Since Santa Fe has their very own kind of architecture, Santa Fe Style, I got up early on our last day there to see if I could find some cool old pueblo houses to take pictures of. Here are a few fun ones I ran across.
While Santa Fe style isn't exactly to my taste, I really love the colorful old painted wood doors and shutters that are a hallmark of the style. This door was very cool!
Then, once my family was awake enough to venture out, we thought we'd go explore the famous Santa Fe Railyard. 
We were happy find ourselves in the semi-weekly farmer's market.
What a beautiful sampling of Southwestern style vegetables - Onions, peppers, even squash blossoms. I was the freaky woman who asked "Excuse me, can I take a picture of your peppers?"
The boys loved watching the trains. The Santa Fe Station is the end of the line - so the trains come, and then they turn around and go back where the came from.
Waiting for the next train somewhere:
The boys had fun exploring the colorful Santa Fe Southern Railway trains.
Caleb had to walk the entire track - but only when there were no trains chugging by.
One thing I LOVED about Santa Fe was that it is such and artsy town! I've been to other artsy towns - Laguna Beach, Sedona, etc. - but Santa Fe trumps them all! I read that that almost 40 of the population is somehow involved in the art industry. Wow! There are studios EVERYWHERE! I really wish we had had more opportunity to explore them more. One doesn't even know where to start. Someday I will have to come without kids and do just that. What I did see was that Santa Fe was not all about Southwestern style art, but really had all kinds of styles of art, which I though was terrific.
The oldest house in Santa Fe. It looks like it has seen better days.
While doing more of our Geocaching challenge, Derek was thrilled to find a pressed penny machine in the gift shop of an old church.
The geocaching challenge also took us to the State Capitol, and Canyon Road - the fabulous art district. My teeth ached to explore a bit more of that street and its many galleries. But alas, we had to settle for the boy-friendly sculptures outside.
Dylan just hanging out with a new friend.
We had brought a picnic lunch for the day, but it started raining when it was just about that time to eat. So we found a park, and parked it under a big tree, and hoped the rain would stop. It did, finally, but not until we were mostly soaked. The kids didn't seem to mind at all. It was a fantastic new park running along the railway, and the kids had fun exploring it while Dennis enjoyed his sandwich he made from Indian Fry Bread he had picked up at the farmer's market earlier.
Luke has not quite mastered the art of eating cherries. What carnage! What gore!
Flying!
They loved the spinning a bit too much. Derek felt sick for hours afterward. Poor kid.
When Luke slipped through the net and started screaming for help, all I saw was his cute "bumbum" as he calls it, so, being the good mom that I am, I had to snap a few shots before I would rescue him. My kids thought I was horrible! Yep. Anything for a cute shot of Lukie's famous crack.
That night, Dennis and I snuck away on a date to Tomasita's, a famous landmark of Santa Fe cuisine right there in an old railyard building. I have had a lot of Mexican food in my time, but this place was truly fabulous! And unapologetically HOT! I heart HOT food, so I was in flaming taste bud heaven! Instead of the traditional chips and salsa, they served fat sopaipillas and honey! So GOOD! What a great was to end our stay in Santa Fe.
Early the next morning we headed off for our long drive home, making only a few stops on the way. Of course the beautiful Albuquerque Temple was our first stop.
We also stopped at an Indian souvineer shop that we had seen huge billboards for for miles and miles. Luke was so funny. He was loaded down will all sorts of stuff he wanted - including fireworks clenched in his teeth. He kept trying to convince me that "me need it for my birthday." His birthday is in March. Nice try, kid.
A final stop at a rest stop that had the neatest big red rocks that the kids were drawn to like magnets. Kids don't need rest stops to rest, but to run and climb and holler and MOVE!
So that was our trip in its entirety - well except for the fact that we missed an exit out by Needles, and the next exit was 40 miles away! So we had to double back - ugh! Then when we finally got back to the Valley, and were just a few exits from home, when we found ourselves stuck in bumper to bumper, stand still traffic in the middle of the night, becasue they had closed all lanes but one to do some middle of the night construction! To make matters worse, all the exits were closed, so we had not chioce after a 14 hour drive but to sit in this traffic at midnight, when home, and out comfy beds were so close!!! Insane! It took us a full hour to get from Date Palm to Cook St!
It all made finally getting home that much sweeter!
