In continuing the theme we'd started in New Mexico, we continued eating our way through Santa Fe. (I know, friends, such a surprise, right?) In what was maybe our longest day on record, we started the morning at the Balloon Fiesta (with a 4am wakeup), ate a green chili breakfast burrito and funnel cake for breakfast at the Fiesta Park, then headed north to Santa Fe. We'd heard about the Horseman's Haven Cafe before, but also recently caught Anthony Bourdain's review of it on CNN. We were there for brunch, and to the New Mexico question of "red or green?" we answered green--going for the hotness!
Someone is really excited to dig in!
And on the other side, we're more excited to eat toast. I even ordered an extra side of it. We didn't bring a toaster on this trip, and it's a serious regret!
We were full, seriously and uncomfortably full, when we finally left. It was great to get to Santa Fe by lunchtime, and have the entire day before us for exploring. We immediately declared it fabulous when we found a parking spot right away on historic route 66 by a local bookstore. We can't pass these up, and our traveling home has added more than a couple of books into its cubbies. (It's as if I've completely forgotten standing amongst piles of books to sort before we left and declaring book collecting my worst habit.) Luckily, the kids are growing out of clothes (up, not out, despite what these giant plates of food might lead you to guess), so at least we're lightening our load by donating those along the way.
The architecture, plaza, and churches in Santa Fe are unique and beautiful. We have short attention span for shopping, but happily spent most of the day wandering around and enjoying the Santa Fe vibes.
In the afternoon we checked out the Georgia O'Keefe museum. It was a nice museum, but they must only display a fraction of their collection. I think that even with serious study and time spent looking at the works, an hour is a fair amount of time to spend here. It was nice to introduce the kids to her art, and it really is so much better in person. They were able to see how her flower and landscape paintings nearly glow and reflect light, but in the gift shop the books and prints they saw didn't do the art justice.
Later, it was great to see that they recognized this mission from one of her paintings.
Dinner time came and went, and we were all still full from brunch. Around 9pm we finally hit the last place on our agenda, which we'd pulled long ago from Sunset magazine's recommendations, and went to El Parasol for dinner. It was just a couple of tacos at this point, as we still weren't hungry but felt the need to check something off of our long standing wish list. It was a great end to the day, and after about thirty seconds in the car we had three sleeping kids.
However, they have all declared that green chili isn't worth it (the taste is great, but the heat sticks with you all day), so we're going to be a red chili family. I hope we don't lose any friends over that declaration. =)
~Judy
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