Santa Fe, not Clause

Two weekends ago Matt and I took a little weekend trip down to Santa Fe. The trip was spurred by Eddie Vedder and his ukulele, however his tour was postponed because he injured his back or something. The news of Eddie's back only caused momentary sadness, but we decided we could find plenty to entertain us without him. We left Sunday afternoon after a marathon laundry and cleaning sesh, we love coming home to a clean casa, and made it to Santa Fe with plenty of time to walk around and have some dinner. I'll spare you the play by play and just give you the highlights.

First up, our favorite restaurant from the trip was The Shed. It's not open on Sundays, so we didn't get to eat there til Monday night, but it was worth the wait. One quick warning, Santa Feans like their food spicy! I'm not big on spicy (although I love the chipotle Tabasco sauce) and I couldn't finish either of my dinners. I was piling sour cream on each bite To help because it all tasted so good, but eventually my taste buds had had enough.



Omg, the cutest thing is when you leave. It's a tiny door! Really only suitable for folks 5'4" and under perhaps (I'm only 5'2" after being stretched out by a chiropractor for a while) but for us shorties it was adorable! (oh, and a quick disclaimer, Matt took the first 3 pictures. He is better at it than me, but the rest are mine.)





Rewinding an hour or two, we hit up the Loretto Chapel that afternoon to check out the miraculous staircase that was featured on Unsolved Mysteries as the sign indicates. I used to love that show when I was a kid, but I don't recall ever seeing that episode.





I think $3 is a pretty low admission fee so we went inside to see what was so miraculous.

Here's a quick little explanation on the staircase taken from the chapel's website.

Legend says that to find a solution to the seating problem, the Sisters of the Chapel made a novena to St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters. On the ninth and final day of prayer, a man appeared at the Chapel with a donkey and a toolbox looking for work. Months later, the elegant circular staircase was completed, and the carpenter disappeared without pay or thanks. After searching for the man (an ad even ran in the local newspaper) and finding no trace of him, some concluded that he was St. Joseph himself, having come in answer to the sisters' prayers.The stairway's carpenter, whoever he was, built a magnificent structure. The design was innovative for the time and some of the design considerations still perplex experts today.The staircase has two 360 degree turns and no visible means of support. Also, it is said that the staircase was built without nails—only wooden pegs. Questions also surround the number of stair risers relative to the height of the choir loft and about the types of wood and other materials used in the stairway's construction.

As you can see from the picture it's pretty breathtaking inside. The looping audio feed explained that the staircase originally didn't have the hand rail or spindles. The women asked for them to be added a few years later for safety reasons. Coughwimpscough. There are also a few metal supports that have been added for preservation purposes that you can see in the photo below. In all honesty I would be pretty nervous to climb those stairs in their original state, so I don't blame them.



As miraculous as the staircase is, the front of the church is equally beautiful too. It's amazing to think that this whole thing was build back before power tools, by guys just hanging by a rope. Cra-cra.



Our other main activity for the trip was a pretty easy hike through a canon to see the Tent Rocks. They are probably 30-40 minutes outside of town on a Native American reservation. The canon was really remarkable. It reminded me of that terrible movie about the guy that cut his arm off, without the pesky danger of needing to cut your own arm off. A quick little note about the trail we took: You can pretty much skitp the really steep part, the views are much better from the canon. Matt took a lot of pictures in here, but here are my crappy pics. (when he uploads his pics to flicker I'll add a link)







Now on to my favorite part of vacation, sooking at stuff to buy! I absolutely love finding little things to buy that remind me of my trips. Nothing expensive or tchotchke-y but just neat little bits here and there. Here's our loot we brought back with us.



The paper flowers I got for Ali at the Rainbow Man shop along with the little metal frame/box. There were so many different kinds of flowers.





The pots are from this place called Jackelope Mercado.





Which was pretty awesome! There was also this tent near the entrance that was selling all kinds of beads, fossils, minerals, and rock formations. The prices were pretty cheap awesome too. (Jenna! This is where you need to go!)









I picked up a dark grey freshwater pearl necklace, and a tiny geode pendant for $6 total! The seashell rings were from a shop near the plaza, and the quartz ring was from Casa Nova which is in the rail yard district.





Sadly enough I broke the quartz ring the day after I came home. It's really slippery when wet and slipped right out of my hands. Once it hit the floor it shattered and looked like this.





However, one of my awesome co-workers was in Santa Fe last weekend and ordered me a new one while she was there! Karen, you're the best! After my sad picture Matt and I discussed not wearing my fun cocktail rings to work anymore so they don't break. Now I just need to stock up on cheap Forever 21 rings that I don't really care about. Let's look at some self indulgent pictures of my new seashell rings to lighten things back up a bit.





We also picked up a Starbucks mug, some chili powder with a chili cookbook, and some ornaments for the old Xmas tree. If you can't guess, I picked out the Indian cat.





During our wandering we also made a quick trip to Canon Drive where all the hoitey toitey art galleries are. We didn't go in many because it was Tuesday morning and we were the only people around so we felt a little out of place. But here's a few shots of things I thought were pretty awesome.There was this giant metal origami buffalo outside of Selby Fleetwood Gallery that made me want to see more.







These plates that have cats dressed in fancy Victorian clothes are awesome. That isn't my opinion, it's a fact.





Ok, well that's all I got. Hopefully we will make a return trip to see Ed when his back gets better. Do you have any quick weekend trips planned for the summer? Have you ever been to Santa Fe? If so, what should we see that we missed out on?

P.S. I almost forgot to post the winner of the #CraftStoreInstawalk contest! Drumroll please................

The winner is Naomi and her Yes Lord instapic.





So thank you to everyone (my friends and one other person) for entering my first ever contest! Naomi, where would you like your gift card to?