WENT TO PLAY IN SANTA FE

Hello again from our blog to all our followers and friends and happy belated Easter! We hope everyone had a nice Easter Sunday with their families and friends.
Since we last talked we left Carlsbad, NM and landed in Santa Fe, New Mexico for 7 nights. I must say this is very pretty country in north central New Mexico. We stayed at Rancheros RV Park which was located right off old Route 66. This park is within 10 minutes from the historic downtown section of Santa Fe. Needless to say, we stayed quite busy doing the typical tourist things and sightseeing the surounding areas. We toured several of the old churchs and attended Easter Mass in the historic town Cathedral with the Archbishop presiding. This was just short of spectacular!

Nancy did her share of shopping in both Sante Fe and Madrid as there is no shortage of jewelry and art stores in this area. There are alot of movie stars living in this area, but unfortunatley, Nancy did not see any nor was her Val Kilmer walking around the streets while we were there. Oh Hum...

We did alot of hiking here as well and spent the day at Bandelier National Monument which included a 4 mile hike through the Pueblo cliff dwellings. This was just unbelievable! Dating back to the years 1250-1600, it's amazing the way the people lived in the Alcoves on the sides of mountains.

This photo shows the climb up to what's called "Alcove House" Now I was going to stay down below and snap pictures of Nancy, but I thought I should start a bucket list and got talked into going up! Whew, lots of ladders and a lot of height....but hey, she was doing it so how would it look for me to wimp out? You had to be there as the pictures don't show what I was faced with...On top of it all we ran into a black bear (which was brown) with her 2 cubs on the trail. Now I don't mind bears at a distance (say a mile or so), but this was about 40 yards! I can check that off my bucket list too!

We left the park and spent the latter part of the afternoon touring Los Alomos which is where the atomic bomb was created. Today, it's where the highest educated scientists in the country still work on research and National Security.

A few days later we spent the day in Madrid which is a cute little town outside of Sante Fe full of shops and more jewelry and art. On the way back we actually saw the area where they filmed the movie Lonesome Dove! Old Augustus' sweetheart Clara's house is a real house and is privately owned. The whole area surounding the house, which is thousand's of acres, is still used today as a movie set; and you thought she lived outside of Ogalla, Nebraska!

Well, onward....we're no longer in Santa Fe and are now in Cortez, Colorado for the next 14 nights visiting Mesa Verde. Check back soon....Adios

P.S. As you can see from the pictures, like a cowboy hangs up his guns we've hung up our shorts... for now!