We’ve had 5 days in Santa Fe and its been the most wonderful experience. There is so much to like about this city. Everyone we’ve met has been very helpful and a pleasure to visit with. We’ve made a lot of new friends.

I love the climate at this time of the year but the locals tell me it’s a little hot for this time of the year. I’m a very visual person. Everywhere I turn there is beauty and things that I’ve never seen before.

To say that Santa Fe is unique is an understatement.

To be honest, visiting NM has a profound effect on my creative ideas. The colors have migrated to our house, and even our business offices. I’ve taken a little bit of the New Mexican sense of color back to Australia and I certainly embrace it every day.

We visited Taos and the ancient Native American Pueblo.

The Pueblo Indians have lived in this fascinating complex of multistoried adobe homes and ceremonial structures since they were built-in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. When the first Spanish explorers set eyes on the settlement in 1540 it looked much as it does now, and the descendants of the original inhabitants remain here to carry on ancient traditions.

We spent a few hours wandering through the alleyways of the adobe houses and marveling at the skill and ingenuity of the original dwellers.

Then on to   the city of Taos, just a few miles away. We wandered in and out of the shops, and chatting to the folks we encountered. We even found a quilt shop. It was stocked to the rafters with wonderful regional fabric and of course I bought some to add to my Frida stash.

The day was long because we just wanted to fit in the many things on our list. We don’t travel to a schedule as a rule, rather we wander, find and congratulate ourselves for being so clever at finding exciting things… its a smile a mile trip.

At the suggestion of the lady in the quilt shop we visited a quilt show hanging in one of the old restaurants some distance from the city (can’t remember the name) and we ended up in discussion about the meaning of life with several of the patrons in the bar…. as you do.

Opposite the restaurant we found San Francisco de Asis Mission Church is a church built between 1772 and 1816.

The light was fading but we still had two things on our list, a visit to El Santuario de Chimayó is a Roman Catholic  church in Chimayó, New Mexico, USA. (Santuario is Spanish for “sanctuary“.) This shrine a National History landmark is famous for the story of its founding and as a contemporary pilgrimage site. It receives almost 300,000 visitors per year and has been called “no doubt the most important Catholic pilgrimage center in the United States. 

Dinner was at Rancho de Chimayó which occupies a historic former home on the High Road to Taos, a little over a half hour northeast of Santa Fe.   We worked up an appetite exploring this historic village known for weaving, chile growing and healing miracles, before heading to the restaurant to fuel up.

And that was just one day… The day yesterday was equally exciting and inspirational but I’ve had no time to write the journal.