Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico state, is a city with Pueblo architecture and known for creative arts. The city has a lot of galleries and also the New Mexican cuisine that is found no where else. The city also has outdoor activities like skiing, white water rafting and horse-back riding. There are also spas that have hot tubs similar to the Japanese onsens. With so much on offer, we decided to travel to Santa Fe on a vacation.
The main reason for us to visit Santa Fe was the Pueblo architecture and skiing. Staying in Dallas, we do not get snow here, its just sleet! And nor do we get to see snow in Bangalore. And this being the last winter in the USA, we wanted to experience the snow!
The distance of Santa Fe from Dallas is approximately 640 miles and it took us 11 hours with a few fuel breaks and lunch-breakfast breaks. Amarillo is almost mid way and we expected to reach Amarillo by lunch since there are no good options for vegetarian food either before Amarillo or after. We left Dallas around 5:45 am and we reached Amarillo by 12:00 pm. Schlotzsky's is my new found love because of their sourdough bread and that is where we had lunch and its right off the I-40. They have kids menu as well which made it easy for us to feed our almost 2 year old!
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| Hello, New Mexico! |
Right after lunch we were on the historic 'Route-66' all the way till we reached the diversion to Santa Fe! That was a dream drive! Now Route-66 is the Mother Road or the Main Street of America. It was established in 1926 and ran through Chicago, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, ending in Santa Monica, California with a total of 2448 miles. After being removed from the U.S. Highway System, it has been replaced in its entirety by the Interstate Highway system and the one we were on was the I-40.
When you enter New Mexico, you start seeing boards of "TUCUMCARI TONITE!" that invite the motorists to stay the night in one of the Tucumcari's motels. Tucumcari, the largest city on the highway between Amarillo, Texas and Albuquerque, New Mexico, has been a popular stop for cross-country travellers on I-40. And as we passed Tucumcari, the land was covered in snow in bits here and there! I have to admit that it was my first time seeing snow and i had a child like excitement whenever i saw it or touched it!
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| Snow, snow, snow!!! |
It was around 4 pm when we reached the hotel, Villas de Santa Fe. Its an apartment kind of hotel that is very close to the downtown and they offer shuttle service to the downtown and nearby areas. When it was dinner time, we thought of giving the shuttle service a try and it was very useful for all the times we had to go to downtown. Dinner was at Bumblebee's Baja Grill. Santa Fe is known for New Mexican food and there are a lot of restaurants to try if you eat meat. But since we are vegetarians, i had selected a few must try restaurants and the first one to try out was Bumblebee's. The restaurant has some good vegetarian and vegan food. We had the veggie especial burrito, veggie tortilla soup and veggie tacos. The tacos came with pinto beans and rice. The highlight of the meal was the tortilla soup made from vegetable broth. It had everything needed on a cold winter evening. They had a kids menu as well which was useful to us.
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| Bumblebee's Baja Grill |
After dinner, we took a short walk to the plaza. Most of the shops were closed but all the eateries were open. The plaza was all lit up and with snow everywhere it was picture perfect. We were greeted by a Santa Claus which made the kiddo happy! We took a few pictures and then we were back at the hotel.
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| Santa Fe Plaza |
It was a good day that ended well with getting to see snow, eating delicious food and a warm cosy bed to snuggle in!
Wow👌👌
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