Day 7 Wednesday Sept 10 Love at First Site

Oh, how I love Santa Fe! it was a beautiful morning to explore Santa Fe..sunny and high 70s. The first thing we did was hop on a little tram for an hour long tour of the city. I learned that Santa Fe is a town of about 80,000 but has more art galleries than anywhere in the world after New York City and Paris! There are 11 museums and many historic buildings...including the oldest public building in America. Before I go on, I have to mention something incredible from the tour. As we were headed back to the plaza to end our tour, we saw a couple seated at a sidewalk cafe waving to us. It was Colin and Judy, the couple we met back in Oklahoma! We chatted again and then headed on to explore the Plaza.

The Palace of the Governors is a national landmark and is listed as the oldest continually used public building in the U.S. and was constructed back in 1618. It originally served as the seat of government of the Spanish Colony Nuevo Mexico and then later became New Mexico's first territorial capitol. It is now a museum. Native American Indiaans set up their blankets and sell their beautiful jewelry along side the building...nice things at fair prices.

There is now a New Mexico Hisory Museum adjacent to the Palace. Built in 2009, it blends in beautifully with the old pueblo styles. We were told that the city has strict codes in place to preserve the old feel of the town. Santa Fe is the state capitol but unlike most state capitol buildings, there is no dome because of the height restrictions.

The shops around the Plaza are incredible! Very beautiful things and VERY pricey! It was nothing to see a ring priced at $35,000 or more! The Cowboys and Indians (magazine) store of Santa Fe was one of my favorites.

The center of the Plaza is a shady park-like setting with music and benches. Very lovely!

There are several interesting churches in the center of town. One is the Basillica of St. Francis of Assissi which stands out architechually because of its French/European style.

Another is the Loretta Chapel with its incredible spiral staircase. An engineering wonder, the staircase is unsupported and without nails!

 We also saw the San Miguel Mission which was built in the early 1600s and is claimed to be the oldest church in the U.S.

We were fortunate to be in town to see a beautiful collection of art by Ethelinda that was on temporary display at one of the galleries near the plaza. Beautiful horse paintings with price tags around $30,000!

Besides the huge population of artists here, the movie industry is also a big part of the economy, with several studios located here. The series Longmire is filmed here, for instance. The Avengers was filmed here, as was Wyat Erp, City Slickers, and lots more. Robert Downing Jr is in town right now, but didn't catch a glimps of him :(  Actor Gene Hackman has lived here for 33 years and Ali McGraw also calls Santa Fe home. George Martin, author and screenwriter of Game of Thrones livesn here and Kenny Rogers Randy Travis have homes here.  Lots of other famous peeps...can't remember them all! I LOVE this town!
Did you know that when one hangs red chillis on their house (door usually) it is a welcome?

Santa Fe is at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The name means blood of Christ and is a fitting name because when the sun hits the mountains at just the right time, they look blood red. We were lucky enough to catch a glimps on our way to dinner.

Speaking of dinner, tonight we went to a WONDERFUL place called Cowgirls, We enjoyed great BBQ and Les was impressed with the unusual beer they had on tap. My favorite was Lips of Faith. They also had live music.. an energetic banjo and chello duet that was a lot of fun! Our Harley has a CD player so I bought their CD and will be listening to them again as we head on down the road. I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE THIS PLACE!

There is so much more to see...I have to come back!!!

Reading list: Santa Fe Trail, Southwest Indians and customs.