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| Walk / Tour | 1.00 Miles |
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| | Walk / Tour | 1.00 Miles | | | |
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| no partners | | Went into Santa Fe to run errands and do a little touristy stuff. BLM actually has a New Mexico Public Lands Information Center in Santa Fe, so of course I'm going to hit that and get some maps.
The timing to visit New Mexico and Santa Fe was pretty interesting. The Patron Saint of Santa Fe is Saint Francis of Assisi. The city was actually named after him. The full original name of the city was La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis. (Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi) It was naturally shortened to just Santa Fe (Holy Faith). This Saint also happened to be my mother's favorite. We did Saint Francis Memorial Cards and the Memorial was at the Saint Francis Renewal Center. And here I was, less than a month later, in Santa Fe and there were a lot of Churches, Missions and Cathedrals built with Saint Francis as it's main theme. If there really is such a thing as Fate, this would definitely qualify.
After the errands, I headed for Santa Fe Plaza. More to visit Loretto Chapel than anything. Wanted to see that famous staircase. It has such an interesting history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loretto_Chapel It is now a privately owned museum and wedding chapel and there is a fee to get in to see it.
I didn't realize it at the time, but The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi was also just down the street, so I walked over and visited that as well. Unfortunately, the church was closed that day for maintenance so I didn't get to see the inside, but the grounds and the sheer historical architecture of the church was impressive. It was built at the same time as the Chapel was.
Wandered around the Plaza for a bit, hitting some shops. Santa Fe is pretty famous for it's art and southwestern style, so it was cool. Think Old Town Scottsdale on steroids and that was just one of several different marketplaces around town. Had dinner there and then headed back to the barn and the cat.
This was Day 12 of my trip and the weather had started doing a strange turn. New Mexico had a very bad winter for snow, similar to AZ, but for the rest of the trip, they made up a big chunk of the precipitation deficit. It was like the Monsoon had started, in mid May, but there was no humidity. But almost every day would start with blue skies and then by late morning, the build up would start and by afternoon, the storms would hit and they were not short lived. They would camp and last for hours at times. Lightning, Hail, Torrential Rains and early on, even snow up high. Every single day. From that point on, I wouldn't see a totally clear, rain-free day until the last day of my trip in mid-June. On the road trip itself when I was camping, I really needed to be done with what I wanted to do by around 3pm, because after that, the s*** was going to hit the fan. Every single day, no matter where I was. I included a few pics here of one of the storms while I was still at the house. And what I had to look forward to inside the house. 
The rest of the triplogs will be from after I left my friend's place and actually hit the road and did some hiking.  |
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| Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty & well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, totally worn out & proclaiming, "Wow What a Ride!" |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
His wife stayed behind and set up a hammock to relax in, while awaiting our return. 
](https://hikearizona.com/dex2/images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif "Brick wall"){kind=small}
Somehow, I managed to change out the battery with that young one feeding right in front of me, but I missed the approach shots and when his head was raised. He and the others continued to wander downstream. Photographing them at this point was hard because they were all foraging in the brush and their heads were almost always down. So I decided to try to quietly follow them and hope they got more into the open so I could get some decent photos. I actually tried to get ahead of them since I didn't just want their backsides. Hard to stay quiet in the Fall with all those crunchy leaves, but I almost succeeded. One of the females began to catch on and I thought it was all over. Within a couple of minutes, she had figured out there might be a threat and they all disappeared into the heavy brush. Surprisingly, they didn't disappear for long. They ended up on the cliff face above me. I guess going up trees or cliff faces are their best escape moves. I managed to get some better photos from my vantage point, while they kept an eye on me from their vantage points. I didn't stick around long though, because it was apparent that they wanted to double back, come back down and resume their foraging and I didn't want to prevent that. I think that's only about my third encounter or so with these guys and probably only the second time I've been able to get photos. 
