becoming too treacherous.  So we returned to the safe platforms and viewing areas around the tram to watch the sunset.  The views, especially in the light of golden hour, were spectacular — even as the temperature plummeted.  We stayed up on the mountain until darkness fell and the twinkling lights of the city emerged.  After a delicious dinner at a nearby Vietnamese restaurant, we were both ready for bed.

Full-size replicas of Little Boy and Fat Man, the bombs dropped on Japan.

Today we ventured forth from Santa Fe again, this time to the nearby town of Los Alamos, which has lots of interesting history around the Manhattan Project and the development of the atom bomb.  Once again it was a gorgeous drive winding through the mountains with amazing views around every corner.  You could see why this remote outpost was a good choice for a secret city.

We started at the history museum, then made our way over to the Bradbury Science Museum.  (Oddly, the former, which was small and simple, charged us $5, while the latter, which was larger and much more elaborate, was free.)  Both were very text-heavy, so even though the information was pretty interesting, eventually we began to get a bit of the dreaded museum life-suck effect.  Fortunately we were able to revive ourselves with a delicious lunch at the noodle house next door.

Los Alamos also had this nice park.

For the afternoon we were back in Santa Fe, shopping in the plaza and visiting Canyon Road, the famous strip of art galleries.  Given the many thousand dollar price tags for the artwork, we contented ourselves with window shopping.  With the lovely

Rock paper scissors sculpture!

architecture and outdoor sculpure displays all along the winding road, it was a very pleasant stroll.  I’m not sure how the 100+ art galleries all manage to stay in business, but the art scene is definitely a point of pride here.

To round out the day, we wandered into the Desert Dogs Brewery & Cidery, which was the perfect place to have a drink or two, enjoy the laid-back ambiance, and play a couple of board games.  Turns out they also had delicious street tacos for dinner.

As previously mentioned, Zoe and I are very directionally challenged.  But we also have a secret ambition to someday compete on The Amazing Race TV show.  We know that navigation will be our downfall, so tonight we challenged ourselves to walk back from the town center to our apartment without consulting Google Maps.  This was not a particularly impressive feat, given that we were covering ground that we’d been over several times over the last few days, but we still had a few moments of indecision.  Fortunately we persevered and arrived back home without incident.

It would be hard to imagine a greater contrast between yesterday’s Meow Wolf experience and today’s activities.  The House of Eternal Return was delightful and fascinating, but also tended toward overstimulation.  Today’s trip outside the city was the perfect antidote.

We set off first thing, heading northwest to Bandelier National Monument.  (Zoe and I are both directionally-challenged, and one real concern for us is getting lost on some back road with no cell signal.  Fortunately, this area is enough of a wilderness that there is really only one road and everywhere we went today basically just involved going straight.)

Bandelier is less than an hour from Santa Fe, and was well worth the trip.  The drive there was beautiful, winding through the mountains with a new vista around every corner.  We were first to arrive in the parking lot, just as the park opened at 9am.  Setting off on the main loop trail, we had the whole park to ourselves.

The main area of Bandelier winds through the

View from inside the cliff

Frijoles Canyon, which was the home of Pueblo people.  There are ruins of their brick buildings on the canyon floor, and the famous cliff dwellings that were hollowed out on the sides of the canyon.  Bandelier is possibly unique in that there are ladders along the trail that allow you to climb up and explore some of these cliff dwellings.

Unfortunately the section of the trail that is known for its long, steep ladder ascents has been closed since September due to flooding, so we didn’t get that adrenaline-pumping adventure.  Instead we took a side trail that climbed steeply to the top of the canyon and through a juniper forest.  The views were stunning and the silence was amazing.  With only one road (the park entrance road) within miles, and very little traffic on that, we could hear nothing except the rustle of wind and the occasional bird.  It made us realize how seldom we are able to experience that kind of silence in today’s world.

The second part of the main loop went through a very different ecosystem on the other side of the canyon.  Leaving the sun-baked exposed rocks, the trail wound into a forest and along a stream.  The trees and plants were completely different from what we’d seen in the forest on the top of the canyon.

