Our Notebook

Santa Fe, Day 2

There is a genre of motorcycle travel reports which appear on various blogs and websites which are known as ride reports.  They’re very entertaining and some are well written, and I have very thoroughly enjoyed reading them.  Most of the really good ones are written by riders who go into a town, spend a day or two exploring and taking pictures, and spend a whole lot of time editing the pictures and creating the travelogues.  I now can see why it takes so long! I’m using WordPress, which is a wonderful piece of software, that makes editing easy and almost fun.

To best enjoy our pictures, and to read the description, click on the first image in the gallery to see a larger version, and then use the arrow keys, or click on the arrows at the bottom to advance to the next one.  Click on the enlarged picture to hide it and return to the gallery.

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Santa Fe prides itself as “the city different,” and it certainly qualifies.  Our casita, which we rented through Vacation Rentals By Owner (VBRO), is tiny but nicely furnished inside.  It features an adobe fireplace, a full kitchen and bath, and a nice bed.  It’s located about two  long blocks from downtown.

It was located right near the Canyon Road arts district; we drove down the ten blocks or so.  I haven’t seen so many upscale galleries anywhere.  Many of them feature outdoor sculptures which range from the whimsical to the weird.  Santa Fe had one of the first zoning laws – for 100 years you can only build in brown adobe with turquoise, white or red trim.  As a result, everything blends with the ground and each other, although some of the structures look a little strange – such as an adobe McDonalds, or the Scottish Rite Temple, which is probably the only building in the world in the Moorish Revival Adobe style.

Downtown we visited the usual tourist haunts, including the Palace of the Governors, built in 1610 and the oldest continuously occupied public structure in the U.S.  It’s now a state history museum, and Native Americans sell their wares under the awning.

I also stopped to see the New Mexico RailRunner, a commuter train that runs from Santa Fe to Albuquerque and beyond. For those of you from Chicago, think Metra in the desert.  Even though it was mid-day, the train was crowded.

Food – New Mexico’s cuisine is unique, delicious and very, very spicy; we found a Whole Foods store to buy some snacks and for the meals we didn’t eat out, and we also tried the blue corn tortillas and blue corn pancakes favored by the locals.

1 Comment

  1. w0det

    Looks realy good Steve. Neat job..
    Don
    W0det

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