After a night on the road staying at the Elephant Butte State Campground (where Geordie and Maggie had a couple of great swims in the lake) we arrived yesterday in Santa Fe. We're back up in the mountains at 7,200 feet and Spring is only just beginning here. Although it's sunny, the wind is still very cool and the trees are not even in leaf yet and there is still a lot of snow on the surrounding mountains. We saw some Forsythia and a few daffodils but it seems that Spring here doesn't really begin until mid-April. I think that Victoria gardens are weeks if not months ahead. Nonetheless it's really lovely here.
There's a central plaza area downtown surrounded by very old adobe buildings and churches. This is the tourist centre of town but it seems that a lot of the city's cultural events take place here as well. We went to the New Mexico Museum of Art in an old adobe building (pictured above) and saw some cutting edge art installations as well as an interesting show featuring the history of art in this area from the Pueblo peoples to the present time. The building was filled with well dressed art patrons from Santa Fe who were gathering for some kind of fund raising event. The outfits worn by these women were gorgeous.
Santa Fe has an amazing bus system, which we used today to get into the central plaza and back to our RV park on Cerillos a ways out of town. The bus shelters here are really special, with individual art and inscriptions relating to the location. For Harry and me being over 60, we paid only $1.00 each for an all-day pass. The bus ride back from town was a treat, with a big bellied driver who played Celine Dion music at top volume and sang along. He was super friendly and knew everyone that got on the bus. The bus has a ramp that can be put down so that wheelchairs can get on the bus and he helped a young woman in a big motorized chair on with the greatest of kindness and joking. She was a character who knew everyone on the ride as well. Parents and kids got on and waved and grinned and yakked, and conversations were swirling around the whole time. After the driver helped the woman in the wheelchair off the bus at Walmart, people were all commenting about how well she does getting out and around in her chair.
The bus driver guessed that we were from the Trailer Ranch and people started asking us where we were from. It was kind of like being at a moving coffee party. The funny thing is that it didn't even end when we got off the bus. After we got back to Mohita we took the dogs out for a walk and we saw the same bus coming back up the road. The driver recognized us and waved, and later we met the woman in the wheelchair who war going home from Walmart and had a little chat. What a friendly town this seems to be!
We're heading out tomorrow though to drive north towards the Grand Canyon. It's about five hundred miles and we're taking some secondary roads so it will be a couple of days before we get there, barring snowstorms which may still be a possibility. If this happens though, we'll head back south and take a warmer route to the coast.
2 comments:
It's great to hear that more people are using the public transportation system in Santa Fe - did you know the buses run on natural gas?
Hey, we didn't know about the natural gas. That makes it even better. I wish Victoria had a bus system like this.
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