Santa Fe, Are you there? Will you swear you won't forget me?

"Santa Fe, are you there? Will you swear you won't forget me? If I find you will you let me come and stay?"

Name that musical! Woke up early Tuesday with it playing in my head and then proceeded to put it in EVERYONE's head with the help of one amazing Alisha Kirk. I think we listened to it on my iphone about 4 times on the 6 hour drive to Santa Fe, only mildly driving the rest of our van crazy. Fun times, though :) because I was able to make that incredible trip with some of my new favorite people (Jan, Marjie, Alisha, Noelle, and Ellen--the fabulous 6). We piled into the vans and headed to Santa Fe, stopping at Echo Amphitheatre on the way. A beautiful picnic spot where a natural carving of the stone allows your voice to amplify tremendously. After lunch, we drove about an hour south to visit Tessie Naranjo's Pueblo and home, Santa Clara, at which I was overwhelmed with emotion. Tessie's generosity and overall good heartedness really allowed us to feel welcome in her home. I will not report what I discovered there, as that would be disrespectful to her culture, but I will say that I have an entirely new outlook and respect for people who can do SO much with so few material possession and modernity.

Leaving a bag of blue bird flour and blue corn meal behind, we then traveled on to Tower Gallery, where Tessie's sister Roxanne Swentzel (sp?) has a beautiful showing of her artwork. Her statues are really something to behold, as it is obvious her heart, soul and mind are all developing with her pieces. I've included a picture of my favorite piece from the gallery. If I had $14,000 in spare cash lying around I would have bought this piece in a heartbeat just because I was immediately drawn to it's beauty and overall message. I loved the way the artist described the piece too. She focused her description on her process, rather than the end result, which in the case of childbirth, child rearing and even teaching the process is always more poignant than the end result and to truly have an impact on the life of the younger, you have to give a piece of your self to your child, friend, or even student. This piece won my heart (I expect to see it in my home next week for my birthday. :) Start collecting money now...lol).

Soon, we departed from this gallery and made our way into the heart of Santa Fe where we were set loose to discover the city on our own. Marjie, our food connoisseur, made our way to Tomasitas, which is a restaurant located at the train yard and the restaurant is actually the old train station renovated into a lovely Southwest Mexican eatery (very, very spicy food). I had Huevos Rancheros with the chili on the side (because one bite set my mouth on FIRE), which was a lovely meal (Marjie has the best taste in food, so I really ate well on this trip...a little adventurously, but very well). Santa Fe is a beautiful city. At night, everything closes early, but the plaza is really very stunning and I'm impressed by the architectural design and forethought of the city (at 7000+ feet, by the way...:)).

After a beautiful night's rest (once I ousted the moth from my hotel bed...eep), we woke the next morning and headed to Tsankawi, an unexcavated site that is part of the Bandelier National Monument, and was open (the main part of the monument was closed due to the fires, but I found this rather fortuitous, as this was my favorite site of the whole trip!). We did a LOT of hiking here, which was absolutely stunning as we followed in the footsteps of the ancients (literally we were hiking on ancient footpaths). There were a couple of relatively high ladders involved, but I did very well despite the way my legs shook as I hiked over cliff sides etc. :) My favorite was seeing the cave dwellings. These were a little more primitive looking than the cliff dwellings, but were equally enchanting as you could still see some of the plaster on the walls. I'm thinking this site will become part of the setting for the new novel I have already started planning. We'll see how that goes. We ate lunch after the long hike, and then headed back to Santa Fe where we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the city (loved Canyon Road, though we didn't have nearly enough time to explore it thoroughly). We spent a lot of time in the Plaza and then Jan and I had drinks on a rooftop patio, and were soon joined by Alisha and Noelle, followed quickly by Jean and Tamara and finally in popped Marjie and Ellen. Loads of fun there before heading to our dinner reservation at La Choza (primo Southwest Mexican again!).

Thursday morning came quickly and we loaded the vans to head to the Santo Domingo Feast day, and all I'm allowed to say about that is that it was beautiful and a little surprising. I bought lots of fun things from the vendors there (including a beautiful copper bracelet for myself), and then we headed back to Cortez (a long drive home, but lots of QT for the fabulous 6 plus one and Elaine as the driver this time).

Right now, most people are finishing up their curriculum projects (I'm sure you are all shocked to know I finished mine a week ago...I'm such a nerd). We'll share those in about 10 minutes and then tonight will be our final reception and dinner. I can barely believe it has already been three weeks. I'm excited to go home and see Mom, Dad and Emma, of course and my friends (except Jenn and Adam who have to go celebrate their anniversary or some silliness this weekend), but I'm sad to leave my awesome new friends. I think we are somewhat kindred spirits because we are so alike and yet different but most of all we are incredibly strong minded, and independent and it's beautiful to connect to people on a level you don't truly understand yourself. I knew I'd been directed to this program for a reason, and while the specifics are unclear, this time has been blessed.