As we read news of the impending mega storm about to pummel Seattle we appreciate the sunny 75 degree days we are enjoying here in New Mexico. We certainly hope all stay safe and dry in the rainy and windy Pacific Northwest. We’ll be checking the updates tomorrow, ya sur ya betcha!

Today we headed up to Taos by way of a highway that at times followed the Rio Grande river and the Rio Grande Gorge. (We also spotted a distillery to stop at, but it did not open until later – DARN!)

The scenery was enhanced by the changing colors of the trees along the river. At some points the road overlooked the vast plain stretching to the west with the gorge cutting a deep chasm through the unending plain. It was dramatic and beautiful and far too vast to try and capture in a picture. But we did manage to get a few pictures of the river and trees! The hard part was finding places to pull over on the narrow highway to take pictures – Mike finally resorted to taking some out the window as we drove.

Fly fishing – Tami would like to be out there

On our way to Taos, we made a stop at the Santa Clara Pueblo. On our last visit a quarter century ago, we also stopped at the Pueblo and visited a number of artists in their shops where they were showing some of their pottery. It’s one of our favorite styles and we bought one small pot back then. We had hoped to see some more pots directly from the artists again because we haven’t been seeing much of this style so far on this trip. As we drove through the Pueblo, though, there was not a single sign for anyone showing any work so we had to head back out. It seemed kind of odd, but perhaps it’s more worthwhile for them to just offer their art through the galleries now. We were disappointed but times change!

Taos was a far different town than our last visit as well. What had previously been a very small town with just a shop or two was now a much larger town with blocks of galleries and shops. Like in Santa Fe, we wandered around until our shoe leather was burning, before driving up towards Taos Pueblo. Unfortunately it was too late in the day to go inside the Pueblo, but the drive there was nice.

Tami liked this blue gate in Taos.

Seen on the way up to the Pueblo

There were also a lot more restaurants and we were fortunate to get steered to a wonderful lunch choice by one of the locals, Bella’s Mexican Grill. This was not just any Mexican restaurant. We started with a roasted ear of corn that was wonderfully seasoned with spicy mayo, lime, and red chili powder; followed by a green chile stuffed with seasoned beef (it actually tasted somewhat middle eastern – from the menu: “Chile en Nogada –  fresh fire roasted poblano chile, stuffed with ground beef, tomato, almonds, raisins, apples, jerez, walnut, cream, pomegranate); and a sopapilla filled with Mayan pork (seasoned with orange and pineapple). We split both entrees and while we forgot to get a picture of the corn, which was truly photograph worthy, we did get a picture of the entrees after we had split them. Some of the best food yet.

This is for you Peggy!

The drive back to Santa Fe followed the same road, but it seemed like an entirely different drive for most of it as we followed the river again with the sun setting. Truly beautiful country.

It was evening by the time we got back to Santa Fe, so we headed right to dinner to finish out the day at the Second Street Brewery (beer was sounding really good after a long day of driving and walking). This brewery is located in the Railyard district of the city, which seems to be kind of the up and coming hip part of town (so hip in fact that one of the waiters sported a combination of a twirled handlebar mustache and unnaturally bright red red hair). They had a good selection of brews and we finished off the day with two wonderful dinners, and even got pictures again, as requested! It was Oktoberfest week, so Tami had the chicken schnitzel with mushroom gravy and Mike had the farmer’s platter that included lamb sausage.

Chicken and mushroom schnitzel

Lamb sausage, cheese, several chutneys, and sprout salad

Getting dark out the window

As we were finishing our meals a band started playing what we thought of as Hispanic folk music that was thoroughly enjoyable. We could have easily stayed to listen longer, but it was time to get back to the room to collapse and relax after a busy day.

After 25 years we are once again in Santa Fe. Yesterday we took our time driving from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, taking the back highway that follows the Turquoise Trail. The road was not paved in turquoise, but it is the region where a lot of a specific type of turquoise has been mined since well before the Spanish came. It is apparently nearly mined out now, but it is a beautiful drive and we came across a couple of nice small towns.

