After wandering in the desert on Thursday, we finally took the advice of the man in the New Mexico Visitor Center and went to Cochiti Lake. A new lesson learned—take the old guy's advice.
The Cochiti Lake Recreation Area is an Army Corps of Engineers project as part of a dam on the Rio Grande. It is inside the Cochiti Pueblo reservation. The campground has just been renovated and the RV area is brand-new. It has long, almost flat, paved sites with copper-covered picnic tables, electricity and water. It has new, clean toilets and showers. It is not crowded. There is a view of the lake, which is large enough to sail 25'+ boats on, and views of at least three mountain ranges. Did I mention wireless Internet and reasonable cell phone service? Best of all (Steve's opinion), it is only $10/night with our National Parks Pass.
We arrived in time for lunch and spent the day doing just about nothing; a walk down to the boat ramp; a bit of time sitting in the sun; a walk around the campground. We celebrated our find with a grilled steak and steamed buttered potatoes for dinner.
Today, it was time to dust off the motorcycles and head into Santa Fe. Boy, were they dusty. We last rode twelve days ago and they have been forlornly sitting in the trailer all that time. With all the wind and dust storms in the past two weeks, they were quite literally covered in dust.
There is no way to get to Santa Fe without a bit of travel on Interstate 25 since the exit that serves the Cochiti Pueblo only goes there. It is a 12-mile ride to the highway and we only needed to go one short exit before we could get on the back road (actually Frontage Road) all the way into Santa Fe. Ellen wanted to visit the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum and we wanted to wander about downtown a bit. We also needed a bit of provisioning and we had noticed a Whole Foods on our pass through on Thursday. Since most of the markets we've found in small southwestern towns leave a bit to be desired, we took the opportunity to stock up on fruit and veggies, coffee, muesli, good bread and cheese.
Our first stop in the city was the Native American Vendors Market at the Palace of Governors. Native American Artists and Craftspeople from many of the pueblos and tribes in New Mexico offer their works for sale. They just spread an amazing array of jewelry, pottery and other crafts on blankets under the front portico of the building. Only Native American artists are permitted in this area so there's not the usual array of bad craft items—those are across the street.
The last time we visited Santa Fe, which was around 1995, we went to the market and I was very interested in a small black-on-black pottery owl carving from a Santa Clara Pueblo artist. We decided we'd get back later but when we did he was gone. Amazingly, 15 years later, here he was selling his works at the Saturday morning market—and he still carves owls. He has a new design, a grandfather owl with gray feathers carved onto the surface. A gray old owl seemed appropriate, so I finally got to buy one.
After the owl, we visited the new Geogia O'Keefe museum which was wonderful. It's a small museum not far from the central plaza. Of course, it's done in Santa Fe adobe style. The collection spans O'Keefe's life, from the earlier representational works to later, more abstract paintings and drawings. It is interspersed with photos of her taken by the giants of 20th century photography—Stieglitz, Adams and others. They even displayed her boxes of art materials and stones that she collected from the desert.
Finally lunch at a predictably bad tourist spot near the plaza. We're still longing for good southwestern food like we had last time from a renovated gas station. Well, we'll keep looking and eating. The axe will surely fall on this lifestyle when we get home; I see a spring of nothing but spring greens!
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