After breakfast, Amy and I headed back into Santa Fe to do a little shopping. Most stores weren't open last night, which is probably a good thing! Also, there's a Native American trading market in the mornings that we wanted to visit. Native American artists sell jewelry, dolls, artwork, blankets, and other odds and ends right next to the city's plaza. It was great to walk around Santa Fe during the daylight, too. It definitely feels more like a town than a city, but a fun and funky town, for sure!
Next, we drove up to Taos, a beautiful and even more eclectic town a little over an hour north of Santa Fe. The drive itself was awesome!!! We both loved it on sight; well, once we had sped off to the public restroom! It's full of pueblo architecture, art galleries, and unique boutiques. Everything was cute!
One of the things I'm loving about this trip is the sharing of it with others. You see that in the blog posts, of course, but when I'm asked where I'm from or where I'm going, I do give a brief explanation of what Amy and I are doing and how we met. Today I talked to Jody, an artist originally from Santa Monica; Tony, our encouraging and informative waiter at lunch; Estavan, proprietor of a native arts store and musician who has played in Santa Barbara and New Jersey. Everyone has been really excited about our road trip and very envious of our final destination! As we left, Tony said, "You girls have a great story. Keep telling it." That's the plan.
Before leaving Taos, we went to the Taos Pueblo, which has the distinction of being the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in the US; it's been around for over a thousand years. Seeing the collection of pueblos and the adobe church was cool, but both Amy and I got the distinct feeling that we weren't really wanted except for our wallets. I didn't feel invited to appreciate their culture, which I was hoping to do. However, there were a lot of cute dogs around, one of whom was an adorable, huge golden retriever who made the rounds of all the people, as goldens so often do!
We started back toward Santa Fe and the Turquoise Trail much later than we had originally planned, but there wasn't as much to the trail as we had thought, so we have no regrets. The trail is so named because of it was once dotted with coal and turquoise mining towns (and Turquoise Trail sounds better than Coal Trail or Mining Trail). There are therefore quite a few ghost towns along the route, Madrid and Golden being the two most notable. Madrid has made a bit of a comeback with some artists moving in there, and Golden has a beautiful church. Otherwise, the best part of the trail was using the facilities al fresco (hey, you gotta do it sometime on a roadtrip, right) and the scenery.
We then drove on past Albuquerque and are now at a hotel in the town of Grants. It's been nice to be in the same state for a whole day, but we're off to Arizona tomorrow. We may be camping, so I'm not sure about posting, but I'll try to keep telling my story.
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