Do you know the way to Santa F- oh, wait

...so as I was getting ready on Wednesday night for my trip with Bub to Santa Fe, I couldn't get the Burt Bacarach song "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" out of my head, and would start to sing it and then stop and go, crap, wrong city. And then I eventually said, screw it, it's the same number of syllables and I didn't particularly love San Jose last time I was there. So we fly to Albuquerque (quick! how many 'u's? Yeah, I got it right too) and go to Hertz and Bub pulls a little magic with the guy and whoops, we now have a brand new red Corvette in which to tool around. We'd been debating whether to drive to Mesa Verde (which Bub wrote a report about in the fifth grade and evidently has thought of nothing else since) and Four Corners (aptly nicknamed Fo Cono), and now, with this hot car there was no excuse not to (and I had to resist the urge to play "Life is a Highway" numerous times during the trip).

So after checking into the historic Hotel St. Francis (very cute, nice staff) we hit The Shed for Mexican. Great margaritas, great guacamole, pretty good food, the chief attribute being that it wasn't too heavy. Next morning, 7 AM, we are on the road. Okay, so I made Bub hit 125 mph - how can you not on open road surrounded by desert and no one else? (Cue "Life Is a Highway")

Fo Cono was cool - We calculated that I've been to 22 states and this put me up to 24 (we're still arguing if my layover in St. Louis tips me to 25, but I digress). The people selling jewelery and trinkets and crap were a little sad, they just sat out there quietly - one guy was making bows and arrows and he was working so hard and he was only charging $10 and one can't help but think all that effort is going to end up broken under some kid's bed in a bit.

So onto Mesa Verde. The thing we seem to keep forgetting about National Parks is that once you're in the park, you still have a hell of a lot of driving to do to get where you want to go. So we missed the 2PM tour and barely made it to the Visitor's Center to inquire about the 3PM - and were informed that we'd be on the tour with 55 schoolkids. Fun! But we decided to go anyway.

Wouldn't you know, the luck of the Bub, the schoolkids just didn't show up and we got a private tour of Cliff Palace, the guide sat down with us and answered all of our questions and patronized our theories - all of them completely uninformed by history - as to why the Hopi left, and then laughed along with Bub when, on the way up this ladder to get out of the park, my skirt blew up around my neck and all of the Hopi ghosts got a view of the moon in broad daylight (yes, I was wearing a skirt and cute flats to Mesa Verde).

Okay, so maybe I didn't even know the dwellings were there before this trip, but hearing that Cliff Palace is sinking and one day will probably not be available to the public made me sad...just like hearing that the Pyramids are suffering serious erosion. Nothing lasts forever, to be cliched, but such a powerful link to the past is even more so when it's experienced firsthand. We discussed the fall of societies and there were so many applicable lessons, and it also makes on think about modernity and what it means to be modern. We're so far removed from nature and the signs provided by nature guided these so-called primitive cultures. It was fascinating to see up close.

Lest I get too deep, we then made the tremendous drive back to Santa Fe, got in around 11, ate dinner at the hotel (big negativo, SF - what is it with cities initialed SF and no late-night options?) and crashed. The next day we reserved for Santa Fe exploration, hitting up the Georgia O'Keeffe museum which was interersting and has a nice variety of her work, as well as some other places. The way people described Santa Fe, I expected this little fairy land in the desert of New Mexico, and it's a lovely little town, sure, but still pretty touristy and crowded.

That night we went to Geronimo, a really wonderful fine-dining experience. They were very flexible on the menu and the food was delicious - I, of course, had the short ribs, and they were incredible, in this burgundy sauce with polenta and shaved carrots, Bub had the mesquite shrimp which came arranged as a Babel tower stacked with these rice patties (kind of like risotto cakes). Dessert was really amazing - I had a meyer lemon mousse which was so light and delicate, while Bub had a banana tart which looked delicious. Highly recommended.

So since you're probably already asleep from the world's longest post, I'll skip how we accidentally wound up at Sandia National Labs and had some gastrointestinal issues. I will post this appropriately religiously-lit photo of the 'miraculous staircase' which was in the only church I've ever had to pay to enter. Bub had a field day with this obvious shiest, which I have to say was pretty silly. You can get paid to get hitched there and take your photo on the miraculous staircase, guaranteeing beautiful photos up your noses as you teeter on a spiral staircase and kiss like it's the most natural thing in the world...

all photos courtesy of 14th St Girl's birdseye view...