Santa Fe

We started out our visit to Santa Fe with a hike in the hills and found great views along with snow-covered cactus.

We’d been hearing about Meow Wolf, an interactive art exhibit that is somehow linked to George R. R. Martin. I found out it would be closed for renovations starting Tuesday so we rushed over to get a peek Monday night. I’m not sure that the few photos or any description I write here can adequately depict what it is. We had fun trying to piece together the story that frames the work but barely scratched the surface.

Tuesday we woke up to a dusting of snow and headed out to visit the Georgia O’Keefe museum. Next up we took a peek at the Mysterious Staircase, a feat of woodworking that was featured on Unsolved Mysteries. and perused galleries full of western-themed art. Later we met up with a former Callisto colleague of mine, Megan, for a hike through a local dog park with her pup. Rocky, Kyle and I were all grateful for the social interactions outside the car :)

Taos

We booked a room at the Sagebrush Inn in Taos and encountered two coincidences on arrival: First, Kyle had been here before as a teenager. He came with his cousins to see a band play while in New Mexico on a ski trip. Second, the Keystone Symposium — what I understand to be the main conference for scientists in Kyle’s field — was being held at the hotel the following week. I traveled with Kyle to Banff a couple years ago to attend a Keystone conference, and I think the Banff location was much more desirable! (Not to knock the Sagebrush Inn, it was the perfect cheap but charming hotel for our road trip.) I had high hopes that Kyle might strike up a conversation with a visiting scientist while in the hot tub and make a job connection. No such luck!

Kyle had to make some final edits to his paper on Saturday, so I headed to the Harwood museum while he wrote. There was an exhibit dedicated to the Helene Wurlizter foundation, a prestigious artist residency in Taos that produced many important artists of the 20th century.

Sunday we visited an Earthship just outside of Taos — a type of self-sustaining, off-the-grid home built from recycled materials. The homes look like crazy Dr. Seuss creations but are incredibly inspiring.

One more strange coincidence: at a roadside diner between Pagosa Springs and Taos, we sat at a table next to a window with bullet holes. Later, in Taos, we sat in another restaurant next to a window with bullet holes. Probably just a BB gun but still — we must be in the wild west!

Telluride > Pagosa Springs

There was rain in the forecast for Arizona so we decided to head north to play in the snow instead. We’d planned to stop for a day in Monument Valley on the border of Utah and Arizona but the fog was so thick you couldn’t see anything! So we kept driving and ended up (after a long day in the car) in Telluride.

After 2 days in Telluride, we drove a couple hours east to Pagosa Springs, CO. We skied for a day at Wolf Creek — much less posh and overpriced that Telluride — and spent time at the town’s hot springs.

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