A couple of weeks ago we loaded up the grandson (Fisher) and dog (Sophie) and took off for Santa Fe and the southern Colorado mountains.
I was curious how people were treating what is hopefully the last weeks of the coronavirus.
On our first leg, just before night, we hit a ferocious storm in Oklahoma.
My GPS interrupted us with a loud warning of the storm that included hail and possibly tornadoes. Hail and tornadoes are never welcomed.
For 20 miles I drove 30 mph down the middle of the freeway guiding us by the only thing visible, the white stripes. We were alone on that drive, all the smart people had gotten off of the freeway.
We made Oklahoma City the first night, the next day we had lunch at the Big Texan in Amarillo and made Santa Fe by dinner time. Our first dinner was a Southwestern cuisine place next to our hotel.
There were no masks, no warnings and the menus were in Spanish. The food was great.
We went to an outdoor market the next morning and they required masks but dogs were not allowed.
The town square, famous for people spreading blankets and selling jewelry, was still not allowed because of covid-19.
Santa Fe is still an interesting place, but it has lost some of its small village charm.
Talking to two locals while eating a “famous” Frito pie (it was not as good as Monica’s) the complaint was that movie folks from California have bought up most of the city and where mom-and-pop stores used to be there are now New York style boutiques.
One thing I noticed personally: Santa Fe is at around 6,500 feet in elevation and the thin air didn’t like me.
It seems like yesterday I ran the Pike’s Peak half marathon, which is a forced march to the top, and was not affected by the altitude. It wasn’t yesterday, it was 28 years ago.