The high road and the low road
Yesterday, after a short stint of shopping, and a pizza at Dion's (which was a lot like Memphis pizza cafe but more family oriented), I stopped at the Georgia O'Keeffe museum. The musem had a special exhibit that compared the realism of O'Keeffe to that of Andy Warhol, the famous pop art realist. Very thoughtfully composed, it made comparisons that I had not previously conjured in my brain. I guess that is the goal of art museums! A quick trip to the gift shop landed me some note cards for the art teacher at school and three small prints that I am going to group together in my kitchen. I thought it was interesting that non-profit organizations in New Mexico are not obligated to collect sales tax on purchases in their gift shops.
After the culture lesson, I headed down the mountain road to Taos, New Mexico. The conceierge's description was that I will see "beautiful vistas." The views were pretty, and it was neat to see snow-capped peaks in the middle of June, but as much time as I have spent in the Smokies it wasn't the most gorgeous thing I had ever seen. Taos was a small town, as quaint as Oxford, MS with all of the antique stores replaced with jewelry stores and the architecture the typical adobe. I drove the square, and then I headed to see an authentic Indian pueblo. The native tour guide at the Taos pueblo was about my age, but she said she had not known that computers or the Internet existed until she was in college. She also related that she did not know about book reports and other landmarks of traditional school until she was in high school. Wow. I'll post some pictures to help y'all visualize. It looked to me like a third world country, but it seemed that the people were perfectly content to live like this. Or at least they gave the appearance of being content. It started to rain as I was leaving so I got to experience lightning dance across the peaks of the Rocky Mountains.
Next, I travelled down to the St. Francis of Assissi church that was a favorite subject of Georgia O'Keeffe. They were re-adobeing (?) it, so much of it was up in scaffolding. Then instead of staying in Taos overnight, I decided to head out of town, but first I had to check out the much recommended Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. This bridge was the second-highest suspension bridge in the world. The wind was blowing so briskly that I was almost blown over trying to take some pictures. The sun was beginning to set, and the shadows made for some great pictures.
Since I had already traversed the "beautiful vistas" of the mountain road, I decided to take the river road on my return trip. It was amazing! The landscape was completely different. Instead of verdant landscapes, there were craggy faces of the gorge and rivers that would have been a blast to whitewater raft. It was just as I had imagined the Rockies to be-- like a Georgia O'Keeffe painting.
I ended up back in Santa Fe for the night. What is the term for when you go from building to building looking for a wireless network to hop on? I've done that twice now in order to investigate hotels (I am a picky hotel room person).
Today, I plan to go see Los Alamos and then take a major detour to Roswell in order to visit Carlsbad Caverns tomorrow. The caverns were not on my original itinerary, but I have seen everything else on my list and have two days of roaming left before I have to sharpen my Latin knowledge.
After the culture lesson, I headed down the mountain road to Taos, New Mexico. The conceierge's description was that I will see "beautiful vistas." The views were pretty, and it was neat to see snow-capped peaks in the middle of June, but as much time as I have spent in the Smokies it wasn't the most gorgeous thing I had ever seen. Taos was a small town, as quaint as Oxford, MS with all of the antique stores replaced with jewelry stores and the architecture the typical adobe. I drove the square, and then I headed to see an authentic Indian pueblo. The native tour guide at the Taos pueblo was about my age, but she said she had not known that computers or the Internet existed until she was in college. She also related that she did not know about book reports and other landmarks of traditional school until she was in high school. Wow. I'll post some pictures to help y'all visualize. It looked to me like a third world country, but it seemed that the people were perfectly content to live like this. Or at least they gave the appearance of being content. It started to rain as I was leaving so I got to experience lightning dance across the peaks of the Rocky Mountains.
Next, I travelled down to the St. Francis of Assissi church that was a favorite subject of Georgia O'Keeffe. They were re-adobeing (?) it, so much of it was up in scaffolding. Then instead of staying in Taos overnight, I decided to head out of town, but first I had to check out the much recommended Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. This bridge was the second-highest suspension bridge in the world. The wind was blowing so briskly that I was almost blown over trying to take some pictures. The sun was beginning to set, and the shadows made for some great pictures.
Since I had already traversed the "beautiful vistas" of the mountain road, I decided to take the river road on my return trip. It was amazing! The landscape was completely different. Instead of verdant landscapes, there were craggy faces of the gorge and rivers that would have been a blast to whitewater raft. It was just as I had imagined the Rockies to be-- like a Georgia O'Keeffe painting.
I ended up back in Santa Fe for the night. What is the term for when you go from building to building looking for a wireless network to hop on? I've done that twice now in order to investigate hotels (I am a picky hotel room person).
Today, I plan to go see Los Alamos and then take a major detour to Roswell in order to visit Carlsbad Caverns tomorrow. The caverns were not on my original itinerary, but I have seen everything else on my list and have two days of roaming left before I have to sharpen my Latin knowledge.
posted by FF at
6/21/2005 10:15:00 AM
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