Northern New Mexico

After just one night in Albuquerque, we moved up to Santa Fe, running from the heat.  We stayed in the Elks parking lot in Santa Fe, which is my favorite Elks.  It's on a hill, near old town, and has a great view of the mountains.  There always seems to be a nice breeze too.

First we walked around Old Town with its distinctive adobe structures.  Here's the Palace of the Governors which houses the state's history museum and where the porch overflows with vendors.  Built in 1610, it's the oldest continually occupied public building in the United States.

Although I guess it shares the honor with St. Miguel Church, built the same year and the oldest Church in the U.S.

Loretto Chapel is famous for its 'miraculous' staircase.

Give me a break.  There's nothing miraculous about it, just good construction technique.  They charge $3 a person to see it and I object to the practice of charging to enter a church, so I refused to go in.  Ron, however, wanted to see it and was willing to pay the price.  He did a good job taking the picture.

I must admit it looks cool, though.

We spent a day in Los Alamos where Ron met Robert Oppenheimer, often called the 'father of the atomic bomb' for his role in the Manhattan project.

The Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos is very interesting and FREE!  I embarrassed myself by asking if the museum is named after Ray Bradbury (the famous science fiction writer.)  The short answer is, "No."

We took a day to drive up to Taos which also has a picturesque Old Town square.  Ron found a bakery there, so he was happy.

And I made a new friend.

Whoa!  What's this?

And I thought this was a family-oriented place.

The hollyhocks out front were very impressive.

About 10 miles west of Taos is the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, 1272 feet long.

If you're not acrophobic, you can walk out to the middle and view the Rio Grande 650 feet below.

.Which created this 'Grand Canyon of New Mexico.'

On our way back to Santa Fe, we passed the Camel Rock Casino.  Actually we passed it a couple of times before noticing this unusual rock formation which inspired the name.