Field Trip to Sante Fe, part three

Sunday we were headed back to Denver, and took the High Road to Taos first.

We stopped at the Tesuque Flea Market just north of Sante Fe. It is on Indian land and they do not allow photographs. It was a nice market for jewelry, rugs, and yard art. It did not have any of the grungy rusty bits I like or vintage doo-dads.

We stopped in Chimayo to see the church. It is known for healing and has special healing dirt which you can take with you.  They were having mass so we could not really go inside and explore.

Then we stopped to look at the church in Las Trampas. The door was padlocked so we could not go inside.

It has been probably 12 years since I visited this area. It is amazing to me how much the church in Chimayo has flourished and expanded their grounds, compared to how run down the church in Las Trampas looked.  

Scenic view from the High Road. The puffy clouds were awesome that day!

We went to Taos Peublo just north of Taos. I had to pay extra to use my camera but it was well worth it. It is a very photogenic place and it was hard to pick photos to post here. I get fry bread when I come here, it's kind of like a giant sopapilla. There are quite a few locals that sell fry bread, Navajo Tacos, or have little gift shops as a part of their home here.

 Love those clouds!

 

We went to lunch at Orlando's in town. It is spicy! I found it a bit too spicy, but Allen thought it was great. Then back to Denver, while I read Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich and took pictures of puffy clouds out the car window.

Field trip to Sante Fe, part two

Saturday morning, we decided to go to Canyon Road. We did a quick stop at the farmer's market first. It had a lot of produce, and across the street there was a small area with artists.  We couldn't really buy any produce while on vacation, so I am not sure I would consider it a tourist destination.  Instead of eating breakfast at the hotel though, we should have gotten a pastry or something here. They looked delicious.

We took our hotel shuttle over to Canyon Road. We went into a lot of galleries and I thought it was great. They definitely have a very high caliber of art here.

I really like Geoffrey Gorman's work. He makes these animals out of cloth and wire and hardware. This one was on exhibit in a display in the La Fonda hotel, but he had works in a gallery on Canyon Road as well.

For lunch we went to The Compound. 

Allen got the soft crab sandwich. I got the scallops with crispy pork belly and a rhubarb glaze. It came with polenta "croutons", which were large polenta squares and not hard like a crouton. The whole thing was delicious. I think it is the best pork belly and best polenta I've ever had. They kind of overwhelmed the scallops, but it was all wonderful.

We wandered down Canyon Road some more after lunch. Later in the day we went to the Marble Brewery Tap room for pizza and beer on their upstairs patio that overlooks the square. I was disappointed that they only had beer (no wine, no margaritas) but it is a brewery after all.  After dinner, we walked to the top of the hill at Marcey's Fort. I was hoping for a good sunset, but it was an hour from sunset and the clouds were rolling in.

Field trip to Sante Fe, part one

This past weekend, my husband and I went to Sante Fe for a long weekend. It's about a 6 hour drive from Denver.  It was a lot of fun. I liked the "high desert" feel and we saw a lot of art. It doesn't have much going on in the evenings. Most stores are closed by 6 and restaurants by 10. Not that we are late night party people, but there wasn't much to do after dinner.

Sante Fe does have some cute shops.  We went to Guadalupe's Fun Rubber Stamps on Don Gasper, as well as Doodlet's right next door. I didn't need any stamps, but Guadalupe's had some special paper to apply pictures to mica, which I wanted to try. Doodlet's is kind of a card/gift shop, but had some unique things. It was fun to poke around. I also liked Sante Fe Weaving Gallery, around the corner, at 124-1/2 Galisteo Street. There were some woven jackets, but many things were not woven. They had some lovely fiber necklaces and nuno felted jackets.

 We ate breakfast at Pasqual's cafe on Don Gasper. I had their huevos motulenos, which has feta, peas, and sauteed bananas with eggs over easy (long with green chili and other stuff). It was really good. 

We went to the Georgia O'Keefe museum. It was smaller than I thought it would be, and seemed to have the same or similar pieces as the Georgia O'Keefe show that was just in Denver.

We also went to the International Folk Art Museum which is a couple miles out of town. I really was not impressed at all and I think it was due to the way the items are displayed. They are all crowded together behind glass and reminded me of smaller (and much older) museums that just throw it all out there without any rhyme or reason. I would have liked it to either been organized by continent or region, or just show a lot less pieces so I could focus on the beauty of 1,000 objects, instead of being overwhelmed by 130,000 with none being displayed more prominently than the next. Maybe kids would like it?  

 

We went to La Boca for dinner. It is a tapas restaurant. We shared quite a few small plates, but the pork special was the best! After dinner we went to the Fine Arts Museum, as they are open until 8 on Friday nights and evening entry is free. The art downstairs was nice but nothing really grabbed me. They had an interesting video artist, Peter Sarkisian (link), upstairs which was quite interesting.