Santa Fe - 2/18/2011

After grabbing the camera battery from the outlet under the futon and some clothes from the dryer (yay reminder post-it notes!  The guy who had moved out the day before had left his laundry in the dryer.  He could have used some post-it notes), we began our exploration of Santa Fe.  First up was parking.  $10 for all day... Sold.  We had planned on heading to the Georgia O'Keefe museum since we had read that it was free but this was not the case.  Oh well, took a few pictures of the outside and moved on down the street.

Day 16 photos!

We came across a huge number of art galleries where no pictures were allowed and so descriptions will have to suffice.  The first we stopped at was the Clive Jones gallery of animation art.  A daffy duck bench had caught our eye and the fun theme continued throughout.  Next door was a more traditional gallery full of modern art :)  It was called the Patina gallery and the adjectives that popped into mind were crazy and elegant.  There was beautiful jewelry, some with sleek circle pieces and others with sharp bear claws.  Following Patinas in line was Hueys Fine Art.  When you first enter a sculpture of movement and embrace captures your attention immediately followed by a number of large beautiful landscapes.  Painting after painting had my admiration as they captured what the human eye and soul sees, far beyond the very different capabilities of a camera.  This gallery also included a number of spectacular old pots of which the owner of the originals, Bill Freeman, creates replicas to sell.  Apparently he is 88 years old send has been doing this for 55 years.  On the walls were more paintings by a variety of artists.  Don Prechtel had some interesting, but so so in my opinion, psintings of cowboys and Indians.  Robert Moore's paintings were breathtaking, not sure if it was because of or in spite of the gloppy paint... And my notes go on and on.  We stopped in to quite a few more galleries, but as it seems I took down more notes than most would care to read, I'll sort through them later.

After the galleries we came to our first historical site, the Palace of the Governor.  The entire front of the building was lined with people selling Indian art and jewelry.  The sand paintings were particularly pretty.  We headed into the actual building and were told that it was free after 5pm.  After taking a look at the lobby (cool Nichos and Greek revival style doorways and a picture of a fandango, lively dance) we were back on the street and headed to the main plaza where more art awaited.  As we walked we saw a man eating what looked like pulled pork out of a frito bag, um, strange.  However, we were soon distracted by the El Molero fajitos stand.  We got one to share.  Now, this sharing thing has been going really well, but splitting this fajita which would have been difficult to eat by itself, especially without silverware, was quite a feat.  It was also incredibly spicy and with our tongues on fire we began running around looking for some water.

A water fountain was finally found in a nearby mall type place.  It had more art and jewelry and also some really neat stores with boots and clothes.  I found a really amazing pair of shoes, leather slide ons with beading and they were even 10% off!  Unfortunately the original cost was $695. Boo.  However, there were also $5 earrings and Kat bought a really pretty pair with Indian catchers and feathers.  She lost them later that night, but that's okay because we have a picture.  With our tongues still burning a bit we began a new search, this one for ice cream. The store next to the mall had signs all over for famous frito pie.  Ah ha moment as we realized that that was what that guy had been eating earlier. In the next building we found hagan daaz ice cream.  It was crazy expensive for a tiny cup, $3.66, but really rich and yummy with large chunks of peanut butter.  Happy and content, we took off again, this time in search of the visitors center and bathrooms.

After following a ridiculously large number of blue signs, we finally arrived at the visitors center and it had bathrooms and free coffee.  Score! We were wilting a bit by this time.  According to a number of brochures, our next stop should be the capitol.  We arrived, and after taking a fun picture of a friendship statue, we entered to a throng of people there for Oil and Gas day.  After wading through that we made it to the senate room which Kat was scared to go into.  She missed a fun couple of minutes of the committee discussing new anti-bully laws and side tracks into the education budget.  Next up were three beautiful cathedrals/chapels.  Following our trusty map, we then came to the Institute of Native American Contemporary Art.  It was $10 so we didn't go in, but the lobby had books and books and books so we were happy browsing.  They also had a table of $1 things which included a puzzle of the American Indian dream with lipstick and ice cream, strange.  Let's see, Kat also bought a $1 book and we both tried a number of natural lotion samples and left smelling pretty.  Next up was a trip up a hill to see the Cross of the Martyrs.  The sky was full of beautiful clouds and we had a great view of the city.  Those pictures turned out pretty well.

We wanted to make sure to eat before the 5pm free museum extravaganza began and so we started to head back to the center of town.  On the way we passed a library and of course stopped in.  I started talking to one of the librarians and she is actually heading to Simmons College in June to begin her masters program there.  It was a lot of fun talking to her about possibilities in the field and we even exchanged emails.  She recommended a good Mexican place and we headed over to the Blue Corn Bar and Grill.  It was a yummy dinner of green chili relleno, chicken enchilada, and beef taco along with some sopapilla and a margarita to share.

After quite a bit of run around on which museums were actually free after 5, we headed to the governors' palace and the connecting history museum.  There we saw a pretty sweet full size wagon, a broken pot puzzle that Kat put together and an arrowhead that had been radiocarbon dated to 5040 BC.  Not as far back, but also pretty neat was a peek hole in the floor through which we could see some of the original foundation of the building, the oldest public building in continuos use.  In the actual history museum we saw a broader history of the area which took us from a ceiling hanging with arrows to another mention of the Navajo code talkers.  One quote stuck out, "Everything is quiet in Cimarron. Nobody has been killed in three days." This was from a copy of the Las Vegas gazette, late 1870's.  Makes us grateful to not have been there.  The top floor had a special exhibit which told the story of Ernest Thompson Seton, a wolf hunter turned conservationist.

It was getting close to the 9 o'clock closing time and so we headed over to the art museum.  As we walked in I had to smile as there was a huge collection of cloudscapes.  People who must love them as much as I do :) Here we were also able to see some of Georgia O'Keefe's work, always interesting.  The next room was also interesting with its politically motivated artwork.  Our wanderings completed, we headed to starbucks for a $1.50 cup of coffee (with lots of chocolate powder, milk and sugar added) and some Internet to write.  We also finally made contact with our host for the night and got directions.  Unfortunately, he couldn't help us find our car.  We wandered around for a bit, ran into some fish and had a fewnphone conversations, but did eventually get to our destination.  As we walked into the home, a living room full of people greeted us.  It was an amazing night of beer tasting and music playing.  Our host had traveled extensively and had stories and musical instruments from around the world.  It was not until the wee hours of the morning that we finally crashed (along with the 7 other people still in the house) and day sixteen of our trip came to a close.  Our host's roommate also gave up the only bed in the place to us, so we had a nice comfortable place to sleep (albeit only for a very few hours!).