I Heart New Mexico

After our camping trip, Ricardo and I drove on the back road through the Jemez Caldera (the big bowl that is left from the explosion of one of the world's largest volcanoes way back when) to Santa Fe. We stayed for one night at a sweet little bed and breakfast just off the plaza and got a chance to recover a bit from the camping lifestyle of the previous night.

Rico had never seen anything like the City Different, and kept commenting that he felt as if he were in the wild west or on a movie set.

Everything about New Mexico - the architecture, the food, the art - is so normal to me that I sometimes forget what a trip it can be for someone who has never had a taste of this unique culture. I mean, where else are cow skulls and ristras staples in the home decorating realm?

If I had a dollar for every time Rico said something along the lines of, "This architecture is soooooo weird!" I'd be a rich woman after our trip to Santa Fe. Despite the strange-ness of it all, I think Rico really appreciated our experience.

Most of our time was spent wandering around the plaza and remarking how ridiculously expensive everything was! Ah, the perils of a tourist town... It was fun to watch everyone mill around, wearing cowboy boots and broom skirts and showing off their new southwestern jewelry purchases.

The best part of our trip was dinner on Saturday at a tapas bar I'd read a review about in the tourist magazine in our room. We were wanting a light, early meal and wandered in the restaurant around 6pm. After giving us a bit of attitude for not having reservations, the hostess showed us to the only 2 open seats in the house - at the bar, right in front of a stage where she informed us there would be a flamenco show an hour later!

We really lucked out, as our lowly bar stools turned out to be th best seats in the house. The music and dancing were very good, I got to scratch my Spanish itch by shouting out "Olé!" all night, and we had the most fabulous tapas imaginable. Ricardo tried scallops for the first time and was hooked, so much so that we had to make them again while in California.

The next morning we hit the road and made our way back to my dad's house via Albuquerque...

I took Rico up into the Sandia foothills and showed him the house my mom and I lived in for a few years while I was in middle / high school. The house is the one on the right in the photo above. We didn't used to have a neighbor when we lived there, but the view in the other direction is still spectacular.

You can see the entire city and beyond, all the way to the Jemez where we'd camped a few nights earlier. Moments like this I understand why I feel claustrophobic in cities where you have no view and can't see the horizon.

We also visited old town, the historical heart of Albuquerque. Here is the city's oldest church, San Felipe de Neri.

This is how Rico and I spent a good portion of our vacation: me driving (incredibly well given that I've not driven a "regular" car for 1.5 years) and Rico navigating and appreciating the scenery. Here he bravely held my camera out the window as we drove down I-25 to get a portrait.