Things did not go our way in Santa Fe. We planned a trip for Friday because it was going to be windy and cold, not a day for outdoor activities. So we left Matey in the trailer with our Waggle Pet Monitor and drove a bit over 40 minutes to downtown where the plaza, Palace of the Governors and museums are.
Well in an old city like Santa Fe downtown is not conducive to driving, especially in a big pickup. We looked for a parking space and found one about four blocks away. It was metered and the meter took credit cards; I was prepared to pay whatever it took to give us two or three hours. Not going to happen. The meter was limited to an hour. Since we were already parked and I had paid for the hour we took off walking.
Walking briskly, to save time and stay warm, we got back to the plaza. Too cold for a leisurely stroll so we looked for the Palace of the Governors. It faced the plaza but access was on a side street through the New Mexico History Museum. We entered and paid $12 each for admission. By then we had about 45 minutes left.
This is the Palace of the Governors. Sorry I have no outside pictures, it was too cold and we were too hurried for me to remember to take any.
This was my favorite room because it showed under the skin of this remarkable structure. The Palace was first built in 1610. Because it is adobe it has been constantly renovated. Notice the huge support logs. Across the room the thing that looks like a picture frame was a glassed opening into the wall. The two squares on the floor are glass portals to the subfloor.
The walls of this building are thick as you can see from this window.
It was hard to get an image without glare, but you can see the wall layers involved through the portal.
The floor was not always nice wood. There’s flagstone down there…
and more than one layer of that.
I took a shot of the plaza from inside the warm building. We took a quick turn through exhibits covering 400 years of history and practically ran back to the truck. We got back in exactly 60 minutes and the parking enforcement person was across the street from our truck.
We’d planned to go out for lunch, but our pet monitor said the trailer was slowly cooling off, so we decided to do the errands we had to and get back to see what went wrong. Returned to find one of our heaters off. We must have had a very brief power outage and that heater didn’t come back on. It wasn’t bad yet, but it was down to about 65 degrees.
I’d like to go back and explore the city, but not on a cloudy, windy, 45 degree day. We’re not due for any really decent weather before we leave…so another time, I hope.
On the Roam Again 