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.

The Great US Roadtrip — Overview

Bill & Pat are close to qualifying to receive Mexican permanent resident status.  This is great because it reduces the paperwork requirements. It is bad because we will not be able to keep our car (a 2006 Honda CRV with less than 25K miles on it.)  We can't keep it because the car was made in Japan and does not qualify for Mexican "nationalization".  

So we plan to sell the it...but first we need to put some mileage on it. So it is time for a US Roadtrip.  

We originally planned to depart Mexico in early May but learned that we'd need to start the trip earlier than we initially expected...long story re immigration status and our misunderstanding re the timing. The revised plan is to do the southwest, leave our car in California for 5-6 weeks while we return to SMA for details in transitioning to Permanent Resident status. Then back to CA and on around the US arriving in Maine for our 50th high school reunion in early August...and on, on, on.

Here's the trip overview...

• Depart SMA Friday March 20
• First real stops: Santa Fe & Albuquerque
• Move on via Flagstaff and Grand Canyon if weather permits
• Spend a couple days in Vegas (for the shows...we are not into casinos
• Arrive in Northern CA early April
• Fly back to San Miguel April 11

• Return to CA when our paperwork is ready…mid May?
• Head north through Ashland OR and the Oregon Coast to Seattle.
• Then back through Portland and Hood OR (Columbia River Gorge) to Salt Lake City.
• And on to Grand Canyon (if missed earlier), Page AZ, Monument Valley/Moab UT
• Arrive in Colorado around the end of June/first of July
• Travel through Minneapolis & Wisconsin to arrive in Chicago for July 12-July 22
• Then on through Detroit (gotta see the Diego Rivera Murals) to Niagara Falls and Montreal.
• Arriving in Maine likely on July 30 (Our 50th High School Reunion is August 1.)
• Be in Garland for family visits from July 30 through August 2
• Stay on the Maine Coast for a week or so then onto Boston
• Next Newport RI and Long Island.
• We’ll be in NYC from Sep 1-10.
• Move on to Wilmington and Washington DC. 
• Arrive in Charleston SC around the first of Oct.
• On to Savannah, and New Orleans (arriving mid Oct.)
• We plan another home exchange there but haven’t booked it yet.
• From there we hope to visit friends in OK and then onto San Antonio.
• In Texas we plan to sell our car and then likely we’ll head back to SMA.
• But if we still have the travel bug, who knows?

Athens — It's still a classic

Acropolis at Night with cranes and all

Our introduction to Athens started with the drive from the airport which passed the Panathenaic stadium where in 1896 the modern Olympics were launched and was followed with a view of the Parthenon (complete with cranes - best viewed in the dark) from the balcony of our room. In a nutshell our Athens experience included a private tour of the Acropolis & the impressive new Acropolis Museum, an overview of Greek Food by a local expert, visiting a few museums and churches, wandering streets & alleyways tripping over ancient ruins, the usual shopping "sprees" and making the most of our last opportunity to enjoy the fine local food.

Our first activity was finding our way to the Monastiraki district, renowned for it's numerous restaurants offering souvlaki (Warm pita, grilled marinated meat, yoghurt, lettuce and tomato … served with french fries)….Just the thought makes us hungry again.  

Souvlaki with fries

Our guided Acroplis Tour began with a visit to the new Acropolis Museum. While the museum is built over ruins from the old city, every effort was made to preserve the ruins and make them viewable through a glass floor (covered with a grid of black dots to help viewers maintain their perspective). The Acropolis Museum is home to the remaining few original major artifacts from the area.  Many of the original pieces from the Parthenon are in London, moved there by Elgin. One unusual display is the Marathon Cup awarded to the marathon winner in the first modern Olympics in 1896. It is lovely. 

A column from the "Porch of the Caryatids", a recreation of the set of the greater than life-size sculptures from the Parthenon (featuring copies of the "Elgin Marbles") and the 6-8" high Marathon Cup.

