American West Bus Tour Day 2/20 - Santa Fe, New Mexico
First off, let's make some corrections to yesterday's blog. I had forgotten to update state totals after our visit to West Virginia in July, so New Mexico was Arlona's 41st state, not 40th, and I am currently at 45 states visited. Dang - I have to keep up!
We slept in until 7:00 this morning. That's impressive given that 7:00 here equates to 9:00 at home and the fact that we went to bed at 9:15 last night. We must have been tired. This should get us shifted the two hours to Mountain time so we'll be good to go.
The hotel's breakfast was decent with waffles, sausage, and pre-made cheese omelets that look pre-made. Still, it was fine and saved us from having to search for chow. The plan was to hang out in the room until 10:30 and take the shuttle back to the airport to meet our tour director, Geoff. We would then take the first of two buses to Santa Fe.
Around 9:30, Geoff texted us that plans had changed due to delayed inbound aircraft. So, we took advantage of the hotel's 11:30 checkout and then hopped the shuttle to the airport to meet Geoff a little before noon.
We found Geoff and the group. We had to wait about 45 minutes for a 12:06 flight with 12 more tour members before departing for Santa Fe.
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| Our route today - just about an hour |
We had a total of 19 tour participants gathering today. A few arrived early directly to Santa Fe and a few more were arriving later today. We will have a total of 30 participants on this tour and we'll meet everyone tomorrow morning at breakfast or on the bus. After the 12 new arrivals gathered their luggage, Geoff gave us an initial briefing for today and tomorrow morning and escorted us outside.
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| Our bus arrives - we will be on this bus all the way to Missoula |
As we departed Albuquerque and headed northeast, we caught some nice views of the Sandia Mountains.
We arrived at the Doubletree Santa Fe and checked in for our two-day stay. Unlike our hotel in Albuquerque, this hotel was located within walking distance of a bunch of restaurants and stores including Albertsons and Target.
After getting settled into our room, we scanned Google and Yelp and decided on Plaza Cafe Southside for a late lunch / early dinner. Plaza Cafe is the oldest restaurant in Santa Fe. It opened in 1905 and has been in the hands of the current owner since 1947. They have two locations - the original downtown location and this Southside location that opened sometime later.
Hmm...we're in the American Southwest. What should we drink?
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| $5 house margaritas it is |
We opted to sit outside and enjoy the 90-degree heat with nearly no humidity - a nice change from Florida's wet blanket weather. Arlona enjoyed her blue corn enchilada and I also enjoyed my crispy fish tacos. While we were eating al fresco, we were treated to a hummingbird's antics less than three feet away.
As we started walking back, another local flitted by.
We made the short walk to Albertsons for some supplies.
Coffee and tea drinkers have it easy as every place that serves breakfast offers coffee and most offer tea. For those of us who prefer our caffeine cold and carbonated, it's tough to get that morning jolt when traveling. Therefore, we took the opportunity to pick up some Coke Zero and Diet Mt. Dew to fuel our morning routine. We also grabbed some Diet Sunkist Orange for caffeine-free evening sipping. There is a rumor that a bottle of ready-to-drink Margaritas might have slipped its way into the bag along with some Orville Redenbacher microwave popcorn, just for emergencies, of course.
Let me flip back to yesterday for a minute. On the way back from the store after dinner last night, the last block or so was uphill back to the hotel. By the time we got there, I was huffing and puffing more than I thought I should have been. Weird, right? Fast-forward to today where I was feeling a little out of breath on the relatively flat walk to lunch. What was happening? Then, I got the bright idea to Google Albuquerque elevation. Guess what it said? 5,312′. Albuquerque is slightly higher than Denver! Who knew! That explained what happened yesterday, but what about today? It turns out that Santa Fe sits at 7,199′ - almost 2,000' higher than Albuquerque. Wow! So, that explains my huffing and puffing. The next hotel we will visit on Monday ups the ante another 1,000' to 8,200' in Mesa Verde National Park. Looks like a few days of labored breathing. At least that's something we experienced after our time in Ecuador and Peru earlier this year.
We toted our haul back to the hotel and deployed strategic items into the fridge. After hanging out for a bit, we donned swimsuits and went to enjoy the hotel's hot tub. Unfortunately, poor maintenance meant all the jet nozzles had fallen off leaving only open pipes. Turning the jets on resulted in wild bubbling along the edges of the tub, splashing everywhere. It was quite annoying. We turned off the jets and just relaxed in the hot water.
We returned to the room, rinsed off, rinsed off our suits, and settled in for the night at about 7:30. We will watch a little TV and turn in early again tonight. We expect that most of the other travelers will do the same as they all had a long day of travel and we all have an early morning tomorrow.
Tomorrow, we will get a guided tour of Santa Fe and a group welcome lunch at Tomasita's, a restaurant that has been operating for 50 years in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. We'll spend some free time in Old Santa Fe to wrap up the day.
30 of us will be on a 58-passenger bus with only 19 continuing on the extension to Missoula so we should be comfortable as we travel. The tour starts in earnest tomorrow. We've briefly met a few of our fellow travelers and look forward to fully meeting everyone tomorrow.
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