Some Photos From Our Santa Fe Trip

I’m not a very good photographer.  I actually try NOT to take many photos when I travel because I’d rather just enjoy the environment when I’m there, and anyway, photos of a place are NEVER EVER as “good” or meaningful as being there.  Nevertheless when I see things that are interesting, pretty, or worth sharing, I snap a few pictures, and here are some I took from our recent drive to Santa Fe (from Dallas, via Amarillo, TX)

Leo and I try to do a selfie at least once on a trip, to prove we were there together LOL.  Here we are at Palo Duro canyon, which was AMAZING, and absolutely worth the drive/stopover in Amarillo.  I’m wearing an opal necklace he bought me from a gallery in Santa Fe, and am a walking advertisement for my Baggu fanny pack haha.

Another look at Palo Duro canyon.  I took quite a few pictures because it was so stunning, but it was hard to really capture the full beauty.  It was really hot down there and we were tired, so we didn’t do much walking, but we want to go back and hike a few of the many trails.

View from the top of the canyon.

A random house on my morning walk in Santa Fe.

Near the Georgia O’Keefe museum – the rock says “take time to look.”  Amen, Georgia.

Outside City Hall in Santa Fe (I think?).  Those are fish sculptures coming up from the ground and there were strings of chili peppers hanging from every street lamp in the city.

Loretto chapel in Santa Fe.  I LOVED the colors in Santa Fe – the pinks and bright blue of the sky…

To recap – Leo and I took a “last” solo trip for a while, before the baby comes, on Thursday.  We drove from Dallas to Amarillo on Thursday and then on to Santa Fe Friday morning.  The drive in Texas was pretty boring, it’s SO FLAT, but it was the first time I’d seen so many wind energy farms; those windmills are HUGE.  The drive from Amarillo to Santa Fe, however, was so beautiful.  We just kept pointing at mountains, etc., out the windows to each other.  Not that we’d never seen mountains before, but when you have spent most of your time in the Eastern US and live in Dallas, any terrain that’s not concrete, or pine trees is pretty special LOL.

We stayed in downtown Santa Fe because we like to park the car and walk everywhere.  We were basically there all of Friday afternoon and Saturday, so we just had time for a few museums and taking in the galleries and shops downtown.  I would have liked to have gone out to Ghost Ranch (Georgia O’Keefe’s home), but we’ll do that next time.

Western art isn’t necessarily my “thing” but I really enjoyed visiting all the many art galleries in Santa Fe.  Some were better than others, which goes without saying, and there were some amazing artists on display.  And while a lot of shops were really touristy (we didn’t go into any of those), quite a few were really unique and a pleasure to walk into.  We never buy souvenirs or anything when we travel, but this time, we picked up a few small things and one BIG thing we thought were really special.

The big thing was the opal necklace Leo bought for me from an independent jewelry designer in one of the galleries. I love opals (they were my grandmother’s favorite) and was really taken by the different colors/gradations of the stones on this necklace, even though I wouldn’t have necessarily considered it “my style.”  It’s sort of like wearing a string of pearls, but more interesting 😉

We ate lots of great food also, Spanish, Italian, and of course, Tex-Mex.  Leo enjoyed the chilis, which I avoided because I can’t seem to tolerate much spicy food lately.

We left Santa Fe early on Sunday morning to drive to Palo Duro canyon and then stop at Amarillo for the night before heading back home on Monday.  People here talk about Palo Duro and say it’s beautiful, but words, and even pictures, do not do it justice.  I can only imagine how amazing the Grand Canyon will be after this one (Palo Duro is the second largest canyon in the US), because it was stunning.

Anyway, I was really taken by Santa Fe and would love to go back sometime.  It was cooler than I thought it would be, especially when the sun wasn’t shining, so I was never quite warm enough given the light layers I brought with me, but I was happy 🙂