Santa Fe

Sunday, February 17 - Monday, February 18

As we drove farther north in NM, things seemed less barren but still pretty sparse.  I noticed the land was less flat and there seemed to be more vegetation, though we hit darkness before seeing a whole lot of change.  We still seemed to be on the only road around for the most part.  We reached Santa Fe late (maybe arond 9, 9:30? I can't quite remember), and though we were tired, we decided to trek to a place called Cowgirl's BBQ for dinner.  It was a neat little restaurant/bar with live music à la Neil Young and Bob Dylan, where I thoroughly enjoyed a delicious steak fajita platter.  

A Little Difficult to Tell, but this is Cowgirl's BBQ

Yum! My Delicious Steak Fajita Platter

The city seemed to be very quiet with many places closed on a Sunday night. The next morning we walked into town to peruse the shops we'd heard good things about, but nothing seemed to open until 10:00! We were trying to depart for our next destination around noon to avoid driving at night, so we walked into town before most places were open. We killed time walking around and visiting a few places open early. In one jewelry store we met a salesperson from Mount Laurel in New Jersey! It's such a small world.

It was easy to see why so many people like Santa Fe. It's filled with adorable boutiques and vintage shops, plus it has a bustling art scene that includes beautiful jewelry and turquoise as far as the eye can see! It felt like a hipster's paradise to me (in a good way haha, non-hipsters invited too!). I found an excellent pair of high-waisted levi bellbottoms in a thrift (read: high-end vintage) store that I was sad to discover were way too small for me :( But no worries--I ended up finding a great bag that I got and put to use as a new camera bag!

Shop in Santa Fe

A Fabulous Vintage Find

We ended our shopping spree in order to get an early lunch so we could be on the road before we burned too much daylight. We decided to go to a place near the railyard named Tomasita's, which opened just before we arrived. It's a reasonably-priced mexican restaurant with warnings about how hot the chiles are, and it has great ratings online. It's a great thing we decided to go early--by the time we had finished lunch there was a HUGE line waiting to get in! It seems to be a fortunate theme that we 'stumble upon' gems as we travel! Side note: the food wasn't even very spicy! It was good but I was honestly a little disappointed to miss out on the heat. My cousin wondered whether they could tell we were tourists and dialed it down.

Mural in Santa Fe

Artsy Walk Signs in Santa Fe