Coast to Coast - Santa Fe, NM

Though the temptation to stay in this frying pan of a homestead was almost too much to resist, we were on the road by 8:30 the next morning, Needles quickly fading out of site in our rear view mirror. We had a long drive ahead of us, 600 miles to Santa Fe, and we wanted to get there early enough to enjoy an evening out on the town. Luckily for us the speed limit on 1-40 was 75 (sometimes 80) miles an hour and it was a straight shot to New Mexico. We set the cruise control and popped in another book on tape.

We followed the highway, paralleling the famous Route 66, as it bisected the barren heart of Arizona; a seemingly endless expanse of flat, dry desert. It stretched on for hours, the only signs of life were the occasional cars that passed by or the sparse gas stations that popped up along the way.

Five hours in, we hit the New Mexico State line and the topography began to tansform before us– hills formed beneath us; trees and valleys dotted the horizon; and the earth, once a partched pale gray, was now glowing with an iron-rich red hue. The hills soon turned into mountains as we passed through Albuquerque and began to climb the tail of the southern Rockies.

Santa Fe itself sits atop a 7,200ft plateau but also makes up the basin of three large forested mountain ranges. A bustling metropolis of 75,000, it still manages to retain its wild west meets nomadic Indian outpost feel with strict adobe color and architecture building codes throughout the county and the over-abundance of Indian jewelry, clothing, and trinket shops throughout the city proper.

We pulled into town as the last of the suns rays slipped passed the encompassing mountains and twilight decended on the warm summer's sky. Having been cooped up in the car all day, we decided that we would bring Zoe with us and strolled along the brick-lined sidewalks into town. We heard music up ahead and followed the bluegrass tunes to a small tree-lined central plaza where hundreds of people were sitting around in the grass listening to a live country band on a stage in the center of the park. Children ran around in the fountain, hot food vendors lined the sidewalks, and near-by restaurants all had roof-top balconies filled with tourist and locals watching the show.

This scene seemed like it was a nightly occurrence in this town and Naomi and I were quick to fall in step with Santa Fe's the easy-going ebb and flow. We had a delicious tex-mex dinner in the courtyard of a local restuarant that allowed dogs and sipping maragritas and happy to be in a town where Denny's wasn't your only choice for food, entertiament and social interactions.