Santa Fe'ing (and loving it) - day 2

October 13, 2008 - Monday - Santa Fe Day 2

We revelled in the luxury of "sleeping late": 8AM. After getting up at 5AM for the last 3 days, it felt like a real luxury.

Drove to "Canyon Drive" - a long road just *full* of art galleries - perhaps 100 of them. As I've said, we *love* to just browse fine art together, though we never buy anything. Our target this morning was the "Chalk Farm" since we'd seen an ad on the back of a pedal-carriage - for the works of Vladimir Kush - an artist that we - and our daughter - have admired for 5 years or so since we saw his work in a shop in Las Vegas. The Chalk Farm had just had a *reception* for Vladimir. We had just missed seeing the artist in person - by one day - but it was a "by invitation only" event, so we wouldn't have been able to meet him anyway.

So. Parked and walked into an empty shop - and struck up a conversation with the owner, Lisa.

Oooooh, boy. I can talk - and she and I ranged thru politics, religion, art, finances, and a few other topics - and just kept getting more wound up on how *we* knew what would fix the world, but doubting that the world would ever *try* our solutions. She was obviously a very-bright woman to keep offering opinions which agreed totally with mine. :) We REALLY enjoyed talking - and folding in conversations about Kush's works - which absolutely *filled* the gallery - in between. A delightful woman. And gallery. Go buy some art there.

As I said, we've admired Kush's work for years, so we enjoyed looking at his new works as well as getting better looks at his older ones. In all, I think we spent over 2 hours in the gallery - and I feel that I could have talked to Lisa for the rest of my life. To be fair, as I've said, we found EVERY person we encountered in Santa Fe (actually in *New Mexico*) - to be REALLY friendly and wonderful - and Lisa was doubly so. I hope you read this, Lisa, and that someday our daughter can come ride the Arroyo's with you on your horses.

Anyway. Eventually we had to say goodbye and let Lisa get on with her life, so we went next door to the next gallery.

And wound up talking to *that* proprietress for perhaps 30 minutes. It would have been longer, but other customers came into the gallery and cut us "short".
I *do* just *love* doing this with Kathy - browsing, looking at wonderful, amazing art, and talking to people. We'd consumed a whole morning and had perhaps "covered" 2 of 100 shops. NOW you begin to understand why we think we could easily *live* in Santa Fe - browsing art and talking to folx. And have I mentioned that EVERYBODY was so *FRIENDLY* in New Mexico?

Lunchtime, so we drove the short distance back to the "Plaza" area (a kind of a "town square" in the middle of the old district) and decided to try the "Plaza Diner" there. Looked like something that should have been on the "Diners, Drive-in's and Dives". The menu looked good. But... well... the coleslaw tasted really odd - very vineagar-y - and the burger sounded really great but was - OK... just a bunch of things that didn't deliver on the promise - so we see *why* the Food Network skipped this place.

Oh! By the way... there *is* a place on "the list" - here in Santa Fe, but it was closed by the time we got there on Sunday - and they're closed on Monday - so we're anxiously waiting it out - to get to try "Tecolote's" - tomorrow.

Back to browsing art galleries. Really nice time just wandering together looking at crafts and art and stuff. Scupture, paintings, and on and on - hand in hand. Of course, photos of the artwork aren't allowed, so we have nothing to show for that browsing time. But we included one of the old churches there:

Inside is a circular staircase which is a bit of an engineering marvel. There is no center support and no external support - and it has no nails: just word work. Quite beautiful in itself, let alone the craftsmanship shown in building something which seems unsupported:
As 5PM approached, shops began to close, but we wandered into "one last shop" - and wound up talking *Real Estate* with the keeper - since she also has her Real Estate license. Very sweet and helpful. She printed out a few listings for us to drive by (!!).

So. Hagen-Dasz for dinner. Yeah. I know. But my mother wasn't there to scold me for making "dinner" out of a double hot-fudge brownie sundae, so that's what I had for dinner. Tasty.

Then we programmed in a couple of addresses and let Leila direct us to a couple of drive-by houses. One was quite a distance out in the "nowhere's" and our conclusion was - again - that Santa Fe is *expensive*, so we'll continue to visit - and consider moving there, but we probably wouldn't even try to buy a house there.

We *did* decide that we like it so much - that we extended our stay for another 2 nites - so we'll do *4* nites in Santa Fe.

3850 miles total.