By the time we got back we’d worked up an appetite.  Bandelier’s cafe (at which we were the only customers) is supposedly known for having the best burger in New Mexico — the “Doug”, which comes with American and mozzarella cheeses, carmelized onions, green chilis, and a whole chili relleno on top.  The lone restaurant worker recommended having the Doug made with an elk burger, so we went with his suggestion.  It was delicious.  (But luckily we decided to split one, along with a few other snacks.  I wasn’t even able to finish my half.)

Next up we continued down the road a while to Spence Springs, a natural hot spring along a hillside in the wilderness.  We weren’t quite sure if we’d be up for going in, but we took the mile-long trail down the side of a canyon then back up again.  It was a big treacherous with snow, ice, and mud, but we eventually made it (though my sneakers will never be the same).  There were two other people there soaking and we decided to go for it despite the chilly air.  It was pretty amazing sitting in the warm water, surrounded by snow drifts, with a view out over the surrounding mountains and no signs of civilization.  There was a cave on one side that you could barely squeeze into, and one of the guys who were there told us it was like a sauna inside.  Neither of us (nor his friend) were brave enough to do more than stick our heads in, despite the chill.

Our last stop was supposed to be the Valles Caldera National Monument, another huge park between Bandelier and the hot spring.  We had driven past it on the way, and upon our first glimpse were very confused to see what looked like a huge, snow-covered lake in the middle of the high desert.  But upon closer inspection, we realized it was the caldera of the huge volcano that erupted here long ago.  Since the ground inside was snow-covered and has no trees (except one strange raised area that looked like an island), it looked very much like a winter lake.

Not a lake!

When we pulled in, we saw that the entrance road was dirt and traveled downhill to the bottom of the caldera.  As we started down, the road became more snow-covered.  Looking at the long, long road winding away out of sight below, and thinking about the drive back up and the remoteness of our location, and remembering the multiple harrowing instances we’ve had of being stuck on uphill winter roads while on ski trips — I decided to bail out.  Luckily there were no other cars so I could just reverse back up the short distance we’d traveled.  So, we didn’t really get to enjoy this park other than the stunning views from the top (which were worth the stop in their own right).

No evening adventures today — we were both too tired to walk into town and didn’t feel like getting back into the car, so a quick board game, Door Dash, and an early bedtime it was.

On our second full day in New Mexico, we visited Meow Wolf’s Santa Fe installment. House of Eternal Return was one of, but not the only reason I wanted to come to Santa Fe in the first place. I was already a fan of Meow Wolf’s Denver exhibit, Convergence Station, which the whole family visited on our trip to Colorado this summer. I had a great time there but it left the rest of the family feeling tired and over stimulated. I felt a little bit bad about dragging everyone along on my whims, but that didn’t stop

Refrigerator that is also a portal to another dimension (?)

me from doing it again. Mom was very kind to me on this trip and was willing to spend quite a long time exploring the installation, which was designed as a house harboring numerous portals to other worlds in the aftermath of a mysterious “anomaly” involving the family that lived there. She claimed not to mind and told me that it was “better than the other one”. I had a great time wandering through the labyrinth of vibrantly themed rooms and unlocking pieces of the story on the accompanying app. We couldn’t believe how much of it there was to see! We made our way through most of the story but only found five or so of the twenty four variants of Nimsesku the hamster that were hidden about the place.

Super creepy clown room

Our next stop was Kakawa Chocolate House. One of their specialties is their drinking chocolate “elixirs”. We sampled several, including one that was completely unsweetened. We got some chocolate truffles to go, including their signature goat cheese and sage flavor, which Mom wasn’t sure about but I thought was pretty good.

After resting and playing a quick board game, we walked into town for our last stop of the day. Mom had read about Table For Two’s $10 happy hour drinks and appetizers. The restaurant turned out to be a bit fancier than either of us had expected, but the happy hour menu gave us an opportunity to sample several of their dishes without spending huge amounts of money. We tried mushroom risotto, crispy ravioli, pulled pork tacos, and beef kabobs, all of which were delicious.  

The view from our apartment’s terrace.

