Thursday June 6 and Friday June 7 2024

June 05, 2024

Thursday June 6 and Friday June 7 2024

Thursday June 6

Off to Santa Fe today – long drive, six hours. Broke up the day with a few stops for coffee and gas and passed the time by listening to an audiobook. The scenery was excellent even though we were mostly on an Interstate – we do try to avoid the main highways if possible.

Rolled into Sante Fe and stopped at a Sprouts Grocery store for supplies then headed up into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains just east of Santa Fe. The campground was at 8,400 feet ASL so the truck had a bit of work to do to haul Free-da up to our campsite. After filling up our fresh water tank (no water hookups) we settled in to our very private alpine style campsite. Before dinner we took a short walk to stretch our legs on one of the parks many wooded, alpine trails. The area reminded me of Cloudcroft where we had gone to escape the desert heat…lots of Pine, Spruce and Aspen trees and a lot cooler because of the elevation.

Quiet evening under the stars.

Friday June 7

Our only full day in the Santa Fe area, for some reason I only booked us for a 2 night stay.

Started our day with the Circle Trail hike, the main trail in the park. It has an elevation change of 1000 feet but the trails were smooth forest pathways without many rocks to navigate. At the summit (8,440’) we enjoyed some excellent views of the desert below as well as stunning views of other peaks in the Sangre de Cristo range. Ski Santa Fe has a great alpine ski center just up the road from the campsite with a base elevation of over 10,000’. The final leg of the hike passed the park visitor center. One of the rangers informed us that a ranger talk was in progress and that they were featuring two animals inside the visitor center. We decided to check it out and enjoyed learning about box turtles (they had a rescue turtle on hand) and a Turkey Vulture who was also rescued when it was very young. The vulture is now over 30 years old and thinks it is a human! Big ugly bird – but quite amazing in it’s ability to thrive in desert conditions. The box turtle was cool too.

We finished off our hike then headed downtown! We drove into Santa Fe and went immediately to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in the center of town. Neither of us knew much about her or her work, so we left there with an appreciation for what she achieved in an era that wasn’t very receptive towards strong, independent women. Very enjoyable.

Afterwards we toured some shops and galleries…hundreds of galleries and a lot of of tacky stuff. Overall, there was just too much of everything and it got a bit tiring trying to take it in. There was some beautiful stuff too... the volume was a bit overwhelming. We went for an early supper, one of the few times we went out to eat and enjoyed a great meal at a traditional Mexican restaurant. We were early and the restaurant was quiet – and it was delicious.

Our final stop of the day was the Santa Fe Railyards – a recently developed and still developing area that has a central space where music and other events are staged. This evening there was a stage set up and two Mexican bands were lined up and it was all free! The music was very lively and there was lots of dancing and many people out enjoying a beautiful Friday evening. There were a few brew pubs close by with lots of people on the patios enjoying some beers and the music.

A bit after sundown while the second band was well into their set, we decided to head back to our mountain retreat and relax on our last night in the Santa Fe area.