Wanderung 3

Rocky Mountain Ramble

May - July 2003

July 10th - Santa Fe, New Mexico

We met at Terry’s house at 9 o’clock to gather our gang and drive up to Santa Fe. The drive up Interstate 25 was fast and easy, but it still took me over an hour to drive up there. Finding the starting point was not too bad, but finding a parking space in the adjacent lot was quite difficult and I imagine that sometimes it would be impossible. Santa Fe streets are generally narrow and parking seems to be at a premium in much of the central city district. Still, we did get a spot and the start box was there so we signed in, took copies of the directions, and started off on our walk.

The Santa Fe Volksmarch has loops that resemble a plate of spaghetti, but that’s understandable when you realize how old this place really is and that many of the streets were probably cow paths or something equally random in the beginning. Right after starting the walk we went thru the Capitol building, which is quite unique in not having any dome whatsoever—rather a flat roof in the style of the pueblos. We were fortunate enough to get a free guided tour of the House side of the building, and enjoyed that very much. We were surprised to learn that New Mexico representatives earn no salary and are limited to a 30 day session in even years and a 60 day session in odd years—that would seem to limit the mischief they can get up to! If we had oodles of time I would have enjoyed viewing the art collections—we did see a photography exhibit that was quite good on the first floor—but we really wanted to get on with the walk.


 

From the Capitol, the walk route curved around the old Capitol building and along some side streets with classic New Mexico architecture—courtyards, arched doorways, adobe, etc. We turned into a small mall featuring a Borders Books store for coffee and snacks. That gave us the energy to continue out to the first checkpoint and double back to the old downtown area. We were impressed by several nicely painted murals along the way—someone took a lot of time with them and fortunately in the dry climate they seem to hold up well.

The downtown district was very high-toned—expensive jewelry and art stores abounded—but we also found a hotel with a French restaurant on the ground floor where we had lunch. Phyllis had some aching joints at this point, so she stayed in that area to visit a bookstore while the rest of us zigzagged north to the second checkpoint. We passed the Government House, whose claim to fame was that it was in continuous use for more than 300 years, and bought a silver pick for the dulcimer from the many displays of jewelry and pottery on the sidewalk in front. I haven’t ever seen a silver pick before, much less one fashioned with Native American designs, and Monika found later that evening that it worked just fine.

The checkpoint was up a switchback trail on a small hill with a white metal cross on it. This hill was a memorial to priests killed in the pueblo uprising of 1680 where the Puebloans successfully ousted the Spanish occupation from New Mexico and kept them out for over 10 years. The Spanish were let back into Albuquerque peaceably and I wonder how exactly they managed that after treating the Indians as serfs for decades. The hill also afforded us nice views out over Santa Fe and the nearby mountains, except in the direction of a cell phone signal tower that formed an ugly excrescence in one direction. I was also somewhat surprised that the litter of broken glass, mostly beer bottles, was just everywhere and no attempt seemed to be made to clean it up.

Bounding back down the hill, we cut over to Canyon Drive and passed a nice collection of art and sculpture galleries. Again we were tempted to visit several of them because the works displayed outside were certainly interesting-—one was a giant rabbit—but we didn’t want to keep Phyllis waiting so we curled back past the cathedral to the downtown area.


 

We had some iced tea and deserts during our second visit to the French restaurant—this army really marches on its stomach—and strolled back thru the historic district to the Capitol and Visitor Center. We really enjoyed the Santa Fe walk, and I don’t think it was just all the French food. The buildings are interesting, the art is unique, and the views are great. The walk seemed a bit short but it really might be that we were so busy gawking and talking as we walked along that we didn’t notice the time passing. In any event, this is a really nice capital walk and since Santa Fe is at 7,000 feet it is just a bit cooler than Albuquerque and that is a very good thing if you walk in the afternoon. The downtown area gives you a plethora of places to stop in and cool off, so if you take it easy you should be OK. We saw the museum in the Government House and the inside of the cathedral on an earlier visit, and those plus many of the galleries are well worth a look.

We drove back to Albuquerque via the scenic 2-lane highway on the eastern side of the Sandia Mountains and stopped off at the home of my niece Jennifer to tell her we were in town. She and James joined us at Terry’s and we all went out to Padilla’s Mexican restaurant for a really nice dinner. By the time we returned to Terry’s and chatted a while after dinner it was time for us to get back to our motel, so we sadly said good-bye to everyone and drove to our room.

Copyright 2004 by Robert W. Holt and Elsbeth Monika Holt
Prolog Map Epilog

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July 2003
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