Day 6: Sleeping in, and the Santa Fe Plaza

I completely wasted my Saturday morning in Santa Fe.

There. I said it.

I could’ve gone out and done stuff, but I let myself be overwhelmed by all the options that came up when I Googled things to do, and I was supposed to meet up with Chris that afternoon to do stuff, so I totally let myself make excuses for spending the morning sleeping in and messing around online.

Booooo!

I did eventually go out for a driving tour around the town square (read: searched a crazy long time for a parking spot before finally finding one immediately after texting Chris that I had given up and was just going to go back to my hotel whooops). Historic Santa Fe is a pretty neat area, and one which I fully intend to visit again some day when 1) it is warmer, 2) I have company, and 3) I’m staying within walking distance of the plaza so I don’t have to worry about parking.

The museum I did not visit.

I didn’t want to close out my time in New Mexico with a parking ticket, so I skipped the New Mexico Museum of Art since I didn’t think I’d be able to get through it all before my parking meter ran out. I did check out the gift store, though, so that’s gotta count for something right? And their galleries are available on this website so maybe if I scroll through everything there really slowly while walking in place and nodding thoughtfully…

So as not to miss out on art-in-person entirely, I visited Manitou Galleries (I am in love with Jim Eppler’s ravens please put one on my headstone) (please wait until I am dead first) and a couple other shops so I could still see some cool stuff while I was out. During my walk around town I also visited a free community gallery featuring an exhibit on… something about… post-apocalyptic fashion? I think? There were a lot of tubes…

L to R: St. Francis of Assisi; the Native American Vendors Program at the Palace of the Governors; a monument in the plaza square; Colette Hosmer’s “Santa Fe Current” sculpture installation.

I stopped at Ecco for a lunch of coffee and gelato – because I am a grown-up and I do what I want – before doing a quick circle of the town square itself, coffee cup in hand, boot laces flapping. It was all very hip for a good 12 minutes at least. I’m sorry you missed it.

I met up with Chris and his friend L for a tour of the New Mexico History Museum, which currently features a perfectly timed exhibit on pinhole photography. I say “perfectly timed” because Chris is a photographer (as well as a teacher and a lifelong student of the subject) so it was like having our own personal tour guide on hand to share the fun bits of history that didn’t fit on the wall placards.

One of the coolest things in the exhibit (other than a camera made out of a Quaker Oats canister) was one of Jeff Fletcher’s self-portrait eggs. Basically, dude made a pinhole camera out of a pepper shaker, coated the insides of emptied egg shells with Liquid Light, took a bunch of selfies with the pepper shaker camera so the images would appear inside the eggs, then cracked open the shells to reveal the images inside.

Is that not the coolest thing?!

Also cool: La Choza where we went for dinner after the museum, at which time I at six too few sopaipillas.

Ah. Much better.

Then it was home again home again jiggity hotel, where I caught up on Arrow and Doctor Who while blogging and packing for this morning’s departure. I left town just in time, too, as it turned out. It rained then snowed over night in Santa Fe. Had to brush my car off before I could leave.

I’m still mostly outrunning winter this year – but barely…