Bandelier

Spanish Peaks, on the way down

I have longed to go to Santa Fe ever since we moved here. It just seemed so romantic to me, all adobe and elevation and twinkly lights. I had been saying to Jon, we should go there for our anniversary! And he would always return, "yeah, who's going to watch the kids?" And I was always stumped. Until I showed Jon pictures of a little bed and breakfast that had suites, and we decided: we'll bring the kids with us on our 12th anniversary trip!
                             That's the actual Rio Grande! I still can't believe where I live, sometimes.
                                  We started our trip at Bandelier National Monument to see the dwellings of the Ancestral Pueblo People. Crazily enough, what stood out to me about the area around Santa Fe is how green it looked, thanks to the forest of conifers EVERYWHERE. No grass, of course, and minimal shrubbery, but lots of pines and firs and junipers, etc.

The kids kept playing Pooh Sticks at all these little trickling streams.

                                   You could climb any ladder you found and pop into the dwellings and pretend you lived there. The kids scampered up and down ladders and we just kept up with them. It was about 65 degrees and partly cloudy and perfectly pleasant! Though we had a laugh that no matter how far south we go for our anniversary, we never get truly warm weather. Even the year we went to Charleston!                                                              There was a lot of birdsong, and softly filtered sunshine. We'd done a lot of driving, so we were all refreshed by the outdoor time. One of the things that a dry climate does is to make the outdoors seem terribly clean. There's none of the mud and leaf mold that I remember from forest walks in NY. There's a lot to enjoy about desert life. We stayed out till almost sunset, then grabbed some New Mexican dinner-- my second feast of the trip! The first was in Taos. Oh my word, I'm sure I'm five pounds heavier than when I left.                                                                                                               It feels good, getting out on these Western safaris when we have a chance. We don't know how many years we'll be living out here, and I'd hate to think I hadn't taken advantage of an opportunity to see something I couldn't have imagined ever seeing, just a few years ago.