It was the habit of Kevin’s parents to always give the kids a family trip as a Christmas present, a wonderful gift in my opinion. In 2012, that trip was to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Maureen and Ken really valued the vacations that they took with Kevin’s grandparents, John and Betty, and wanted to continue on the tradition with their own children.
When Ken originally booked our flights to Albuquerque, he booked my ticket in the name Sara Kasarski, assuming that I would have changed my name by the time we flew in August (we were married at the end of April). This seems funny to me now, since at the time I had to call up Southwest and have the name changed back to my maiden name, claiming to Ken that I had just been too lazy and hadn’t gotten around to changing it. 2020 Feminist Sara has yet to change her name and it’s looking like it will remain that way for the foreseeable future.
Kevin and I hadn’t traveled since our epic honeymoon to Italy, and we were eager to continue spreading our travel wings on this trip to the Southwest. To reach Santa Fe, you fly to Albuquerque, around a 45 minute drive from the capital. We rented a car and headed to our hotel, the Hilton Santa Fe Buffalo Thunder. The hotel was enormous, as it housed several restaurants, bars and a casino on the lower level. Since we arrived in the late afternoon, we had an early dinner at Gabriel’s, a cozy Mexican restaurant near the hotel, where we enjoyed our first foray into Santa Fe cuisine with a delicious chile relleno and tortilla soup. Since we had a big day of sightseeing ahead of us, we just hung out at the casino bars that evening, observing the elderly locals spending their whole paychecks on the Wheel of Fortune slot machines.
The next morning, we drove to downtown Santa Fe, with our first stop being the Loretto Chapel. To Kevin’s delight, this chapel was featured on Unsolved Mysteries back in the ’90s due a mystical story related to a staircase that was built inside. As the story goes, the chapel was constructed with a choir loft but the original architects had not planned for a way up to the loft. To help with the problem, the Sisters of the Chapel made a novena to St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters, hoping that he would help them create a solution. A few days later, a mysterious man with a toolbox showed up, looking for work. In a few months, he created a marvel of a staircase, one that twists 360 degrees and has no visible signs of support. To add to the mystery, the man disappeared when the job was done without thanks or pay, and was never found, leading the nuns to believe that the man had in fact been St. Joseph himself.
After visiting the chapel, we explored the downtown area, popping into a few of the many art galleries and turquoise jewelry shops. For dinner, we ate at a restaurant in town, the name is escaping me, with a lovely outdoor patio and a menu that focused on the local specialty – the green chile. Despite the warm weather, I had a delicious green chile stew that was intensely flavorful.
The next day, Ken had the ambitious plan of driving to Taos and hiking up to Williams Lake. The drive to Taos from Santa Fe was beautiful, the blue sky and clouds infinitely stretching above the dry, desert landscape. The hike itself was moderate, starting with a peaceful wooden setting and ending at the gorgeous and vast lake, surrounded by pine and mountains in every direction. The challenging part of this hike is the elevation – when you reach Williams Lake you are at 11,040 feet and you can definitely feel it in your lungs throughout the trail.
One of the highlights of the trip was an outing to the Santa Fe Opera House. The open outdoor amphitheater is situated in the middle of the desert and is designed so that the audience can experience the majestic Santa Fe sunsets as a backdrop to the actors on stage. We were lucky enough to get tickets to Tosca, the famous Italian opera.
On our last day in Santa Fe, we got a late start and made our way into town in the early afternoon, heading to the Georgia O’Keefe museum, home to many of the legendary artist’s works. Knowing that O’Keefe spent much of her life in this desert setting, we were very interested to see the museum and learn how this landscape influenced her painting. After the museum, we enjoyed a drink on the rooftop of the historic La Fonda hotel, a renovated 1920s adobe inn, while we watched a storm make its way across the desert.
After dinner, we made our way back to the hotel and took a last stab at winning some money down in the casino. While there, Kevin and I met a man who had been wandering through the Southwest on his motorcycle for decades. Several years ago, he visited a Santa Fe art gallery and fell in love with a painting of a sunset. He did the drifter version of layaway, paying little bits of cash to the gallery owner every time he was in town in the hopes that he would one day be able to own the painting outright. After many years, he was finally able to call the painting his own. Since then, he takes it with him everywhere he goes. He has no home of his own, so he will live for periods of time with girlfriends or friends, each time packing up the painting when he leaves and strapping it to the back of his motorcycle. To him, the painting was a part of him and a possession he couldn’t imagine living without. It was a wonderful encounter and a great way to bring our trip to a close.
Recommendations:
- Loretto Chapel. 207 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87501. https://www.lorettochapel.com/.
- Santa Fe Opera. 301 Opera Dr, Santa Fe, NM 87506. https://www.santafeopera.org/.
- Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. 217 Johnson St, Santa Fe, NM 87501. https://www.okeeffemuseum.org/.
- Hilton Santa Fe Buffalo Thunder. 20 Buffalo Thunder Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87506. https://www.hiltonbuffalothunder.com/.
