Santa Fe, NM, was the victim of our explorations today. We started by exploring the interweb for the best breakfast in town and found out that the interweb lies. Foolishly taking the advice of many satisfied but stupid contributors, we went to have breakfast at Tecolote. Tecolote means boring breakfast in Spanish. The food was nominal and the prices were okay but nothing to write home about.
After finishing our mundane breakfast we jumped back in Charlotte and headed for the downtown section of Santa Fe referred to as “The Plaza.” The streets of Santa Fe are very narrow and downtown parking near The Plaza is scarce. Driving around in this ‘hood is best performed with a little, fast car because drivers in this area seem to fit into two categories; those that go really slow because they are suffering from road dementia and those who go really fast nicely cutting off their road mates while running lights and stop signs.
We found an underground parking structure downtown and pulled into two nice spots with our enormous F-250. We emerged from the parking structure into what is touted as an authentic reproduction of the old Santa Fe city center plaza. There is a really pretty old church adjacent to the plaza and there are some old buildings but quite a few of the buildings are relatively new unless old buildings had electronic elevators and ADA accessibility features when built.
The Plaza is very pleasant with big shade trees, ample benches so you can relax in the shade and a variety of vendor stands or kiosks selling fajitas, carnitas, painted tiles, jewelry and lots of other crafts. These vendors have pretty good prices for their food and wares but beware if you go into one of the surrounding replicant buildings because you will not find good prices there. Turquoise earrings are $20-$40 in The Plaza but start at about $120 in the stores. Most of the buildings are single-story with Southwest / Pueblo architecture and the area is quite attractive if you like that kind of stuff. Beware of uneven pavement edges, steps up at door thresholds and very low lintels over doors. Head cracking opportunities abound because of the substandard, but authentic, openings for stupid, puny doors associated with this type of architecture. Walls are either made from adobe (a form of mud with straw in it) or modern materials made to look like adobe and walls are very thick because the building material is so flimsy. Adobe dissolves into its constituents if it gets wet.
We strolled through this area and, if you don’t have head wounds, it is quite attractive. We went into the local cathedral where they have magnificent stained glass windows surrounded by gorgeous frescoes. We also cruised through the La Fonda Hotel which has a very nice lobby area with great interior accents. We also went into one of the multiple Native American or politically incorrectly named Indian museums, this one entitled the Institute of American Indian Art Museum. I was looking for art created in the past by local indigenous persons and soon found this was not correct museum for this kind of stuff. The IAIAM was art created by some native folks and some whitey material in the Indian motif but mostly it was modern which wasn’t what I was trying to see.
We met a dog named Stella on the sidewalk who was a miniature bull terrier and she was not only gorgeous but extremely happy to be out in the world where everyone could love her. She stopped us for some time and her owner was nice enough to hang around while we adored her. I was tempted to steal her. I miss my dogs that are back in San Diego.
We left the downtown area crossing over a few one way and some very narrow roads and drove to an area called Museum Hill where there is a Native American Museum with cultural and art exhibits from the recent and distant past. Peggy and I wandered around in this place for a couple hours and had a great time. Unfortunately, the museum does not allow photography so I could only get a few illegal exposures of some of the great exhibits. I am brokenhearted that I am such a dreadful camera criminal and if I was a Catholic, I would go confess my sins. Fortunately, I am not constrained by such silliness so I may continue my behavior as a miscreant.