Santa Fe is Cool

We spent a full day in Santa Fe. This is a town that is powered almost exclusively by art galleries and by the rich folks from Dallas who don't realize that we are in a recession. They refer to Santa Fe as the Texan Alps. We spent half a day walking the length of Canyon Road which is lined, on both sides of its 1 1/2 mile length, by art galleries. Some of the art was actually pretty good, but there was way too much bronze statuary. I can only assume that this stuff is popular in the Dallas suburbs. Carol was really hoping to find a Santos statue to add to our collection but she got discouraged by the prices for the better pieces. I think it's a sign of artistic sophistication when you can't afford the art that appeals to you. Santa Fe has some really good restaurants, as well.

From Santa Fe to Sedona is a seven hour drive. It took us fourteen. We stopped in almost every town along the way to look for vestiges of old Route 66. It was a very confusing experience for me to try and reconcile my memories of traveling on this road 49 years ago with the reconstructed nostalgia-fest that Route 66 has become. I took a lot of pictures, but I am not particularly happy with the results as I seem to have lost focus on what I wanted to capture. We did find Radiator Springs and its WigWam Motel, howerer; aka Holbrook, AZ. We also stopped at the Petrified Forest National Park. The petrified part was not all that interesting, but the park also included parts of the painted desert, and that was pretty spectacular. We were pretty tired by the time we got into Sedona. We'll have more to say on our stay there, later. Tomorrow, we are off to Barstow, CA, and we will be hitting the Route 66 mother lode along the way. It will be another long day.