13 Aug 2013 Santa Fe, New Mexico
The summer
in Santa Fe is more than beautiful. Not
only is the weather perfect, but it is peaceful, and full of culture. The winters can be very cold and snowy, and
the summers are warm and sunny. After
living in Las Vegas without much seasonal contrast, I miss Mother Nature
showing off the splendor of the different seasons. The summer is when the Santa Fe Opera season
takes place. The opera house is
northwest of town 6 miles, nestled in the foothills of the Sange de Cristo
Mountains. Katherine and I have been
going to the SF Opera on and off for 10 years,
and this summer was our second time seeing all 5 performances.
Previously,
we enjoyed ourselves so much that I wanted to share the experience of the opera
festival with my parents. Thankfully,
they were interested and we made it a week together in Santa Fe. Katherine sent my parents little informative
emails about the particular performances and notes about what to look out
for. Many people, not knowing about
opera, get turned off by the different languages and are over stimulated with
the music. Plus, it is usually at least a
3 hour event, and can be overwhelming.
We wanted my parents to have a good time, so this little bit of
“homework” made them more comfortable and gave us stuff to talk about.
The Santa
Fe Opera is a whole evening event. To do
it right, you must “tailgate” before the opera starts out in the parking
lot. This is taken quite seriously and
all parties do it a little different.
While camping all summer out of the truck, we had most of the gear
needed to host a tailgating party.
Cooler, table, chairs, cutlery, cutting board, and knife would get the
job done, but Katherine wanted it to be really nice. So, we went online and found fancy plastic/reusable
glasses, cutlery, and even a white table cloth.
This really spiffed things up, and with the take away gourmet meals,
made for a delightful pre opera dinner before the first opera my parents were
attending. I think we did it right!
We spent
the days traveling the streets of Santa Fe and even went up to the top of Santa
Fe Mountain. This is where the ski
resort is located. In the past summers,
Katherine and I would mountain bike or trail run the trails, but this time we
went on a brief hike with my parents. I
was searching for the elusive King Boletes mushrooms. I ran farther up the trail and saw quite a
few mushrooms, but was unsure of what was the King. A chef, a few summers before, showed me how
to identify, but I had since forgotten.
I just loaded some up in a bag to check them out later. What I found out was, the one mushroom that I
did not take, thinking it was poison, was the only King that I saw. The others in the bag were not the poison
ones, but not tasty enough to eat. Oh
well. I think I was a little late for
the season anyway. Hopefully next time I
can know what I am looking for and be there at the right time. Or, just travel higher up into the mountains.
Shopping in
Santa Fe is outstanding. This is even
coming from a guy that hates shopping. I
just like to look at all the Native American art and crafts. There is everything from extreme luxury to
inexpensive postcards. I found a few
things, but was more interested in talking and mingling with the shop
owners. The lady that I bought some cuff
links from mentioned when I left to wear them in “good spirits” and shook my
hand. Wow! How different. I can’t say anyone had ever said that to me
before. I guess I have to then. She also talked about how her father was the
creator of the jewelry and gave me a little info on him.
Another interesting shopping moment
was the guy at the Red River Mercantile shop.
This guy was on the phone ordering a product line and discussing it in
detail. I listened closely as I was
trying on many hats. When he finished he
helped me with the hats and was more than knowledgeable. Our conversation then moved to bicycles and
he had me look at a web site selling hand made in the USA custom cycles. He
wanted my opinion about what models he should carry and why I thought they would
sell. Cool. From there he showed me another
site with watches made in a previously closed down Detroit factory. There is this new watch company utilizing retrained
factory workers skilled in the automotive field to make fine watches in hopes
to bring money back to the city. The
site looked great and the watches will surely sell. I just found it odd that this guys was so
interested in my opinion.
The last night of the opera was
probably our best. Our friends, Joe and
Laura came up from Albuquerque and were our tailgating guests. With my parents being there, this turned out
to be a great party. Joe showed up in
his super awesome red suit! I was
wearing my bright yellow pants, so we “kind” of stood out in the crowd. Katherine and Laura liked to just look from a
distance. I don’t blame them. This was Joe and Laura’s first time to the
opera, so we were all very excited for them.
While we were eating out in the parking lot, some people were pointing
and talking about our clothes. One guy
even came up to tell us how crazy we looked, so I also complemented him on his
attire (hot pink pants) and we posed for a picture.
Santa Fe was the last stop on our
HUGE summer trip. I was looking forward
to making it to the opera all summer knowing that it would be this much
fun. It was even more fun because my
parents came out to visit and Joe and Laura as well. That night we headed back to Albuquerque,
crashed at Joe and Laura’s, slept for a few hours, got up, ate breakfast, and
drove the 8.5 hours back to Las Vegas, stopping to have lunch with Emily and
Jason Snelson in Flagstaff. The last
day of driving was our longest.
Ouch!
I can’t believe how much of the USA
we saw in 2 months. It was expensive and
put a lot of miles on the truck, but was the equivalent of many smaller
vacations. There is no way we could
travel like this unless we were teachers, or trust funders! It was spectacular!