Our lunch stop was in Madrid (pronounced MAD-rid), which was a former mining town that had pretty much become a ghost town by the mid-twentieth century, but was revived in the seventies. Now it is a bit of an arts colony, but also clearly a very close knit community.

Downtown Madrid

At one point we were in the chocolate shop (just looking, of course) when a crowd of people came into the shop and accidentally let one of the shop dogs, Mr. Taos, out the door. Arby, the shop owner, was busy with customers but no worries, one of the locals was also in the shop and headed out immediately with a leash to round up Mr. Taos.

We had lunch in the Mine Shaft Tavern, a local landmark, where the food was delicious and the atmosphere was fun. Our friend Julie had told us that New Mexico green chili cheeseburgers were a thing not be missed, so Mike tried his first of the trip. It was WONDERFUL. Not only did it have chopped green chili relish on it like many things here, but it ALSO had a whole deep fried green chili on it (and an extra on the side).

Mine Shaft Tavern

Some great murals over the bar in the Mine Shaft Tavern

After lunch we moseyed on down the road to Santa Fe, checked into our hotel, and followed the Sounders game via twitter and streaming radio. Nope, not a victory, only a draw, so clinching the playoffs will have to wait.

This morning took us to Old Town Santa Fe, one of our biggest memories of our previous trip. It’s still a very interesting area to explore.

Didn’t see THAT coming

We wandered into an unassuming place for lunch called the Plaza Cafe only to discover that it is the oldest restaurant in Santa Fe, established in 1905. It was a classic diner and full of locals. We understood why after our food came as it was quite good. Mike thoroughly enjoyed the seasonal special, pumpkin chorizo posole (have to try making that at home), and Tami had a very hearty bowl of tortilla soup.

We noticed a small band playing in the main plaza, including a trombone player (something we always pick up on), so we wandered over to investigate. They were quite good, and played some old jazzy tunes, like “Don’t Mean a Thing”, so we had to get a CD from them. They called themselves the Speakeasy Jazz Cats, and said they had actually formed the band in Seattle, and might be going back there. The CD came in a brown paper bag with no notes or even song titles, so I hope we can figure out what is what when we get home.

Speakeasy Jazz Cats

We were also amused to wander into one pottery shop and spot an Acoma style pot with a large Seahawks logo on the side. We told them if that had been a Sounders logo we’d have bought it! The weather was perfect today and we wandered until our feet were nearly falling off, but wanted to head back to the little mall near our hotel for dinner. Yes, you read that right. We went to the mall for dinner. Last night we went to the mall for a stop at the drugstore for cold medicine due to Tami’s untimely acquisition of an annoying cold virus. As we walked by a restaurant near the mall entrance, we noticed a hand-written sign that said “Lamb ribs will be back Thursday night”. Well hey, we’d better check that out! Lamb ribs are one of Tami’s favorites things and very, very hard to even buy in the grocery store any more. So that’s why we were at the mall for dinner and we soon found that this was a popular place with the locals where many people seemed to know each other. The ribs arrived and oh my, but they were good! By the time we left there were many people waiting for tables and we certainly understood why!

Sky City – pueblo on the cliffs

Today we travelled to Sky City, and no, we were not visiting the Jetsons. Sky City is the ancestral home of the Acoma Pueblo situated on the top of a mesa about 15 miles off I-40. Visitors are allowed to visit Sky City during certain periods in the summer season, but are only allowed on the mesa if accompanied by a guide. There is a museum and Cultural Center at the base of the mesa, and tours leave from there.

The Acoma Pueblo has a very distinctive style of pottery, one that we have admired since our first visit, so we were very glad that it was open today because it was closed over the entire previous weekend for a festival. We arrived in time to catch some lunch at the cafe before our tour and were delighted to find such good food. Mike had the Green Chile Pork Stew with fry bread, probably the best of the trip so far, and Tami had the blue corn enchiladas that were quite different than yesterday’s enchiladas, but also very good.

