I failed pretty miserably at this stop. I took virtually zero pictures, except for the picture of the bag for the boots I bought. I really need emojis in this blog. I would put the blushing, embarrassed, wide-eyed emoji here.
I’m not sure what happened. It was like all of a sudden I forgot I was documenting this trip. The drive was about 174 miles, which took me about 3 hours.
We set up camp and then headed out to downtown Santa Fe. Downtown was really cute. There were a lot of little art galleries, jewelry shops, boutiques, etc. I did have a weak moment and purchased the aforementioned boots. I also bought a really interesting wood carving print. I will defer to Ally for the official term for this technique.
When I was looking at the gallery where I purchased this print, I met a really interesting woman, Wendy. She had worked for Whole Foods corporate for many years. Similar to me, she has recently taken a leave of the corporate world. We shared our stories, in brief, as well as our anxieties, fears, and excitement about what the future might hold for us. Neither of us know where the future might take us, but both of us know that it will be better than the unhappy places we were before. For very different reasons, our jobs were draining our souls. Although our stories were very different, we ended up in the same place, physically and emotionally. She was from Eastern Canada, had lived in New York, Providence and visited Mystic often. I felt like all these commonalities were signs that I should purchase the artwork. So I did. Hopefully it will remind me of that conversation if I ever am questioning the future.
The weather was really crazy while we were downtown so we dodged in and out of the rain and wind before calling it quits and heading to the grocery store. The weather wasn’t conducive for sitting outside anyway. Someone told me that they have A LOT of people struck by lightening in the area, so I decided it was best not to take my chances.
The rest of the stay was relatively boring. I just did some cooking for the next couple of days and went to bed. Apparently there are a lot of coyotes in New Mexico. All night Luna kept waking up to them. The only place she seemed to feel safe was sitting straight up on my stomach. She has these tiny paws and weighs 25 pounds. All that weight goes into those tiny paws and feels like she is pushing on pressure points. Eventually I coaxed her half off of my stomach, wrapped her in the blankets and we both got a little sleep.
Off to Texas tomorrow!
Lesson of the Day: Sharing your story with strangers can sometimes be very therapeutic. You never know how similar your trials and tribulations are to someone else’s at that very moment.
Pictures in the featured image and below are from SantaFe.org . At the Whole Foods I went to, they had Chili peppers just like those above hanging outside instead of hanging plants.
L&K Take America 