Greetings From Santa Fe

Greetings from Santa Fe, New Mexico. We took off yesterday for our six hour road trip (not including breaks) to get away for a few days. It was a little strange driving on Easter Sunday instead of going to church. I felt a little pagan, since Easter is one of the Sundays that random people feel compelled to go to church, and here I was sitting in a car! One less car in the parking lot, I guess.

Santa Fe is not a big town. It only has about 72,000 residents. And it's not like there are neighboring towns to add to the population! It's pretty remote. And yet it has a Trader Joe's, and Mervyn's. Both of which we will be stopping at! Never thought I'd miss Mervyn's, but it's about the only place I can get pants for Brandon! Back to Santa Fe.....

It's higher than Boulder by about 2,000 feet. Although we knew that, neither Brian or I gave it any thought. It's pretty rare that we travel to places higher than the place we live. So neither one of us was expecting out toothpaste, lotion, etc., to spurt out on us when we opened them last night! Surprise! That always happens to me on planes, usually with salad dressing (back in the days of airplane meals), which is why I never wear white on long trips! Being at 7,000 feet hasn't affected any of us yet. I guess we're use to living over a mile above sea level now!

In 1912 the government of Santa Fe declared that all buildings should be built in the Spanish Pueblo Revival look. According to Wikipedia "Pueblo style architecture seeks to imitate the appearance of traditional adobe construction, though more modern materials such as brick or concrete are often substituted. If adobe is not used, rounded corners, irregular parapets, and thick, battered walls are used to simulate it. Walls are usually stuccoed and painted in earth tones. Multistory buildings usually employ stepped massing similar to that seen at Taos Pueblo. Roofs are always flat. A common feature is the use of projecting wooden roof beams (vigas), which often serve no structural purpose." In other words, everything is square, flat roofed, and painted in various Terracotta oranges. Houses, malls, churches, gyms... everything. I feel like I've walked into the southwestern edition of Sunset Magazine. It's cool, but a little bit strange. I remember that buildings in Paris weren't allowed to be over four-stories tall for a very long time. The effect, like in Santa Fe, was a little odd, but cool, and something you could easily get use to. The result here is that all the houses look like the surrounding dirt and twigs, you can't see them due to the flat roofs, and condo complexes all look a little strange...

Even the condo we're staying in is dirt colored, flat, and adobe.

I'm sure we'll have lots to do here over the next few days. If nothing else, we've managed to get away from our house and daily lives and do something different. I'll take some pictures, and post them when we get home. We are going to see downtown, a museum, a few other places, and stop in Taos on our way home. But not until later. Tonight we're staying in. And resting.