We then continued on toward Santa Fe. About 10 miles south of town you come into commercial sprawl with new roads, businesses, car dealers, a new hospital...all the usual stuff. We ate leftover pizza from last night in McDonald's parking lot (the pizza had been warming on the dashboard).
We found the famous Santa Fe Plaza, which is basically the same as the Plaza in Albuquerque but more upscale. Lots of shops selling exquisite clothing and jewelry. Indians lined up selling their beautiful jewelry. The highlight of the Plaza is the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi.
From Santa Fe we headed west to find Bandelier National Monument which is near Los Alamos and the Los Alamos National Labs (site of the Manhattan Project). Nothing to see since its all top secret.
Bandelier is a site at the bottom of a canyon which feature cliff dwelling ruins. Looks like a very popular hiking spot in the warmer months. We just took a short walk to the base of a cliff......we could have started climbing the stairs but was too daunting for these old knees!Worth another visit with more time.
We continued south on Rt 4 for the next 60 miles or so as it climbed over a pass on a windy mountain road and down into San Ysidro where picked up Rt 550 back to ABQ. There was little snow on the ground in the higher elevations, but not much. (We heard on the TV this morning that the ABQ area was only 3% (that's THREE) of normal for the water year starting Oct 1. They are parched!)
Got back to ABQ about 6PM, had a nice dinner at Mimi's Cafe before heading back to the hotel. Lots of interesting eateries on the Jefferson St exit off I-40.
 |
| Cerrillos |
No comments:
Post a Comment