The tour included a fair amount of history and also frequent stops to see pottery available by many of the locals. It was obviously a bit of a sales tour, but that was okay because we saw a lot of variety and had a chance to talk with the artists. Tami had fun learning about their techniques and materials and dreams of one day getting back to doing some pottery.

Tables of pottery by houses

Sky City has been continuously occupied by the Acoma since around 1100 AD. The encounters with the Spanish Conquistadors and early Catholic Church were particularly brutal and devastating to the Acoma, and encounters with the US government were obviously not advantageous to them either. The museum had many current member stories and they were fun to read. Many of the older members clearly find the loss of the language as one of the greatest tragedies since their history is all oral, but they are beginning to teach the young people their language in preschools now.

Sky City has no water, sewage, or electricity. Water must be brought up to the homes, and we noted many portapotties located throughout the community. There were also many new solar-powered green composting toilets, too. Other than the solar toilets, it is a very traditional looking place, albeit  with some modern touches (since people do live there).

Homes

In many places there were traditional ladders leading to upper stories, but in a few places there were white ladders. We were told the white ladders led to kiva entrances. The kivas are religious gathering places and generally only men are allowed in. Interestingly, the kivas seem to be about the only thing the men are allowed to own, as it is a matriarchal society and women own the houses, and just about everything else. Our female guide said something to the effect of “Yay us!”

When we were done, we elected to walk back down to the Cultural Center rather than take the bus which had brought us up. This meant taking the stair case built and sometimes carved into the rock down the cliff. Before the road was built to the top, this was the only way up or down, and dates back centuries. In some places it was VERY steep, but we took our time and made it without falling. Yay us!

stairs down, with handholds carved into rock

road up

We woke to clear blue skies which seemed surprising after yesterday’s storm, but it made us quite happy. Back to wearing shorts! We had to spend the entire morning preparing and running payroll remotely, but it was good to get that task done and have it work smoothly. On to having fun! Of course what with sleeping late and running payroll, we didn’t get out of here until about 11:30. However, that just means we made it to our first stop just in time for lunch!

Our first stop today was the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center (thanks for the tip, Julie!). Being starved at this point (MAYBE an overstatement), we headed first for the attached restaurant. Tami had the blue corn enchiladas with green chilies and grilled chicken – yum! Mike had a wonderful posole that was amazingly thick with pork and hominy. (Mike is on a mission to try pozole/posole at as many places as possible on this trip, though we also have to follow up on Julie recommendation to try the green chili burgers as well).

The museum itself features the 19 Pueblos of the region and we learned a lot about the local people and their culture, history, and art. It was also an Indigenous Day festival so there were some speakers in the courtyard and LOTS of teenagers running loose throughout the museum. We survived quite well, though, and made it into the gift shop to scope things out (less teens in there).

We next headed down to the Old Town part of Albuquerque and discovered far more good quality galleries than we had really anticipated. There were certainly plenty of touristy little tchotchke shops, but we found many better shops that kept us busy shopping and chatting with people. The Seattle ‘thing’ continued and we met more people who have either lived there, know someone who just moved there, or really want to visit. Our favorite find was the raven sculpture that blended NW and SW native design work – and you gotta love the shoes! We understand the artist is from the SW, but spent some time in the NW.

SW/NW Raven

Tami found some beautiful jewelry and Mike found, well, Mike got two pairs of socks. But don’t feel too sorry for him. He did try on some gorgeous bracelets, including the beautiful Zuni bracelet that emitted a loud ‘CRACK’ as he tried to put it on. The clerk grabbed his hand away, we all gasped, and it was hurriedly examined for damage. Phew, it was all right! They were very good natured about it but we were very relieved.

In another shop, after we had discussed some art we liked with each other and the clerk, the other clerk asked us if we were newlyweds. We looked at each other, thinking “Whaaat?” We replied, that no, we had been married 35 years. She seemed surprised, and said “but you both seem to get along so well”. I guess they see a lot of older couples shopping who spend more time crabbing at each other. (We just save the crabbing until we get home.)

