Santa Fe

(This post is by Kris)

As many of you know, I'm getting toward the end of my formal education--it's only been 10 years--and I'm starting to look for something to do next summer when I finish residency. As part of our search, we were invited out to Santa Fe, New Mexico to spend a few days checking out the office of a retiring pediatric dentist.

I was really excited to get out there because August is a very unpleasant month for us out here. Living in a house with no air conditioning during the hottest, most humid month is not pleasant. We were lucky enough to leave Max with the collective grandparents and Ginna and I had a great long weekend together.

To start the trip off, we ended up driving a car that embarrassed Ginna to death, a Hummer. It was the smallest one and it was a testament as to why GM is in such trouble. This thing was a hunk of junk on 31in tires.

We only have this one picture of it taken in the mountains near Los Alamos. Honestly, it barely drove smoother than my old land rover. But, we didn't have to drive too much, so it worked out fine.

In truth, I was a little nervous going into Santa Fe. Knowing that it is a large center for art, specifically southwest art. I was afraid that everything was going to look like this. Instead, we were pleasantly surprised at how much we enjoyed the esthetic.

Here is a picture of a street downtown, near the inn where we stayed.

The desert can really be a beautiful place and I like the organic look of the adobe architecture.

Since there is a scarcity of water, the city is not full of artificially maintained lawns and gardens, like many other places in the west. There is instead a tendency to cultivate the naturally growing grasses, pinions and wild flowers.

One of the things I liked most about the city was the way the homes and buildings blend into the surrounding mountains. A big complaint I have with some western cities is the preponderance of McMansions everywhere. I'd much rather look out to the mountains and see mountains instead of oversized, cheaply build homes I still can't afford.

If you are reading this in Utah, look east. In Colorado, look west. Now, compare that view to this view of a populated mountainside in Santa Fe:

It's like you hardly notice the homes. In fact, many of the more affluent neighborhoods maintain dirt roads throughout. In many cases the dirt removed to dig the basements becomes the adobe used to build.

Naturally, any city with an art scene and eco-friendly building with natural landscaping is bound to have hippies.

In Santa Fe, they are more like mountain men than hippies; instead of weed, it's peyote.

We took a trip to Los Alamos because we were curious to see it. It was a small place, but very beautiful. Here is an overlook we stopped at just outside of town.

Finally, the sky and sunsets were amazing. The combination of sunshine and crisp mountain/desert air made it really hard for us to want to leave.