The Southwest - Santa Fe and El Paso

Click here for our Santa Fe and El Paso pictures!

Santa Fe welcomed us to beautiful fall weather in the desert. We found a nice motel, the Santa Fe Motel and Inn, which was just a short walk to the plaza with nice quaint southwestern charm and a hot breakfast (that included green chili for the eggs). We spent our days touring the plaza, shops, art galleries on Canyon Road, and museums (Georgia O’Keeffe of course).

the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

Outdoor sculptures in Santa Fe

Of course we sought out the best southwestern cuisine.  Casa Chimayo was a hit on our first night with traditional southwestern dishes that included a wonderful mole sauce. We hit the Coyote Cantina for lunch, a little pricey but the outdoor roof top was just want we wanted. Another favorite was Maria’s, off the beaten path, but a great local hang out (rumor has it that Robert Redford has a favorite table there). Maria’s cuisine was deliciously spicy, and they featured Tequila tastings which Ryan indulged in. The margaritas were pretty potent too. On our last night we enjoyed dinner at La Boca, a Spanish tapas restaurant. We opted for the chef to pick our five dishes as they all sounded so good. He did a great job, pairing seared tuna, fresh salmon, shrimp, steak, and oxtail with different ingredients that enlightened our palates. Of course we also found a few breweries: Marble Tap house (which had shuffle board- Lisa won!) and the Second Street Brewery at the Depot, both of which we liked. We were lucky to be there for a weekday Farmer’s Market where we sampled the roasted chilies and other fall crops.

We took one day and drove to Taos for a day hike and to check out the ski hill. The hike up Italiano Canyon was just okay as there were not many views of the fall colors and surrounding mountains as we had hoped, but it was a good day to burn a few calories.

Italiano Canyon hike near Taos

Sunset over Santa Fe

Our good friends Miranda and Keagan and their almost two year old son Corban moved to El Paso Texas from Vermont at the beginning of the summer.  When we realized El Paso was just five hours from Santa Fe, we decided to drive through the state of New Mexico to visit them. We brought rain (and lots of it) with us to El Paso, as our Vermont friends asked us for. We had a great weekend dining on Texas style BBQ and our own home cooked Mexican meal.

On Saturday we explored Hueco Tanks State Park, famous for world class bouldering so Ryan was really excited. We saw some amazing parts of the park and pictographs on our guided tour. In the afternoon we explored some of the park on our own and Ryan was able to boulder. The huecos are rounded out holes in the rock where the Indians would collect water. The cool thing was that we were there after a storm so the huecos had water in them. It was a fun weekend with dear friends.

Hueco Tanks SP

From El Paso we headed back north to the Great Sand Dunes in Southern CO.  More to come soon!