Sept 8th to 11th - Santa Fe

Sept 8th - Tues - Santa Fe
Caught up my blog before heading to downtown Santa Fe this morning. It is a very pretty city center with no high rises - mostly adobe buildings in the Southwest tradition. We had to check out the Plaza as every brochure mentions it. It is a small park in the middle of town with lots of benches for people watching. Apparently it is used for many events.
On a wide, covered sidewalk in front of the Palace of the Governors, many vendors (mostly jewelry) display their goods on blankets and “mind the store” by sitting on pillows on the ground. Santa Fe is known for jewelry stores and art galleries. Of course there are also the expected touristy shops, high end clothing stores and lots of hand woven blankets and smaller items such as place mats. We did a lot of walking in absolutely beautiful weather!
On the way back to the RV park we stopped at a grocery store and then had a quiet evening.

Sept 9th - Wed - Santa Fe
Emails and other computer work this morning and then a casino called to Terry. Camel Rock Casino is just north of downtown Santa Fe and is not huge. I continued my slow downward spiral at the slots but Terry did OK. We actually left with more money than we took - and with 4 shot glasses that were the prize of the week for earning points on the player’s card. And I can’t forget to mention 2 decks of cards with holes punched through the middle!! I see another junk cleanout in our future.
Our lovely sunshine changed into rain by the time we got back so Terry was excused from cooking on the BBQ tonight.

Sept 10th - Thurs - Santa Fe
We are really enjoying being lazy in the mornings! Once we finally got going it was to casinos again! We went to the new Buffalo Thunder casino first. It is beautifully done - all adobe style exterior to blend into the landscape. We got to swipe our new players cards to select a token for the amount of free play that we would have. Terry went first and ended up with $75. I continued my losing streak by ending up with $5 which disappeared really fast. We used a food coupon to have a really good pressed sandwich for lunch before we headed to another casino just a few miles away.
The next small casino is affiliated with Buffalo Thunder so we had to earn some points before getting $10 each on our cards. I finally broke my losing streak and it ended up costing us $5 for the day of gambling and lunch.
It rained on & off most of the day and poured when we got back to Santa Fe. The curb lane on the major street that we traveled was covered with fast moving water. But the rain let up quickly and a few blocks later there was no river in the curb lane.
We watched the burning of Zozobra on TV this evening. This is an 85 year tradition of burning “father gloom” who is stuffed with viewers problems or “glooms” in hopes of banishing them. There was a lot of dancing up & down a set of stairs in front of the huge Zozobra figure, moaning from Zozobra and fireworks. I think you have to live here to appreciate how long it took for the actual burning to take place.

Sept 11th - Fri - Santa Fe
Took a while to get going this morning with emails and such. Then finding a place to get a haircut for me. Lunch at the mall and then off for a drive. We took “The High Road” to Taos. It was a really pretty drive through hills/mountains (as the name suggests) and a variety of terrains- sandy looking with small shrubs, green valleys, wooded hillsides and one small town after another. It was about 2 hours on this road.
Taos is a long, narrow town due to hills and the main road is quite narrow and lined with shops - very picturesque. Rain showers did not invite walking. We saw a sign for a casino so had to check it out. It was small and paid out in dollar tokens so we weren’t there for long.
We took a different route back (hwy 68) that followed the Rio Grande for quite a ways. The travel time decreased to 1 ½ hours. When we got back, we visited for a while with a neighbor who is from Idaho Falls before I made dinner.