A Travel Post—New Mexico Part 3

Next day = Sunday.  We cooked up some breakfast and checked out of our Santa Fe condo.  It was a super windy day.  We had an afternoon appointment and didn’t have much time, so we did a grocery store run to get something quick for lunch.  Gary scored a nice huge umbrella from the clearance stuff, $3.  He thought it would fit fine sideways across the bottom of my suitcase.  It didn’t, but we did manage to get it home since Southwest Airlines let us carry it on without a word.  Canes and umbrellas are like freebie carry-ons.   

Apparently chicken salad doesn’t even exist in Santa Fe, or at least not at the grocery store we were at, so I got a little tub of macaroni salad and Gary got a premade turkey sandwich.   And we finished off this for our lunch.   

 

We spotted an Open House sign like we were hoping for, so we checked it out since we were eager to see more home interiors.  We knew the exteriors were so different than what we are used to, and were naturally curious what the inside would be like.   The house we happened to stumble upon was a four bedroom, adobe-looking house on a hillside right beside a trail.  With a price tag of $950,000.  It had rough brick floors throughout (what about your crawling baby’s knees?) with the viga wooden beams and corbels at the top of the porch posts.  Not a fancy house at all, but so pricey I guess because of the location and rockscaping.  We learned so much from the realtor about the architecture, for example, that the Pueblo features are now more just ornamental and not really structural.   The modern houses are wood framed just like at home, but then stucco’d for the adobe look.

 

Here are a few random samples of the houses of Santa Fe and Albuquerque 

 

 

 

 

This one below was really cool looking!

 

 

 

 

After the Open House, we made it to our appointment on time despite the GPS scaring me into thinking it’d take another hour to arrive (it stayed on Central time apparently).  We treated ourselves to some serious luxury at the 10,000 Waves Japanese Spa.  Oh my my.  It involved four hours of nakedness in private and communal tubs and showers and saunas and massages and the fanciest toilet on Earth--and I will leave it at that, but if you should ever find yourself in Santa Fe, go there!  I have experienced nothing like that before in my life, but never too old for something new, right?  It was wonderful.  Awkward a time or two, but hey, worth it and definitely memorable. 

Gary grabbed some cold Singapore Noodles from their food area to share since we were there so long and were needing a snack after our lame lunch in the car, and those noodles were so good, really like a sweet treat.  I want more sometime.

My new favorite Japanese word is Ichiban, and that means “best.”  Totally fits the whole experience.

Looking relaxed and happy here, I think, and thank god, dressed, you say.  We were reluctant to, but finally had to just leave.   It was such an awesome place, really.

 

By the way, the spa story was the racy part. 

I definitely did not mean our Corolla. 

By then it was evening and we were headed back south from Santa Fe towards Albuquerque.  We came across another little hole in the wall local Mexican restaurant, our m.o. that so far had been a huge success every meal time we were out.  It was a family name and now I can’t recall it, but Gary said it was his most impressive meal of our entire trip.  It was in an old Pizza Hut building on the outer edge of Santa Fe on Cerrillos Road.

He had a steak and enchilada and I had a chicken breast with a creamy pineapple sauce with rice and beans and it was so unusual, but so, so good. 

I drove us to Albuquerque which is only like an hour from Santa Fe.  Gary kept questioning if I was doing ok with the car.  It was my first time behind the wheel of the Corolla.  I was fine, but the wind gusts were taking me everywhere over the road.  By the time we got to Albuquerque, I was exhausted and just wanting to hit the bed.  We walked into our room at the Plaza Inn and you would have sworn the huge sliding glass door out to the balcony was wide open.  Wind was whistling through so loudly and the traffic noise made you think you were actually sitting on the highway, no kidding. 

I didn’t care since I was so tired, but Gary went down to complain and see if we could be moved.  They gave us a room across the hall as another option, but it was smaller and noisy, too, so we stayed were we were.  This was a drastically severe turn-around from our sweet and peaceful Santa Fe and not one Gary was too pleased with, so he did some yoga to help find his inner calm.  As I slept, he worked up some shims for the glass door (next morning I wondered why the little bar of hotel soap was crushed into a thousand pieces) and the night was bearable.  He McGyvered it somehow with a washcloth.

