2021 Eclipse Road Trip – Visiting Santa Fe And Taos

Previous posts in this series: Planning, Heading West, Albuquerque, Viewing Eclipse

After a fantastic week in Albuquerque, we headed north. We wanted to spend time in Santa Fe and Taos. Given that Taos is 2 hours north of Santa Fe and we didn’t want to just cover it in just a day trip, we split the week, 4 nights in Santa Fe and 3 nights in Taos.

Santa Fe – more churches, scenery, and lots of art

Our time in Santa Fe was during Memorial Day weekend, so hotels were packed, and while we arrived around lunchtime, we weren’t able to check in early, so we immediately ventured out on our first excursion, Santa Fe Plaza. The plaza is the center of the downtown, with lots of shops and eating places. Since we drove from Albuquerque to Santa Fe and had a carload to unpack, we didn’t do much except walk around and get a lay of downtown land.

We looked at AirBNB for accommodations, but it was prohibitively expensive in Santa Fe, so we opted for a Residence Inn, which ended up being a great choice. Our room was a duplex, so Scott and I had the upstairs with our own bathroom. Our youngest stayed downstairs with her own bathroom, a Murphy bed, desk and curtain separating her from the living room and full kitchen with eating bar. This Residence Inn also served a hot breakfast with tamales and chilequiles!

After unpacking we visited Old Fort Marcy Park, where you walk up a winding path that has historical markers every few steps explaining events in New Mexico’s history. You end up at an overlook of the city with a giant cross, Cross of the Martyrs. Walk up another winding path, and you end up at the Fort Marcy Ruins with more historical markers and an even grander overlook of the city.

The following day we heard mass at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, a beautiful Catholic church, dating back to the 1700’s – so almost as old as San Felipe de Neri in Albuquerque. Heads-up for classical music buffs: Igor Stravinsky conducted a concert in this cathedral.

It was a Sunday, and our last chance to see Ghost Ranch, the house and grounds where Georgia O’Keefe did much of her painting. Ghost Ranch is closed Monday and Tuesday, so plan accordingly! It is about an hour’s drive from Santa Fe, and the topography changes from desert to stunning red rock mountains.

Ghost Ranch was also the site where some of City Slickers was filmed (as well as other movies).

Scott and our youngest attempted one of the trails – I turned back after a few steps. Instead, I happily sat on a rocking chair outside the Visitors Center overlooking the amazing mountain vistas.

Speaking of beautiful scenery, we took also took some time to drive up Hyde Park Road. We didn’t go all the way up to the peak, but stopped off at Vista Grande Overlook site, which is over 10,000 feet and has sweeping views of Santa Fe and the surrounding area. It was very cold up there, and in fact we think that location had snow when the afternoon rains came through later that day.

Our remaining time in Santa Fe was taken up with a quick visit to Loretto Chapel and its miraculous staircase. The chapel is so tiny – you can visit it in five minutes – but I wanted to see it firsthand. The staircase is an engineering marvel, spiraling twice from floor to ceiling without support beams. It was rumored to have been built by St. Joseph himself, and there was even a movie made about it (aptly titled, The Staircase).

Santa Fe also has a botanical gardens. It is small enough that you can see the whole thing easily in an hour, but it is very beautiful, with lots of native plants, flowers and trees, as well as many sculptures and pieces of art. We dream of having our own fruit trees someday, so we particularly enjoyed their fruit orchard, with apples, pears, peaches and cherries, among other fruits. Since it was early in the season, the fruit was still on the really small side.

We also walked up and down Canyon Road and enjoyed the many art galleries. I am not an art aficionado, but the galleries were very welcoming. My favorite was the gallery and sculpture garden of Frederick Prescott. Inspired by artist Alexander Calder, Prescott creates whimsical animal sculptures, small and very big.

Art rules in Santa Fe. Our very first day we caught the annual Society of Artists outdoor arts market. The next day, we saw not one, not two, but three arts markets!

Taos – more scenic drives, more shopping and a show-stopping bridge walk

The scenic drive from Santa Fe to Taos was what I imagine it would be like if you could drive into a nature painting. The air is so dry here that the colors, the sky, the mountains come in very sharply. We’re elevated in the mountains, so the clouds appear so close.

We stayed in an AirBNB in the ski resort of Angel Fire, about 40 minutes up the mountains from downtown Taos. The road to Angel Fire is part of the Enchanted Circle, a 2-hour loop drive that takes you all around the area. Much of the drive is through Carson National Forest, whose slogan is “Land of Many Uses”.

We spent two full days in Taos – one of which was spent visiting the many shops in the downtown area. Downtown Taos is similar to downtown Santa Fe, where the galleries, shops and restaurants are all clustered within a few blocks. Of course, I bought more things.

But I did the bulk of my shopping and vista-gazing at the Rio Grande Gorge bridge.

We happily went twice to see this spectacular canyon. You can drive or walk the bridge, and we did both. There is also a rest area with bathrooms and more vantage points. Local vendors set up shop at the rest area, and the wares and prices are better than downtown Taos. I bought a pair of earrings, 3 pendants and 8 necklaces for less than $120. These pieces were all handmade with real crystals and gemstones (tiger eye, howlite, Indian jasper, unakite and more) and would sell for multiple times that amount in the retail shops. Plus, you get to talk to the artists!

One of the artists pointed out a not-so-obvious quarter-mile path that takes you to a single bench overlooking the gorge. She said it’s where all the magazine photographers set up shop, and it did provide an impressive vantage point to admire the gorge.

On day two at the Rio Grande Gorge bridge, there were surprise visitors to the rest stop.

A herd of big-horned sheep were strolling right behind the artist stands!

New Mexico is a foodie capital, but we stuck with comfort food

While you can eat fancy meals, especially in Santa Fe, we opted for comfort food, choosing family-friendly casual eateries like The Pantry and Café Castro for New Mexican food. The fanciest place we tried was Kakawa Chocolate House, which features various chocolate “elixirs” – hot chocolate based on historical recipes. You can see the different ingredients written up on a large blackboard, and they give samples! Our youngest opted for the Jeffersonian, which apparently is drawn from Thomas Jefferson’s own recipe.

My favorite food discovery in Santa Fe was Dumpling Tea, a Chinese noodle house in one of the arcades right in Santa Fe Plaza. In the center of the restaurant, one of the staff handrolls the noodles and forms the dumplings in full view of the customers. We had steamed pork dumplings, soup buns (essentially dumplings with soup inside) and handmade noodles with pork. The food is delicious, and I was mesmerized by how fast the cook could make the dumplings.

In Taos, we were more limited in our options since we were staying a long, winding drive away from the downtown. However, we had a nice comfort food meal at Zeb’s, which really should be called Christmas Wonderland since it is decked out with nutcrackers, snowmen, ornaments and lights.

Right at the front of the restaurant are flyers advertising Zeb’s for sale at $1.5 million!

You don’t need a million dollars to enjoy yourself in New Mexico — many activities are free

As mentioned in our previous post, most of the activities we did in Albuquerque were free. In Santa Fe, activity-wise, our biggest expenses were Ghost Ranch and the Santa Fe Botanical Gardens, both with tickets at $10 per person. Although we did save a couple of dollars at the gardens with a student ticket for our youngest.

Otherwise, mostly everything else we did was outdoors and free: walking the famed Canyon Road and the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, as well as driving around the scenic roads and exploring the shops in the historic downtown areas.

Next stop:  Denver for another week of work and vacation!