The Acropolis includes the ruins of the Parthenon and several other structures. It has been built, rebuilt, extended, and shot at over the centuries and like many similar sites around the world is constantly under restoration. There are also some good views of the surrounding area.

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Theater of Dionysos and view of city view looking NE toward Lykavittos Hill

The changing of the guard at Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was quite interesting. It was odd. We arrived late. But a few minutes before the action started, the police started moving the folks in front back away from things in order to leave maybe  10 meters from some pretty nebulous point. As a result we were left with a pretty much front line positioning.  Seeing the event is worth it just for the march step and costumes of the guards. Love the kilts & the pom-pom clogs.

Our Food Tour began in the central market and wandered around several nearby streets where we sampled Greek pastries, meats, cheeses, and olives. 

Flying pastry dough

Hung-up on cured meats

A small selection of olives

We also had the opportunity to see one of the local pastries being prepared, quite an impressive process. The end result, galaktoboureko (custard filled phyllo dough), was quite tasty, as were the "doughnuts".

Greek Donuts / Loukoumades

Galaktoboureko

The most amazing thing happened on this tour.  The guide told us he prefers working with Americans. They are more open, friendly, curious, … than Europeans. Hey, what ever happened to "The Ugly American"?

The National Archeological Museum covers the history and culture of Greece. With so much to cover plan on a 2-3 hour overview or several days for an in-depth experience. A few samples of the displays from our 2 hours visit.

Zeus or Poseidon?

 

A visit to the Benake museum is worth a hour or more depending on your interest in the antiquities, history, and costumes around Greece. We enjoyed looking at the variations in dress throughout the country.

Dining is easy, just walk along the street and you will be encouraged to view a large number of menus, featuring mostly Greek dishes with slight variations and a reasonable wine lists including some fine Greek vintages. Typical Athenians eat lunch after 3PM and dinner at 9+ (restaurants are mostly empty earlier, note that we were there in off-season). 

Shops were open long hours but few buyers were visible. On Sunday the stores were open for the first time ever and there were crowds. Maybe a good sign for their economy. 

And, not to missed, a protest on our last day. A quite civilized event. We were somewhat surprised when they very politely slowed up to let us cross the street. 

Santorini - too beautiful for words (but we try)

Santorini showing crater, white houses on the hilltop nearby & in the distance,
and one of too-many-to-count churches

The beauty of Santorini is that the island is the top two-thirds (or so) of an ancient caldera.  A couple additional islands complete the circular shape of the full caldera, the circle of land left behind after a volcano blows it's top. 

The thing about a caldera is that it can have steep sides.  In the case of Santorini, this means that there is no easy way to get from the sea to the towns at the top of the caldera… Well, it's not really so bad. From where we arrived there is a road with many switch-backs…and taxis or buses to get you to your lodging.  From where the cruise ships arrive the options are: walk, take the cable car or ride a donkey.

Donkeys returning home at the end of the work day

An uneventful, smooth, ferry ride and a transfer (Bill not driving) up a series of switchbacks to the "main" road took us to the cave house we had rented in Firostefani. With a short trek up over the lip of the caldera and down to our accommodations in the rock, we had arrived. Then we walked to Fira (very close) and on to Thira (maybe a mile further?)  From the time we hit Fira, there were a several more or less parallel walkways, each lined with shops offering clothes and/or a range of potential souvenirs….

Marty's House: Looking down from the loft to the living room. Kitchen is to the far left. Bathroom is thru the door to the right. Master Bedroom is below the loft. Note: Cave houses seem to always have a curved roof.

The views over the caldera, were stunning morning, afternoon and evening but especially at sunset.  From our cave house we also had a great view of Skaros, a rocky promontory that unbelievably used to be the castle/fortress "city" of Santorini from medieval times until the early 1800s. The castle was destroyed by a 19th-century earthquake.

