Santa Fe first stop

 We spent one night in Santa Fe (altitude 7,199) at the beginning of the trip and then 3 nights at the end.  It has GROWN since I was in Los Alamos every summer.  Our first hotel was the Hotel Santa Fe.  It was right across the street from The Saturday Farmers' Market and The Sunday Artisans' market.  We wanted to do both, so this was really convenient.  We had two suites and the kids, Yoshi and I shared.  Hotels confused Yoshi.  He wanted us all together, but he was good about understanding about having to go down the hall and out the door to do his business.

We felt very safe because NM has been really really good about Covid.  Mask wearing is universal except for the occasional tourist - and they get on their case fast.  Every store, every window has mask reminder messages.  

The one of the best parts about the trip was being able to eat in restaurants.  After the Farmers' market we walked to:

We ate on the patio and Yoshi was under the table with a bowl of water.

This is a Hatch green chili cheese burger.  We each had 1/2 except for Calder.  He had a whole one.  Chili is ubiquitous in NM.  Almost everything has a choice of chili.  Even if you order spaghetti, there is the question - Red or Green?  or you can have "Christmas" which is both red and green chili.

We share a dessert.  A sundae with churros.

We walked back to the hotel and settled in for the evening.  That night we just did room service from the hotel.  I was so stuffed that I passed.

The 3 adults walked to the Plaza Café for breakfast.  I had a blue corn with pine nuts pancake.  The butter had orange in it.  We shared a salad (a sop to healthy).  Again we were outside with Yoshi under the table.  It was shirtsleeve weather, so we were really comfortable.

 We packed up and headed for Taos Ski Valley.  We stopped in Pojoaque for a short visit with a member of Jef's national sewing charity (ASS - Aunties' Sewing Squad.)  They had small gifts for each other.  (This group does great stuff and also exchanges gifts.  Jef has made over 600 masks to donate.  A lot of their stuff goes to Native  Americans who have been especially hard hit with Covid.

March 20-27 Breaking the Covid bonds! New Mexico here we come.

 Leaving the Springtime in LA with our flowers blooming.  Since the trip is over, I am going to do things a little differently.  Instead of a day by day blog, I am going to group things and make comments.

We are going to Taos Ski Valley where last week they had 30 inches of snow.

We left CA at 10:30 Saturday night and drove through.  Since most of the route looks like this:

Or for real excitement - notice the train.  I saw one with 3 locomotives in front and two in the rear.  

What I am saying is that you don't miss much while driving at night.

Part of the time I rode in the front seat with Alec to talk to him so he would stay awake.  Jef slept until it was her turn to drive.

Unfortunately, they had to do all the driving.  We rented a HUGE SUV which I started calling the Titanic - maybe Ever Given.  Calder is too young to drive a rental and I couldn't see over the steering wheels.

Even with it being so big, we still barely fit with all of our stuff.

We looked like hoarders.   

Yoshi was a trooper.  He had never been on a long trip before so we didn’t know what to expect.  The first stop he looked around, but had to be lifted out of his space.  The second time he was up like a shot and pushed by me to get out the door.  Another time he started barking, so we thought he was signaling that he needed out.

We stopped in Gallop for breakfast at the aptly named Railway Café.  The railroad was right across the street.