Do You Know the Way to Santa Fe?

Earlier this year our friend Thomas reached out to us about doing a road trip. He's been living in the UK and wanted to take his first post-vaccination trip back to the US to visit family and friends. After considering a bunch of options, we decided on a week long mostly outdoor adventure - a road trip from Albuquerque to Salt Lake City, passing through four states, three national parks, and several historic sites. This was David's first visit to New Mexico, his 48th state (look out South Dakota and Alaska; we're coming for you soon!), and it was the first time for any of us to visit the national parks in the area.

Our 1,000 mile-long route.

We left Atlanta on a Saturday morning. Right after landing in Albuquerque, Paul started with a little time at Cliff's amusement park riding roller coasters while David went back to the airport to pick up Thomas, since he was flying in from Phoenix. Cliff's is a small but cute park that happens to have a pretty decent wooden coaster - the New Mexico Rattler. After a few rides, the three of us went to downtown Albuquerque. It's a bit quiet, but does have a several nice old buildings and a few blocks of walkable streets. For lunch we took a short drive northwest of downtown to Sawmill Market, New Mexico's first food hall. It reminded us a bit of Krog Street Market in Atlanta. We walked around Old Town for a bit. It's a small touristy area with some shops and a pleasant main square fronted by a church. Some of the adobe buildings in the area are from the 1700s.

The New Mexico Rattler. Yay, new credit!

The Kimo Theatre is Art Deco Pueblo Revival style.

David and Thomas ready for some lunch!

Lots of food stalls throughout the market.

A cute café in historic old town Albuquerque.

There was a wedding at the San Felipe de Neri church.

After spending half the day exploring Albuquerque, we hit the road for the 45 minute drive up to Santa Fe. Sante Fe itself is an interesting community. It's a quite old city, with buildings dating back to the 1600s. It has changed hands many times throughout history (Spanish, Mexican, and eventually American) which adds layers to this city. Today, Sante Fe is a center of government, arts, and culture in New Mexico. The architecture is mostly adobe and there are art galleries, restaurants and bars galore. On top of that, the higher elevation and pleasant climate has made it a popular tourist destination in the southwest. Our hotel, Inn on the Alameda, was a pleasant series of adobe buildings tucked amongst trees and a shady courtyard near the city center. 

After checking-in and hanging out at the hotel for a little bit, we booked tickets for an interesting attraction called Meow Wolf. First we had a quick drink at Leaf & Hive, a nearby mead brewery, while waiting for our time slot at Meow Wolf. It's hard to describe Meow Wolf... google describes it as a "unique & immersive art installation with multimedia elements & a mysterious narrative throughout." I think that's about as good a description as you could find. Basically, it's a series of rooms that branch off a model house that lead into "parallel dimensions." There's some story associated with it and a mystery you can try to solve, but good luck with that in the throngs of people running around this place. Overall, it's a really cool "immersive art installation" with lots of fun and odd things to see and even a small retro arcade with games you can play in the middle, unexpectedly.

After we were done tripping out, we decided on dinner at the nearby Ranch House. It was fine, but seemed more like a chain restaurant. After dinner, we drove back to our hotel and then went for a nighttime stroll around downtown Santa Fe, hitting up a really cute cocktail bar called Tonic, which was probably one of the better bars we visited the entire trip (which we mostly blame on Utah for being just awful when it comes to alcohol policies). Paul got a random pretentious cocktail that came inside another larger glass filled with smoke... ahhh, Santa Fe.

Some meads at Leaf & Hive

Neon trees.

There were all kinds of weird rooms.

David and Thomas in the disco rocket room.

"I am just a divine baboon witnessing the solar journey"

Selfie time.

Boom goes the dynamite.

Bowl of queso #1 of the trip at Ranch House.

The cathedral basilica, built in 1887.

Tonic had a cool vibe and inventive drinks.

Sunday we spent the whole day in Santa Fe. Paul got up early (thanks, time zones!) for a coffee at Downtown Subscription, and then we had an excellent breakfast at Cafe Pasquals. After wandering around the city center in the morning we went to the New Mexico History Museum. The museum is partially in a new building and partially in the oldest building in Santa Fe, the Palace of the Governors (which dates to 1610). If you like history we'd recommend stopping here for an hour or two and learning about the people that lived in NM from prehistory until now.

After visiting the museum, we walked back past the hotel and up Canyon Road. Canyon Road is basically a suburban street that's filled with upscale art galleries. It's fun to walk up and down and peak into some galleries and the occasional shop; but this isn't totally our style. We did manage to find a wine bar with a really cute courtyard...which we're always up for. 😏

Our hotel, Inn on the Alameda, was very intimate and cute.

Pasqual's Café is the cliché place to eat in Santa Fe... it was good though. 

Yum!

The New Mexico History Museum.

Native New Mexican perspective on cultural assimilation 😢

The bronze doors on the cathedral are only from the 1980s, but reminded us of the doors of the baptistery in Florence, Italy.

Lots of local architecture and design along Canyon Street.

Wine break!

By now it was pretty hot (New Mexico in early September is still hot and sunny) so we went back to the hotel and got in the car for a quick drive to the state capitol. Unfortunately, the building wasn't open and is honestly pretty underwhelming. The original capitol from the early 20th century was replaced by an adobe-looking circular building that people felt better reflected New Mexico architecture. They even dismantled part of the old (neo-classical) capitol and made it look more southwestern. We can appreciate the effort to have things fit into their city and culture more seamlessly, but the new capitol is pretty underwhelming. In total, we spent about 5 minutes here, and Thomas didn't even get out of the car (it was that underwhelming).

With state capitol checked off the list we were free to wander around the city center some more in the late afternoon. We went atop the La Fonda hotel and got a table (partially in the blazing sun unfortunately) on their rooftop patio bar. While there, we did meet some interesting women visiting from California and had a nice 30 minute chat with them about how everything is the worst and no one is doing anything about climate change and how California is on fire and soon there won't be any water in the entire west. David was into the conversation!

For dinner, we hit up the Plaza Cafe, which was an old diner right on the central square. David hasn't been impressed with food in Santa Fe, but Paul and Thomas have been digging it.

The current New Mexico state capitol building is a bit... meh.

The neo-classical dome of the original capitol was removed and replaced with this tower.

So much adobe architecture. This is a high-end hotel.

View from the La Fonda rooftop.

Santa Fe has a number of architecturally pleasing buildings.

We enjoyed our short time in Santa Fe. We'd recommend you visit if you're interested in southwest art, culture, food or architecture. It's a small walkable city, and honestly pretty expensive to visit, but it was way more interesting than Albuquerque. Next up on our road trip - a long driving day to Chaco Culture National Historic Park and then on to Durango, Colorado.