Santa Fe - May 2017

Dodds Family in Santa Fe

We met up with Keith's parents for Mother's Day weekend again this year - this time for a weekend in Santa Fe.  Shawna had been there once for a high school trip and Keith had never been - though this was Keith's parent's fifth time or so!

Botanic Garden in Albuquerque

We all met up at Albuquerque airport on the Thursday night.  Both of our flights were late - though ours by 1.5 hours so Keith's parents were at our gate waiting when we landed.  It was a quick bus to the Hertz office and then quickly off to Santa Fe.  Dick had arranged a VRBO located at 501 Johnson Street, just off Canyon Road.  It was a cute two-bedroom place on a gravel road just off Canyon Road.

We did not have commitments on Friday, but decided to walk into town for Starbucks followed by a walking tour.  The tour lasted a couple of hours and was quite good.  Following the tour we went to the Georgia O'Keefe museum where we watched a couple of short films and then spent some time in the gallery.  The next stop was at the Coyote Cantina, the lower-cost sister restaurant to Mark Miller's original Coyote Café.  We ate on a rooftop deck and had chips/guacamole, followed by a tostada and pork carnita tacos.  We walked back to the house and had a nap before heading out to dinner.  The first stop was Canyon Road where we walked the galleries and shopped for "spinney thingies" for the yard.  We found a couple we liked but pushed the decision to the next day.  Dinner was at Sazon, a very nice Mexican restaurant.  We started with a mole appetizer of five different moles.  For dinner we had the Ensalata de la Casa and the soup of the day (which was amazing!) followed by a fish dish.  We also had a couple of bottles of Duckhorn Sauvignon Blanc.  We ubered home from there.

Saturday was a lot more programmed.  We were all up at 6am with 7am departures - with Starbucks as our first stop.  It was then a 45 minute drive to Georgia O'Keefe's home in Abiquiu.  We met at a tour office in town and were then driven the half-mile up the road to the house in a van.  A woman gave a tour of the gardens and house which were really quite interesting - and had amazing views of the valley below.  Following the home tour, we drove over to the Lavender Farm for some lavender ice cream, then it was another 20 minute drive to a cave tour.  This cave was carved out of the sandstone by Ra Paulette and was really quite amazing.  We then stopped in Los Alamos and toured the Bradbury Science Museum.  After that, it was back to Santa Fe with a stop on Canyon Road to buy our "spinney things" - one for Keith's parents and another for us.  We had a bottle of wine in the living room before driving to Arroyo Vino for dinner - another delicious meal at a combo wine shop / restaurant.  We started with the Cheese Plate and Charcuterie, then had the yellowtail crudo and wrapped it up with the pork tenderloin.  We had to depart by 8pm as we had scheduled an astronomy tour - it was interesting but quite technical.

Georgia O'Keefe's House

Ra Paulette's Cave

Sunday was our last day.  We were not in a hurry to leave the house so Keith brought Starbucks to the house so we could relax in the morning.  We departed at 10am with the first stop at Kasha Katuwe Park.  Shockingly, there were 15 cars lined up and they were only letting in a car every time a car left - the guy at the gate said they had never seen anything like it.  We were not interested in waiting, so we quickly came up with a backup plan and headed to the Albuquerque Botanic Gardens.  The experience way exceeded our expectations - really well done.  It was then time to drop Shawna at the airport.  Since we were wrapped early, Dick checked to see if they could get an earlier flight but it was way too expensive.  So instead Keith and his parents went up to Sandia Peak to take the tram up the mountain.  It is the second longest tram in the world and the scenery on the way up and down was gorgeous.  We then hoofed it to the Taj Mahal restaurant that opened at 5pm.  While there was an initial rush, we were able to be the first seated.  We let them know we were on the way to the airport so they expedited the food and we were out the door by 5:50pm!  It was then a quick drive to the airport for Keith's 7pm and Jean and Dick's 8pm flights home.

On top of Sandia Peak