Santa Fe, summer 2019

A short drive from Albuquerque gets you up to 7,000 feet of elevation and the Santa Fe community. We were invited to stay at a lovely home owned by one of our clients. We are now spoiled. Anyway, the flight into Albuquerque was pleasant, and traveling to a "small" airport is very nice. We opted for the quickest route, up the interstate. Since we run back home, the altitude was not "terrible" but we could surely feel it since we live at sea level! In early August, the days were warm and the nights were cool; a nice break from the summer heat in Texas.

There's a LOT to do in Santa Fe, but we focused on finding good hikes for this trip. On our first full day we hiked the Tent Rocks Trail, which is about an hour south of Santa Fe, but the drive was very easy and the the terrain was fascinating. Here's a link: https://www.blm.gov/visit/kktr . Tent Rocks can get VERY busy, with park entry waits of over an hour. Since we went early on a Friday, there was no wait at all, and not many people on the trails. It's about a 3 mile hike and although it's listed as easy/moderate, we believe the elevation made it more of a challenge. That being said, there were a number of children who made it to the top. On day two, we opted for a "shaded" hike, so went north east of Sante Fe; an easy drive to several hiking areas in the Santa Fe forest area. We chose Black Canyon campground. https://explorenm.com/camping/BlackCanyon/ . This was a Saturday, so parking was more of a challenge. The trail was not crowded, and although the trees were not nearly as tall as the Red Woods in California, we found it to be almost as peaceful as the Muir Woods. We also attended the Santa Fe Opera. If you go during Opera season, please put this on your list. Our hosts prepared a nice tailgate meal; that activity is encouraged in the Santa Fe Opera parking lot. You should also know that EVERY seat has it's own small screen with the translation right in front of you. It was very nice to be able to understand what they were singing!

We had a couple of lunches at "local" restaurants near downtown Santa Fe. Our hosts treated us to dinner at The Pink Adobe. It was very nice eating in their outside patio on an August evening. There are lots of good choices if you don't have a kitchen on your vacation. Seems like the "good" restaurants require reservations. 

We also visited the Loretto Chapel and walked by several historic buildings near the downtown square. We only got a small taste of the local art scene, although our hosts drove us down "Canyon Road" (near the square), which has many galleries. Our hosts noted that Santa Fe is ranked # 3 for art in the USA after only New York and Los Angeles. The only down side is that parking downtown is pretty limited. We surely didn't run out of things to do in our three day visit to Santa Fe!

A friend who has spent lots of time in Santa Fe suggested that instead driving the Freeway from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, we use one of the state highways which would be more scenic.  We have already found several choices for next summer's Santa Fe Opera season, so we are planning to return! If we stay "in town" we will look for a short term house rental on the north east side of downtown, maybe about 1/2 mile out, so we can walk into downtown and not worry about parking. There are several hikes and areas we would like to visit in the future, including Bandelier National Monument, Los Alamos, and perhaps Taos.

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