Travelling the State

Last weekend we found out just how tall a state New Mexico is. We went 3.5 hours north, still not very close to the north border, but to a beautiful city: Santa Fe. We left early Saturday and got there just about lunch time, so our first stop was a "local" favorite, according to my Yelp app. The bean burritos were good, the green chile sauce was excellent as always, but the red sauce still leaves something to be desired by my taste buds.

We had to walk off some of the lunch, so we oriented ourselves to the downtown area. The square had vendors and artists sprinkled around its borders, and the Native American jewelry artists located along one sidewalk, their turquoise and silver spread on blankets in front of them. 

A few blocks over is the Santa Fe "River," which consists of a beautiful smooth stone ravine lined with the yellowest leafed trees you've ever seen. This goes directly through downtown for several miles. I overhead a tour bus guide saying it used to be a raging river, but... I missed the ending. It's barely a trickle in late October.

After lunch was sufficiently settled, we headed over to the Dale Ball Trails, just a few miles east of downtown, for our long run. Now the city of Santa Fe has the #1 for highest elevation of any state capital at 7300 ft. We didn't know how much higher these trails were going to take us. I picked the south set of trails for some reason, and it turned out to have some great elevation gains. Our long run turned into a hike of about 5 miles that took us up to a peak at 8500 ft. Even running downhill was difficult with the rockiness of the trail. I managed a nice controlled fall/rock slide down. But it was totally worth it. Beautiful.

 

That evening we found a sushi restaurant, which is something we've been sorely missing since moving from Jackson. It was fantastic. We didn't stay out on the town too late that night; we were tired and eager to rest up for more adventures on Sunday.

Our first stop Sunday was at the Aspen Vista Trail, up on yet another mountain. We got there a month or so too late for the peak of the aspen leaves; they were bare. It was also about 37F up there, so we headed back down a bit to the Borrega trails. Now I know I talk about elevation a lot, but I really do need an excuse for my slow running. This one started around 8300 ft and we only gained 1200 or so. It was SO much more runnable than Saturday's. Still very pretty (I mean, I find trees in general just gorgeous after so much scenery that only involves cacti and tumbleweed). There was even a creek that we crossed on a log. Thankfully Jeremy got video of my ridiculous inability to balance on a 2 foot wide flat topped fallen tree. I can never forget it now. And I'm not posting it. :)

After an Italian bistro lunch, we went to the New Mexico Museum of art to check out some Georgia O'Keeffe paintings, then headed to get souvenirs from Trader Joe's (namely, a case of Two-er..Three-Buck Chuck). And then it was time to head home.

I spent the ride home putting together a playlist for my new spin class on Mondays! I love teaching spin, but was a little torn when, after I agreed to it, the lead instructor told me that it's a volunteer class. Whatever, I'll just get such a following that they have to pay me, right? It has to be better than her class. I mean, she wears a weight vest to ride a bike...

The class Monday went well. It consisted of my two workout friends and one guy. Good start. now I need more good spin song ideas! Give me some suggestions, please! I can't play the CDs from 9 years ago when I first started. Right?