Today's Location:
Do You Know the Way to Santa Fe?
Day 2: We awoke bright and early to a beautiful New Mexico morning. Having decided on our route for the day, we headed east, then north, taking the Turquoise Route into fantastic, hilly scenery. Snow still lay in the shade of trees and in gullies, and glistened on the highest slopes of mountains on the horizon. It wasn't long before we just had to stop and take pictures. The different vegetation struck us. Juniper bushes are more prevalent here than Sumac back in Iowa. All along the route, the country is fenced (we assumed for grazing) but we only saw five or six cattle the whole day. We wondered what they would find to eat. We learned that we were headed into mining country. In 1825, they found gold in the nearby San Pedro Mountains, the first place west of the Mississippi. We didn't need much imagination to think what those little towns would have looked like. They really haven't changed, except artists and hippies live there now, and cater to tourists. It was interesting to walk among the old shacks and stores. A little further, through a narrow pass, the scenery opened to breathtaking views. The Sangre del Christo Mountains supplied the backdrop to a rolling scrubby foreground. A premature turn soon led us through some unexpectedly exciting terrain, an amazing dry riverbed and a few isolated houses. We talked a lot about what it would be like to live so far off the beaten path - very expensive apparently! It provided an interesting comparison to the Anasazi and Pueblo people about whom AmericaQuesters have been learning. We headed to Santa Fe for a late lunch at a typical Mexican-style restaurant (more sopaipillas!). We were working on a hunch that the intrepid AmericaQuest team was headed in that direction. Santa Fe is nestled in the slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and is almost invisible from the surrounding scenery. Many of its buildings are typical adobe pink wash, and there are few multistory buildings. It is a major center for artists as it houses many galleries, jewelry stores, art shops and museums. Artistic style here is very characteristic and is much influenced by the scenery and local cultures. Native people sell weaving and jewelry from sidewalk displays in the old town square, much like the one we found in Albuquerque. We came across an open-air workshop near the old Santa Fe train depot, where we watched a man blowing an exquisite glass vase. It turned out to be a well-known name in the art glass world, Peter Vanderlaan, who with his wife Mary Beth Bliss, spend their lives creating wonderful works of art. We stood fascinated while he deftly manipulated a molten glass blob into a beautiful vase. But, we had to pull ourselves away, knowing that we had several hours of work left, writing this report and getting some pictures back to you. Jenny
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