From San Miguel to Santa Fe

Friday March 20: We left home at 5:45am and made it to Del Rio TX around 7pm. We expected it to be a 12+ hour drive but were baffled when our Garmin seemed to add an hour. We finally realized that Garmin understands that the US moved to Daylight Savings Time already. The drive went well until we hit extremely heavy rain about 50 miles from the border. We crept along. And cheered whenever the rain decreased and we could see more than 10 feet ahead.

Views along the drive...very captivating (not).

We imported our Honda to Mexico and legally drove it with it's California plates for the past 9 years. But the CA plates are expired so we got plates for one of the few places that nicely accommodates Ex-Pats. And now, presto-chango, we are from South Dakota!

Saturday March 21:  We drove on, through the rain and the oil fields, to Roswell NM. 

Yep, that Roswell.

They invited us, we came. We found a great art museum (Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art) but nothing overly weird.

by Susan Cooper

Al Souza, "Ridicule"  Puzzle parts and glue on wood.
I just keep imagining this as a Jigsaw puzzle...

Marian Winsryg "Cat and Bird", Digital inkjet print.
This one is my favorite!

Sunday March 22: We arrived in Santa Fe around noon. Aside from some early fog, the day was beautiful...so much better than the long drive in the rain from Del Rio TX to Roswell NM. Our car was in sad need of a car wash from that drive.

It's strange. As previously mentioned it was only after we arrived in Del Rio that we remembered that the US is on daylight savings time and hence we lost an hour. But then we crossed into NM (Mountain Time) and we gained our hour back! We are advised that AZ doesn't even do daylight savings time. This is very complicated. ;-)

Enroute to Roswell yesterday, Pat did a little research on HomeAway and located a conveniently located and charming little house in Santa Fe.  It has designer touches throughout.  It was part of a complex built to be sold a high-end condos but is now rented out to visitors.

The Living Room

The carved door

A sample of the painting decorating the living and dining room.

Our afternoon in Santa Fe was quiet. We had a tapas lunch and then wandered around the plaza. Well we shopped our way around the plaza. We talked to a guy who has been selling products from Latin America for 30 years. He had some gorgeous fabric art from Peru. It was new to us. 

Peruvian Fabric Art

Later we visited a shop with work by artists from the SW. I was taken by some dolls decorated with black and white bands of color. They are "koshari" dolls, sometimes called "clown kachina dolls". The kosharis were basically the court jesters of the Hopi culture. As we learned this we realized how much less we know of ancient SW culture than of ancient Mexican culture.

A few shops later we entered a shop that focused on Peruvian products but also carried the beaded keyrings from Guatemala. I think the shopkeeper was so impressed with my VAST knowledge (ie I now knew about that fabric art from Peru, plus those keyrings) so when I expressed interest in some cute ornaments, she gave me two for the price of one.

Here are a couple shots of the Plaza area...

It is really hard to shop for things that are displayed on the ground.
I wonder if sales would improve if buyers could actually see
the wares that are for sale???

Note: While the "Indian wares" are sold from the ground,
others get the benefit of tables to display their crafts...

Monday March 23: It started off as a disappointing day. Being Monday the main museums were closed. So we went to the Georgia O'Keeffe museum.  It was officially open but in reality most of it was closed while they installed a new exhibition. 

Georgia O'Keeffe, Petunia No. 2, 1924

We wandered through some shops and then headed to Canyon Road, renowned for it's art galleries. Along the way we passed a couple sculptures of burros...just to remind us of home.  

Despite living in San Miguel with it's many galleries, this was indeed quite special. We stopped into many galleries, all at random and all were great. Either serendipity was with us or there are a lot of great galleries on Canyon Road.