DAY THREE: 9/12/09

I am still not able to connect to the internet. I spoke with the office man, who told me to wait until his son arrived, which he did shortly after that. He told me the wireless site (finally) and said to double-click on it and enter the password on my room receipt. So, I tried that tonight; could not find the site on my wireless list; added it; tried to enter the password in the network key field but still could not connect. Aaaarrrrgggghhhh! I suppose I can try the library.

On this trip, I’m beginning to see why Anna travels solo. Matt throws his dirty clothes on the floor (the housekeeper actually found his pajama pants somewhere and laid they on the bed). He splashes all over the bathroom sink. He tries to finish my sentences (I thought I had him better trained). I know I’m spoiled when I travel for work and have the room to myself so I need to work on more patience. At least he carries what I hand him and gets me drink refills and snacks, so he’s good for something. I do love him.

We started our day having breakfast at the Counter Culture Café, which we discovered behind a fabric store and thrift shop I suggested we visit before having pizza for lunch. We looked at the menu at the Café and saw that they served breakfast all day so we stayed. The breakfast was very generous and good; I could not finish it and, in fact, donated two pieces of bacon to Finn, a dog I met.

In search of pueblos, we drove to the Bandelier National Monument, which was about 30 miles away. When we got to the entry gate, we saw that the charge to get in was $12. We didn’t have our jackets/sweaters and it was a bit cloudy. The ranger said we would have to walk beyond the visitor center so we might want to pick another day. We drove off to find another pueblo and ended up in the White Rock at the visitor center. The representative told us to go back to Bandelier; that we could see cliff dwellings from behind the visitor center. Plus, we would be on the canyon floor so it would be warm. We were able to walk on a short trail, up the side of the canyon, and actually climb up ladders to cliff dwellings. Were they small! Matt said the dwellings were occupied in the mid-1200’s AD. The roof was so low we had to bend over to walk through the rooms. I can’t believe were in spaces occupied so far back in history! We got some great pictures. I was a bit worried when another hiker offered to take a picture of Matt & me in the dwelling and then started to back down the ladder with my camera. He stopped when I asked him where he was going with my camera!

Matt took some pictures from the car on the way up to the Monument. On the way back to Santa Fe, we stopped at Camel Rock to take another picture, to make sure it was clear. It’s an amazing configuration.

We got back to Santa Fe before 7 PM and dressed up for our more expensive Mexican-style dinner, to judge by the outside of the restaurant. We chose tonight for that event so we’d have more than a day to recover, should we need it. The restaurant wasn’t so expensive. It was mainly “new Mexican”, whatever that means. Matt ordered chile rellenos and I had the combination plate (enchilada, tamale, and taco). When he asked if we wanted red or green sauce, we both chose green, to try something different. It was SO SPICY! My lips fell asleep. We didn’t know the green was the spicier of the two, but now we do. We shared a flan to cool down our digestive tracts.

We drove through town to find the Capitol building, in case we want to take pictures before we leave. We decided to stay close to the motel tomorrow and go back downtown on Monday, since the Fiesta will be over by then and we’ll experience fewer crowds.