Monday morning was very cold and windy, but beautifully sunny.  We were to return the Corolla that morning, so Gary drove it to the airport and ran back the 4 miles to the Plaza Inn that now he referred to as our motor lodge.  He was very pleased to find he could fill the Corolla tank for just $40 even though we had driven 400 miles.  He said he topped it off three times, thinking there was no way that’s all the gas we used driving around all those days; 11 gallons, I think?  Makes you kinda rethink the full-size truck and van for a minute.  And then you remember how doggy the engine power was and how the wind could about pick you up off the highway.  Ok, over that.

It was 30-some degrees and super windy as I mentioned, so Gary wasn’t even that warm by the time he got back from his run.  He wanted a hot tub and swim so we got dressed for that to find the pool area was closed for a couple of hours for maintenance.  This place was not our favorite hotel for sure by now.  But they were very nice in offering to shuttle us around, so we went to Old Town Albuquerque and spent most of the day walking, investigating shops and having, yes, another Mexican meal, but this time on our own private patio under a pergola at The Church Street Cafe.  We tried something different and that was Indian fry bread.  I had mine as a taco and Gary had his with a hamburger and fries.  That was another good meal.  We batted 100% on this trip in terms of delicious food.

       

Gary enjoyed his sunshine and reading time while I cruised through shops to gather some souvenirs for the kids.  It took some looking, but we came up with this loot:  a little glass kitty for Caroline (got this at the Japanese spa actually), a bracelet and ring for C, maracas for Sam and C, a sheriff badge and pistol for Sam, an Art of Star Wars book for Grant and camo hat for Jack (from yard sales), bullwhips for Jack and Grant (huge and real leather for $6, can you believe that?!), and wood/leather slingshots for all four.  The weapon-type gifts come with strict instructions and supervision, so don’t be worrying.  It’s not like we brought home another go-cart.

I saw a man being asked to leave one of the gift shops because of his exposed firearm at his waist, even though New Mexico is an open carry state.   I noticed the ladies’ purses in the shops were often touted as ‘concealed carry purses.’  Interesting, coming from ol’ Illinois.

We walked on to the Science of Natural History and that was so educational.  Lots of amazing dinosaur stuff of course, and I learned more about those wonderful geological layers that make this area so beautiful.   This desert was an ocean floor for years, among many other things.  That the Earth has been changing drastically for millions of years, all of its own doing, makes me just say blah to the whole it’s-our-fault global warming baloney. 

Uh-oh, what’s going on? Getting a little too political talking guns and global warming.   Here, back to typical Gills-A-GoGo fluff….

    

Look!  My Zumba shoes glow in the dark.  

 

 

 

We took a wonderful rest on the side of a sunny slope of this neighboring park to recharge.

Yes, some green!, and then we walked back into the Old T0wn area.  

Here’s when we heard the story about Grant and the go-cart and the lawn mower blade as his brake.  It sounded really scary and really funny, all wrapped together. 

After a quick but unsuccessful cruise through Walgreens once we realized we might need another carry-on bag to bring stuff home in, we watched break dancers practicing on that yellow town gazebo you can see above Gary’s phone elbow while we waited for our ride.  

We did a trial run at packing back at the hotel and found we were ok, if I left the boot box behind and wore my boots.  No prob since they were so comfy right from the start.  Then we went out for a late supper at again another great Mexican place, La Cuatros, suggested by our driver, Vance.   I had a chicken chimi and Gary tried carne adovada, a pork in red chile dish.  We left the place stuffed and happy.

Next morning, after a quick breakfast and shuttle to the airport, we were on our plane back home.  Well, after that little incident with the wrong boarding passes.  Somehow we must have tossed the ones printed out for our return flight and accidentally tried to reuse the ones we had originally coming out on the trip.  I got us ejected from the line we had been waiting in when I presented the used ones and we had to start over again.  And Gary stubbed his bare toe in the security screening area, but other than that it was a most fabulous vacation.  

No plane crisis either direction, so yay!

Thank you, family, for supporting us leaving home for a few days and helping out in all ways that you did.  I regret that we left so early on April 1 and missed the chance for an entire day of pranks on the kids, but hey, there’s next year.

Moral of the story:  Everyone should visit Santa Fe!  And don’t wait so long for such a rockin’ vacation!