Day 3 - Tuesday, June 15, 2010

We awoke early this morning as we were camping fairly close to a highway. The noise of morning traffic, plus the sunlight beaming into our tent made sleeping in almost impossible. We were on the road around 7:30 and I was in the search for coffee. We came upon the small town of Madrid, about 10 miles from Santa Fe. Definitely an artist community that sprung from what used to be an old mining town. There was a GREAT place for coffee & croissants. We sat outside and enjoyed the quiet and beauty of the town. We felt as if we had unexpectedly stumbled onto something quite wonderful.

On to Santa Fe! It was time for an oil change, and since it was too early for any of the museums to be open, we stopped in at Jiffy Lube. That taken care of we dashed in to Target to buy socks for Rainy. Then it was time to find the Plaza. The sun was out and it was starting to get warm, but there was a gentle breeze. We walked around the Plaza and admired the Native American craftsmen and there displays of jewelry & pottery. It took a lot of willpower to resist buying turquoise jewelry (seems to be my downfall). The highlight of Santa Fe was our visit to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. The display focused on O'Keeffe and abstraction. It was beautiful! They even had the "Jack in the Pulpit" series which I use to teach about O'Keeffe; how remarkable to see the actual paintings. Some of the artworks in the display were soft pastels or charcoals. I was amazed at the brilliant colors achieved and the sense of small details. It made me want to pull out my pastels (which I brought along) and start practicing! Before leaving Santa Fe, we stopped at the Guadalupe Cafe for lunch. Funny thing, I remember their green chili being so spicy that I could barely eat it. It wasn't the heat that I recalled from my teenage years.

Our Next stop was Las Vegas, New Mexico. We spent some time wandering around the town square and admiring the old buildings. We stepped into a couple of the stores to see what they had.

Back onto Route 66, we traveled the old road as much as possible on into Santa Rosa. The main attraction was the Blue Hole, an 80" wide, 240" deep artesian well with crystal clear, 61 degree water. Rainy and I decided it was time for a swim so we walked to the higher rocks and jumped in! The cold took my breathe away, but then it felt good. We swam around and jumped in from the high rocks a few more times before getting back on the road to drive to our night's destination:

Our next stop along old route 66 was the ghost town of Cuervo.  We searched amongst the old buildings, admiring their construction.  There was also a church that looked as if it was still cared for, but it was hard to tell for sure.

We also stopped in Montoya to photograph another decaying building, this one claiming to have cold beer!

The Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, New Mexico was our destination for the night.. The Blue Swallow was wonderful. We sat outside our door on old furniture, ate our leftovers from the Guadalupe Cafe, and enjoyed the sunset!