Santa Fe

So we came back from Santa Fe a day early due to, well let's say, some intestinal issues... but it was a great time up until that time...

The city itself is a cool place to go, if you don't mind some traffic and expensive places to shop and eat... though in January it wasn't all that crowded... I can imagine in the summer it's much worse.

We went to a couple museums and historic buildings in Santa Fe on the first full day, including the San Miguel Mission (the oldest church building in the US), the Wainwright Museum, the Georgia O'Keefe Museum (which apparently closes viewing of her paintings in January - bummer), and a few other places.

The next day we went up to Bandelier National Monument... to get there you pass through a couple Native American Pueblos and past Los Alamos National Labs (lots of security at those entrances). Absolutely beautiful... cloudy but oh so nice... we took the 1.2 mile loop hike past the cliff houses and through the valley... way cool... I'm glad we were there when there weren't a ton of people and we could take our time. The sun came out on the return trip through the valley and gave us a great view of the cliff walls.

We then drove past a rock mesa called "Black Mesa". WOW. I just wish there were a couple nice puffy white clouds in the sky above the mesa, but you can't have everything, especially when you're just driving past.

I'll try to upload some pictures in a bit... this connection is wicked slow.