It is a bittersweet moment to turn due east on I-40, with 1,835 miles to travel home, pretty much completely laterally. Bob is doing remarkably well in spite of this daunting highway ahead of us. Planning stops in Santa Fe, Memphis, and somewhere else in between has helped to break up the drive, but it still feels like the end of vacation, like a return road, less enthusiastic than an outset. We decide to stop at another National Park, the Painted Desert, to ease the pain of “leaving” the American southwest.
It is lovely, to be sure, but it is no Grand Canyon. Parts of it remind us of a Bent Creek bike park. Ben wants to run across it and test the mileage of the washes marked on the educational placard. I’m just happy because Dad would have wanted us to come here (to check off EVERY National Park), and because Bob turns on 10,000 Maniacs In My Tribe for me as we drive through the park.
But to have some time in Santa Fe, we carry on down I-40, imagining it as the once famous Route 66, finally starting the audio book we picked for the family. It’s a brilliant story, and time passes in Chapters, and you should ALL listen to Bahni Turpin read On the Come Up by Angie Thomas, author of The Hate You Give. All of a sudden (*eyeroll from Bob*) we are in Sana Fe.
We arrive on a Sunday evening, just as the Santa Fe Plaza artists are packing up and heading out of the Palace of Governors (the oldest continuously used building in America). We explore the downtown streets, and the adobe architecture that is truly unlike any other cityscape we have seen. We pause at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis, because it is lovely, and because St. Francis is my mom’s favorite saint (mine too, because among all the white male saints I learned about, he’s totes the best) and there was a patterned stone labyrinth on the courtyard that we were all mesmerized with walking. There was also this Beautiful Lady:
We drove around Santa Fe some more, trying to get a sense of this special Puebloan place, who lived here, what they do, and assessing that many made art.
Dinner at Maria’s New Mexican Kitchen was just what we needed in that it offered a) delicious food, b.) 100% agave tequila margaritas, c.) the nachos Ben had been searching for, and d.) it was NOT a brewery. It even brought back some of our early vacation dinner vibes with its easy conversation and laughter, as we voted on our on favorite cities so far, our favorite hotels, favorite hikes, favorite landscapes, and even our favorite breweries! (The one with the train that went by? where we met the dog? where we played Pigs? where we went twice for that salted caramel dessert? or ohhhh, THAT ONE where we “laughed a lot” because Dad kept talking about Piranhaconda.)
It is certainly at this point in the trip where we realize how much we have done, how privileged we are, and how special this experience has been for us to pull off. Of course, it isn’t even over yet.
Car Full of Carpenters 