How I Spent My Christmas Vacation, part III: 14 hours, 4 States and 1 Day in Santa Fe
Now I like road trips lots, but I didn't like the idea of 14 hours by myself. 1st leg was Vegas to Santa Fe and an overnight stay to recharge. I got really excited when I started seeing snow as I climbed into the mountains of AZ. The couple hours I drove around Flagstaff were particularly nice - mountains and woods and snow. Made me feel like everything was right again in the world. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring the W00t Monkey along this time.
After surviving the particularly brutal drive from Albequerque to Santa Fe in the dark and finding a hotel, I had some tasty New Mexican cuisine (carne adovado with red and green chili and sopapillas) as well as a well deserved margarita at Tortilla Flats. Nice little buzz, did a little work and went to bed. The next morning at 6 am, I flipped on the Weather Channel and learned that, in fact, that storm that gave Seattle a white Christmas was bearing down hard on Denver. 6 inches predicted and the tip of the storm came down to Santa Fe to drop an inch there! So I rubbed my bleary eyes, thought about the situation a bit and decided no-go. It just didn't seem like a good idea. Instead, napped till 9:30 and headed into Santa Fe to explore the city since I'd always heard good things about it and I wanted to visit the O'Keefe musem. Santa Fe is a nice little city to go exploring in by yourself and there were lots of people in town for skiing that took the day off to do the tourist thing. Grabbed some breakfast at a local cafe that turned out to be delicious and kept me full for the next 7 hours. Sweet! Walked around the plaza and window shopped, went to the Christmas Store, visited the museum, and wandered around some of the churches/historical buildings in the area as well as Burro Alley. Nice and relaxing. While at the Christmas store, I saw a Darth Vader nutcracker. Wicked awesome! There were also ice sculptures in the town center and it was gorgeous to see the snow on the southwestern style buildings.
I particularly enjoyed the Church because of it's mix of Catholic and Southwestern motifs. And I really loved seeing Georgia O'Keefe's works up close and in person. She has such an amazing sense of color. Especially autumn colors, but my favorite was a painting inspired by seaweed.
The next day, I woke up early to 12 degree temperatures and headed North to get to Denver. I was pretty exhausted of driving at this point and the snow blowing and the high winds prevented me from taking pictures while I drove. It was lovely to see the snow-capped mountains to the left however. By Pueblo, I was just dying to be done and my back was killing me. By Castle Rock, I was excited because I knew the end was near. Of course when I got on 225 to head home, there was traffic. At 2 in the afternoon. The best part had to be when I got home (YAY!) and then had to shovel out a spot to park in before I could unload and unwind (BOO!). 45 minutes later, I was parked, unloaded and napping. I am really bummed about not taking pictures of the 6-9 inches of snow on the ground.
The next day, I woke up early to 12 degree temperatures and headed North to get to Denver. I was pretty exhausted of driving at this point and the snow blowing and the high winds prevented me from taking pictures while I drove. It was lovely to see the snow-capped mountains to the left however. By Pueblo, I was just dying to be done and my back was killing me. By Castle Rock, I was excited because I knew the end was near. Of course when I got on 225 to head home, there was traffic. At 2 in the afternoon. The best part had to be when I got home (YAY!) and then had to shovel out a spot to park in before I could unload and unwind (BOO!). 45 minutes later, I was parked, unloaded and napping. I am really bummed about not taking pictures of the 6-9 inches of snow on the ground.
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