We also found a tour that we thought Melinda and Kevin would enjoy if they ever make it here. Wish we had time to fit it in.

See the carwash! See Walter’s house!

Our goal today was a Hopi arts and crafts fair near Kykotsmovi in what the locals call Hopi Land. The drive down from Page was beautiful, but uneventful. While the most spectacular geological formations may be in the big parks like Bryce, Grand Staircase Escalante, etc., this whole area is full of wonderful painted cliffs, badlands, hoodoos, balancing rocks, and more. For Tami, it is Cowboy Western country – she keeps dreaming of riding horses, chasing outlaws, and gun battles in amongst the rocks. She always wanted to be a cowboy, after all.

Cowboy rocks!

Colorado River canyon

As we entered Hopi Land, we saw many small cleared fields with corn grown in the Hopi manner, evidence that it is still an important staple. While the Navaho have a strong tradition of raising livestock, especially sheep, the Hopi have a long history of farming, especially corn. Even their art often features the corn plant as an important symbol.

Corn in the Cultural Center courtyard.

The problem when we got here was that we didn’t know EXACTLY where the art fair was. OK, we knew it was at the Hopi Veterans Memorial Center, but we were not sure where that was, other than somewhere around Kykotsmovi. Even though it is a VERY small town, we drove around without spotting any sign of it. Finally we found a Hopi tribal policeman to ask. He kindly directed us to get back on the main road and head two miles out of town the direction we had been heading. If we had just driven another few hundred yards on the main road, we would have seen the first sign.

Now unlost, we made it to the fair. It was not as large as we had hoped, but there were some good artists showing there, and we picked up a few things. Everyone we talked to asked where we were from, and when we said Seattle, they lit up and either told us about the time they had been there, or how much they would like to travel there. One woman told us going up the Space Needle was on her bucket list.

Not only is Seattle popular, but the Seahawks seem to be the favorite team for many people we talk to. We often see craft items featuring the Seahawks (along with a few other teams like the Cardinals), and several of the artists and people in the shops who we talked to are big Seahawks fans. Very funny!

After we left there we drove the few miles to the Hopi Cultural Center, which includes a motel where we are staying tonight. When we got here, we discovered that there was another Hopi cultural festival going on here! There were more arts and crafts booths, food vendors, Hopi dancing and drumming. The dancer’s costumes are beautiful and it’s nice to see how many of the dancers are young people. We are two of only a few gringos around here but everyone has been very friendly and welcoming.

The fry bread we had for dinner last night in Page only whetted our appetites for more. At the festival here we found a booth selling fry bread, so made lunch of that. Then we had dinner at the restaurant at the Cultural Center, and that came with fry bread as well! With the fry bread we also had lamb and hominy stew, rather like a pozole.

It is after 7 and we can still hear the drumming, but we are holed up in our room watching the Huskies having a Duck dinner – I know we should be out there, but this is the first chance we have had this year to catch a Husky game!

Before departing Kayenta, we were lucky enough to be in town to catch the first day of their annual Arts Festival. Brent and Mike made Pam and Tami walk down, while they drove by in the car jeering the two hikers. Tami did, however, get to see several rabbits. We enjoyed many booths with high quality art pieces and also got a sneak preview of the soon-to-be-completed Kayenta Center for the Arts, which Brent and Pam have been involved with for several years. It will be a very nice center when it’s complete.

Arts festival at Kayenta

It’s a wabbit!

Interesting sidewalk art at the festival

Mike was visibly anxious to get going, having loaded the car shortly after the sun came up, so Tami let him drag her out to the car without any lunch. We were soon on the road heading towards Arizona, passing through the odd polygamous communities of Hildale and Colorado City, and then past Kanab into Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. The scenery was gorgeous with multi-colored geologic formations (Tami kept thinking of chocolate marble ice cream), eroded red rock bluffs, and fantastical wind-formed rock formations. Nope, we don’t have any pictures. We were busy driving and it is just impossible to try and capture the grand beauty and largess of the formations with a little ol’ camera lens. But don’t worry, we’ll try down the road!