See that knob on the hilltop in the center of the photo?  That's Skaros today.
In a photo we saw, it had a fort and buildings clinging to the hillside.

Our lovely cave house belongs to Marty Finkelman, a friend of our SMA friends Jack & Ruth. Living in a cave house means constant temperature and, occasionally, some interesting sound effects from the walkway overhead. It seemed like we were in a standalone house. We walked down to our patio and into the living room. But occasionally it seemed like someone was walking around "upstairs".  As it turns out this was literally true. We finally realized that the public pathway along the water that we walked to get to/from the house, was indeed over the back half of the house. The house comes with a resident cat, Martina  She pretty much owns the property but she must own a couple others as well. She is well-fed! We worry a little about how she does in the winter, but we heard stories from the locals about how they adopt several extra cats over the winter months.

Poor, underfed(?) Martina.  We think she is the real owner of the house.

We had a rental car and made excursions to Oia (one of the extremities of the island), Akrotiri (the other end of the island), and several other spots in between. Along the way, we tasted local wines, explored touristy shops, and photographed castles, churches, and white & blue buildings stretching down the steep hillsides / cliffs.

From afar the white houses look like snow or frosting on the hilltops.
This is what they look like in the setting sun.

Church in Oia

The windmills are commonly associated with Mykonos
but we found them on Rhodes & Santorini as well.

After our day in Oia, Bill's Mom sent us an email with the jigsaw puzzle of the day that she had completed. And, yes we were able to send her back a photo of the same location that we had taken that very same day. What a coincidence!

Our version of thejigsawpuzzles.com Puzzle of the Day

One day we wandered through the neighboring town of Fira and viewed some replicas of lovely wall frescoes from the ancient Akrotiri, a Minoan city inhabited around 2000-3000BC.

Copy of a wall fresco from Akrotiri.  The original is in the local museum but we didn't get there.

The frescoes are amazing. As are the ruins of the city, which we discovered later… The site is being excavated and several houses are clearly visible. Unusual is there are no temples, churches, etc.

Remains of one of the houses at Akrotiri; storage jars intact.

One evening the entertainment was presented by mother nature. It had been a partially cloudy day which made for a spectacular sunset that filled the sky with vivid colors. Even the locals were taking pictures and exclaiming how spectacular it was. That said, the sunset was so amazing that pictures can not even describe it. 

The crater at sunset

Being off-season there were fewer tourists (usually one large cruise ship each day) and consequently many of the restaurants were closed. Never fear. We did not starve. In fact we ate just fine, we just had to walk a little farther.

Fried fish plate. Yum!

We're struggled (and failed) to master Greek wines. The challenges are that the bottles are labelled in Greek lettering and the grapes are primarily unique to Greece. They do have some Cabernet, Syrah etc but we of course are more interested in trying the unfamiliar ones. 

Typical labeling on local wines.  Apparently for the larger wineries,
they have labels combining the Greek with the English translation using the Roman alphabet.

Here's what we know about Greek wines as of our Santorini stop. 

• At least on Santorini, odds are, if the grape name starts with "A" it is a white wine (there is one red, but we hardly ever saw it). Common white wines are: Assyrtiko, Athiri and Aidani. Common red wines are: Mandelaria, Mavrotragano.  (Actually that second red is unique to Santorini but that really is the source of our knowledge at this stage).
• On Santorini, grapes are cultivated with a method that is new to us. The main source of moisture for the grapes is from the overnight dew. To help the vines collect this, they are curled into circles about 2-3 feet in diameter. During the summer the vineyards look like a field of low lying grape leaves. In fall/winter, they look like a a field of grapevine wreaths all laid out separately.

  

  Grapevine coiled to better retain moisture.

• Vinsanto it is not the same as "Vin Santo" in Italy. In Greece they harvest the grapes in early August, at the same time as other grapes. They then leave them to dry in the sun for several days or weeks before pressing them. In Italy, the grapes are dried much longer.

Stayed tuned for news of our final stop: Athens