Santa Fe Quick Trip

I have been working, working, working to get ready for the upcoming two weeks: I'm in Santa Fe for one day; tomorrow in Albuquerque for the national convention for church educators; and Saturday I leave from NM for FL for a well-earned vacation.

Since I had only 24 hours, the first thing on my list was to see Michael Adee, the executive director of More Light Presbyterians. He is a master teacher—one of the instructors at the Inclusive Church conference where we first met—and delightfully funny, intelligent and gracious. Michael treated me to lunch at a restaurant amid the rolling foothills of high desert New Mexico. The time slipped by far too fast, but Michael is leaving tomorrow for the Creating Change conference in Minneapolis.

With so little time, I visited one must-see: the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, where I was not permitted to take pictures. However, of those works housed here, Black Mesa Landscape was my one of my favorites; and I found an image online.

The hills look low, but the altitude is 1000 ft. higher than Denver. I have had to drink a ton of water to counter effects of altitude and very dry air.

All of the downtown buildings are made of adobe: tan, yellow, orange and red of the surrounding landscape. This is the Santa Fe Museum of Art.

This is my attempt at art.

The town plaza was filled with touristy shops of pretty good quality, but no tourists were around but me. One side of the square was a long building, the front of which held a covered walk occupied fully by flea marketers.

The town of Santa Fe is filled with galleries. I snapped this one as a snow shower was in full force.

Michael told me these log fences are called coyote fences. They're everywhere.

Tomorrow brings more snow and frigid temperatures, lows below zero. But don't feel sorry for me: I left behind an incoming storm that will bring 2" of ice to Indy. Tomorrow I return to Albuquerque for the five-day convention, and Saturday I will fly to Florida to take a much-needed rest.