Zoe and I are on vacation this week, belatedly celebrating her graduation last May. She had narrowed own destination down to either Ashville, NC (and Great Smoky Mountains National Park), or Santa Fe, NM. Given the recent sad events in Ashville, Santa Fe it was.

Who would have thought – cactus in the snow!

Possibly November was not the ideal time to visit. When I think about New Mexico, I think about desert and cactuses and sunshine. What I don’t think about is snow. And yet, here we are — bundled up in hats and gloves, tramping through snowdrifts. A woman in a shop told me that they’d gotten as much snow in this one storm as they’d gotten all year last year. Luckily we didn’t get caught in the storm itself, and we’ve been enjoying abundant sunshine and blue skies (but with temps that only range from 30 to 50).

Botanical gardens and paper crane sculpture

By the time we arrived on Saturday and drove up from Albuquerque, we didn’t have time to do much but have a very late dinner and go to bed. We inadvertently picked a VERY popular restaurant, which still had an hour wait at 8:15pm. Luckily this gave us just enough time to drive to our apartment rental and get ourselves checked in.  We got right into the spirit of things with house margaritas and a delicious Mexican dinner (our first of many encounters with chili sauce — your choice of red or green — which comes on almost everything.  Zoe and I went with the “Christmas” option.)

We couldn’t see much around our apartment in the dark, so it was a lovely surprise the next morning to see the clear view of the distant mountains, the sun shining brightly on the snow-covered peaks.  We’re in a great location on the eastern edge of the city, close to hiking trails on one side and a short walk into the central plaza on the other.  We started our day with a brief foray to Trader Joe’s for some provisions, and marveled at how much cheaper the groceries are here.

We had to do a fair amount of logistical planning today, because some things are closed on Sundays and many things are closed on Mondays.  Another wrench was thrown into our plans when the food tour we’d signed up for was canceled due to lack of participation.  So we decided to start out at the Botanical Gardens, a short drive south.  It was a little odd being in gardens where many of the plants were dead and/or snow-covered, but it was very peaceful and serene.  We saw the giant stalk of an agave plant and learned that these plants put up only one such stalk in their lifetime, after 20-40 years, and that the stalk grows several inches each day.  We inhaled the fresh scent of the juniper pinion trees while strolling on a winding path through the forest.  And we loved all the sculptures gracefully placed throughout the grounds.

We started the afternoon by walking the short distance from our apartment to Fort Marcy Park and the Cross of the Martyrs, a large white steel cross overlooking the city.  Downhill on the other side brought us Santa Fe Plaza, the center of the tourist area of the city.  Santa Fe doesn’t exactly have the feel of a city like we’re used to — no tall buildings, not a lot of traffic.  There is a fair amount of sprawl, but the city center is pleasant and walkable, and full of independent shops and art galleries.  We had a delicious, if decadent, lunch composed of three different types of mac & cheese (out of a menu featuring at least 10 types).  We did a little shopping around the plaza and from the Native Americans selling their wares in an outdoor market along the edge.  We checked out the Loretto Chapel, which has an amazing spiral staircase that appeared on Unsolved Mysteries because no one can figure out how it was built.

In the late afternoon we’d signed up for a sunset tour with the Sky Railway.  (We’d originally wanted to do the tour that involved an e-bike trip out on the rail trail and a train journey back, but were foiled due to the snow.)  The train leaves right from the middle of the city.  It has live entertainment and drinks, and travels out of the city through beautiful scenery while watching the sun set over the mountains.  There is a “flatcar” that is basically a platform with railings, so you can stand outside and watch the scenery.  That is, until you turn into an icicle.  We spent a lot of time on the flatcar, with occasional forays indoors to listen to the music and thaw out.

After our return we headed to a nearby restaurant for dinner, and once again were foiled by a long line.  (It’s very odd — the streets here are pretty quiet at night, with not a lot of traffic and very few pedestrians — but the restaurants are somehow packed.)  By the time we finished dinner and started our long-ish walk back home, we were definitely ready for bed.  (Being on East Coast time is great for getting moving in the morning, but does not lend itself to late nights.)