We kept passing from Utah to Arizona to Utah and back to Arizona again. Arizona doesn’t observe Daylight Savings Time, so we were technically going in and out of two different time zones. Mike never did change his watch to Utah time, so by the time we got to Page, he was right on time. Tami forgot she had changed to Utah time and was quite surprised that stores were still open, not realizing until dinner time that she was the one who was late.

Page is a town that was built in 1957 to house the workers on the Glen Canyon Dam. It turned out that our motel for the night, Debbie’s Hideaway, was on the Street of the Little Motels, considered to be the Old Quarter of Page. These motels were all originally worker housing for the dam workers, and now the entire street is lined with these little motels that date back quite a few decades. It’s all slightly run down looking but in a very charming way. Each motel has the rooms backing onto the street, but with doors also facing onto pleasant courtyard areas. Our room was quite spacious, if a little tired, and it even had a full kitchen and living room. We did okay considering how full this town is!

The Street of the Little Motels- this street seems to be the entire Old Quarter

Looking up the street at our motel

The person who checked us in also clued us in to a new restaurant in town, started by two Navajo guys, that she said made the best fry bread she’d ever had, and she grew up around here. So we knew where dinner was for the evening, and sure enough, we enjoyed our pulled pork green chili Indian tacos immensely. The only seating was outside but considering the temperature was in the mid 70’s, that was not a problem. Back to our Little Motel for the night.

The courtyard area outside our motel

Dust off the keyboard. Polish the lenses. Wipe the cobwebs out of the brain and energize the old blog. We’re back on the road and it’s time to subject friends and family to another installment of Mike and Tami getting out of the house. We are once again using the excuse of a conference to explore another part of the country. This time it is an area we have already been to, but it was a quarter century ago (that makes 25 years sound like a super long time ago, doesn’t it?) and we have such fond memories that we want to explore it again.

On this trip, we plan to visit pueblos and ancient ruins, hunt down ghost towns, and explore those nebulous new age phenomena, such as the vortexes allegedly swirling about Sedona.

So off we flew to Las Vegas on a very typical October morning in Seattle with intermittent rain and broken clouds. Flying over Puget Sound was clear enough to enjoy the sight of islands in the distance and the coastline from Seattle down to Tacoma, giving us a fine adios to the watery, sodden Northwest.

Our approach to Las Vegas was the antithesis of our Seattle departure as the brown, dry hills extended for miles and those hills were barren of any signs of green. Soon we were walking past banks of slot machines in search of our rental car. Budget makes it oh so much more complicated and stressful than necessary to rent a car (why did the car lady keep clucking at her screen anc disappearing into the back office?), but at last we had keys, or rather some sort of supernatural sensing fob that knew when we were near the car, and off we headed to Kayenta, Brent and Pam’s oasis in the desert.

View from Pam and Brent’s house.

It was a pleasure to meet up with Rita again (see Drying Out the M Tour), discover the recent changes to Brent and Pam’s house, and settle into the leisurely lifestyle of the southwest.

Lovely Rita, a little weathered, but aren’t we all!

The next day, after a morning swim, we made our traditional stop at Irmita’s for the best Mexican fast food in Utah (it’s now official) and then headed out to Snow Canyon for a pleasant hike in beautiful weather. The red cliffs, black basalt, intensely blue skies, and green trees lining a dry creek bed reinforced the knowledge that we were no longer in soggy Washington and yes, we were truly back in the warm Southwest.

Face in the rock – looks like a modern sculpture!

Another face in the rock (is that a sphinx, or just Scooby Doo?)

Back at the house we starting looking for a place to stay tomorrow night. We were hoping to get to Page, AZ, but were disappointed to find that most of the rooms in town were booked, and the few that remained were jacked up to unreasonable prices. Finally we got a tip on a small place, Debbie’s Hideaway, that turned out to have a nice suite at a price we could live with. Tomorrow we hit the road!

Should we let the gnome in?