Originally uploaded by kerner.
Originally uploaded by kerner.
Tent Rocks
Originally uploaded by kerner.
Sunday morning we left Springfield for vacation in Santa Fe, NM. We had a rather uneventful 12 hour drive, which other than being long is good. We were in Santa Fe a few years ago and liked it so much we decided to come back. Santa Fe has outstanding outdoor activities and some of the best food anywhere I've ever been. It probably doesn't hurt that we love spicy food.
The biggest improvement over our last trip is that we rented an apartment rather than staying in a hotel. It's part of a larger adobe house about three blocks from the Plaza which is perfect – we can walk just about everywhere important in Santa Fe. The house is old with hard wood floors, adobe walls, and logs making up the ceiling 14 feet above the floor. It oozes Santa Fe character.
Monday we got up and went for the obligatory breakfast burrito at Tia Sophia's. This restaurant is credited with creating the breakfast burrito in 1975 and they're still great. I ordered one with sausage and have to say that bacon is much better with the chile. The spice in the sausage doesn't mix very well. I think ham might be good as well, but I'm probably going to stick with the original – bacon.
After breakfast we made a quick run to Trader Joe's to buy some food for the house. <rant>We really need a TJ in Springfield – if Santa Fe can support one I know we could. I think I could do all of my grocery shopping at TJ. </rant> One of the advantages of driving here is that we were able to bring our bikes. We went on a 20 mile bike ride from the plaza out into the countryside SE of town.
We ended the day at Tomasita's for dinner. I really liked Tomasita's last time we were here, but I don't think it was quite as god as I remembered. I had blue corn chicken enchiladas with green chile. Maybe my standards in chile have gone up, but it wasn't outstanding. The best part of the meal – sopapillas!
Yesterday we took the first hiking excusion of the trip to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument. These rock formations were formed by erosion on the deposits from volcanic eruptions. I took the XH-A1 out and got about 40 minutes of footage. I'm not sure what quality it will be, but hopefully I'll be able to get a 4-5 minute piece from the footage. About half the time I ran everything manually, but the constant iris adjustments moving from light to shadow were taxing so a good portion of the day was spent in shutter priority. Setup: 24f, 1/48 shutter, auto iris (except for when I stopped to do it manually), and the ND filter at 1/32. This is a location that is really well served by the HD camera. I'll post some unedited clips later.
Last night for dinner we went to the Shed. We spent a long time at the bar waiting for our table and got to talk with a woman who owns a shop on the plaza. She made a recommendation for the red chile (which apparently they sell) and it was exceptional. This is the second night we've walked to and from dinner. The house near the plaza is great.
Today, Sarah is going on a yarn excursion to Taos. I'm going to lounge around Santa Fe and do some reading and maybe shoot some video of the town.