Friday, January 31, 2014

Desert skies, green chili burgers and tons of statues in Santa Fe

The next leg of our journey had us leaving our warm, sea level digs behind to head for higher ground....7,260 feet higher to be specific.  Santa Fe, NM!  

It was Christmas time and the entire city was dressed up for the occasion.  Although there were plenty of the standard Christmas lights to be found, most of the adobe-style buildings in Santa Fe were decorated with strings of white lights in brown paper bags set in rows along the roofs.  It might sound a bit odd, but as you can see, it gave the entire city a beautiful, old-timey look.





There was plenty of unique architecture to check out from the local church to small details on houses we saw as we huffed and puffed our way through town.  Did we mention that it was 7,200 feet above sea level?!?



Because so much of the town has preserved it's local flavor, even the Starbucks felt compelled to join in on the desert southwest motif!


I don't know if Santa Fe is looking for a new nickname.  If it is, I would highly recommend "City of 1000 Statues".  There were art galleries all over (as in far more art galleries than fast food restaurants) and most of them specialized in sculpture.  The two main themes - Indians and pigs (though never in combination).  We were short on storage space and didn't manage to get a single picture of the numerous pig statues; however, we do have some Native American-themed statues to share.



The area also boasted a train called the "Rail Runner" that would take you anywhere any the county.


And a train that promised not to take you anywhere at all.


It was just about time to head out of Santa Fe, but, we couldn't leave before trying one of the local delecacies - the green chile burger!  It's made with the local hatch green chiles and comes in all sorts of varieties (including our chosen veggie).  We did our research and settled on Burt's Burger Bowl - fist fights have started over where to get the best green chile burger in Santa Fe and we definitely don't want to get in the middle of that controversy.  Suffice it to say, we enjoyed the burger we got!


Having heard rumors that a polar vortex was approaching, we decided to descend from the plateau and make our way to warmer temperatures in....