Santa Fe, known for its style of architecture, the Spanish Pueblo Revival look, which was based on work done restoring the Palace of the Governors. The sources for this style came from the many defining features of local architecture: vigas (rough, exposed beams that extrude through supporting walls, and are thus visible outside as well as inside the building) and canales (rain spouts cut into short parapet walls around flat roofs), features borrowed from many old adobe homes and churches built many years before and found in the Pueblos, along with the earth-toned look (reproduced in stucco) of the old adobe exteriors.
After 1912 this style became official: all buildings were to be built using these elements.
Tourism is big in Santa Fe with lots of Art Galleries of very nice, expensive goods to admire and hopefully for the Artist you will need to purchase one for your home! We just admired. Georgia O’Keefe spent most of her life very close to Santa Fe and so I visited the art museum while Paul and Duke enjoyed the fresh air! Very interesting works.
Amazing colors in her paintings of flowers
One of her more interesting phases
Our purchase was hats to protect our heads from the sun. It’s hot here!
Red or Green is a choice with meals in New Mexico where they are talking about the chili’s. We of course tried both! Paul likes a green chili cheese burger and I like the chili on just about anything! We tried it on pork, beef, chicken and eggs; the breakfast burrito is the best!
To work off all the chili’s we explored a bit outside of Santa Fe at Bandelier National Monument The ancestral pueblo people inhabited the region for over 400 years, and their homes, carved from the rock walls of the Frijoles Canyon, are the primary attraction of the monument. It is just too cool
Getting a close up look at one of the dwellings in the side of the mountain. 
Even the early Pueblo’s knew the value of a nice view!
If you look beyond Paul to the grassy clearing below you can see the footprint of where they lived condo style! All those grids are individual remains of a home
Bandelier National Monument is right near Los Alamos, home of the LANL, or where the Atomic Bomb was created and our National Security and Research is being done today. All very top secret although they let Paul and I drive through! The town of Los Alamos looks like any other small town in the desert but most of their residents have something to do with the LANL. We enjoyed the Bradbury Science Museum, named after Norris Bradbury the Labortory Director during the time the bomb was being discovered. I learned what the atomic bomb can do and why today we as a nation put so much energy into nation’s nuclear deterrent.
Outside of Santa Fe is the Rio Grande River, which we crossed several times and never got wet!
It’s a long way down so getting into the river at this point is difficult.
Adobe is a very popular material in the area and an example of how well it holds up. Actually it is quite strong but the number of crumbling structures is just as plentiful here as in so many other areas. We are amazed at the number of structures around the country that when they have passed their usefulness they are just abandoned and a new structure is put up right near. My question is, “Is it really that expensive or difficult to remove the old before you install the new?” Just curious.
Art being displayed everywhere. This was painted right on the side of a building near downtown; no special business just one that didn’t want a blank wall.
Then we continued towards Estes Park. Our next wildlife viewing was three Big Horn Sheep grazing right on the side of the road.
