Santa Fe

Downtown Santa Fe is a fun place to wander around with many little shops.  It’s not as fun with kids, at least the shopping part, but we still enjoyed bopping around.  Pop your head into St. Francis Cathedral, it is a beautiful space with spectacular designs.

Petroglyph National Monument

I’m taking over for Katie for this section as she was gone to Colorado for a super fun girls weekend. The kids and I decided to head out and see some Petroglyphs. These marking are 600-800 years old and were used as detailed signposts by the native people. The meaning is a bit more spiritual than that, but hopefully, you get the basic idea. There are numerous sites around Albuquerque where you can view the petroglyphs in the National Park. We just hit one that had a few different stops. The glyphs are awesome to see. We all felt the cool sensation of watching something that was written when the land was still desolate and the people were few. On the sadder side of things, I also used this as an opportunity to talk to the kids about vandalism. Many areas within the park have been vandalized and stupid people have cut their names or dumb sayings into the rocks. It really hit home with the kids how bad this practice is and I think it’s a lesson they will take with them in life. ( at least the older ones). It was great spending the day in the hot sun, doing school (Junior Ranger), hiking and having some laughs.

Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument

What a hike!  Tent Rocks is such a fun adventure and the geological formations you see blow your mind.  Looking from afar is impressive but when you make your way through the narrow passages of the slot canyon to the tent rocks the views are magical.  A climb at the end puts you above the rocks on a plateau looking out over vast land which seems to extend to the edge of the earth.  Spectacular views and well worth the travel.

Chimayo/Taos

I read about the weavers in Chimayo and really wanted to check out this art.  We ventured off on our way to Taos and what we found was amazing.  We happened to stop in the Trujillo Weaving Shop first and we probably didn’t need to go anywhere else.  The work was beautiful, we were able to see weaving in progress and the colors, yarns, patterns and finished products were all stunning.  As 7th generation weavers, their story, tradition, and preservation of an art form is truly amazing.

From Chimayo, we took the scenic road to Taos which equated to lots of winding around, by the time we arrived Colette didn’t feel great.  We didn’t stay long but the drive was beautiful and worth the curves to the top of the mountain.

Folk Art Museum

There are a group of museums on “Museum Hill” in Santa Fe which is a pretty neat place.  We choose to check out the Folk Art Museum and it was well worth the visit.  It is hard to describe all the amazing things here, art from around the world and a really great hands-on section for the kids.  One cool thing, we noticed a weaving created by the weavers in Chimayo we had just visited the day before.