Santa Fe and driving day

After a blissful 8 hours of sleep I was able to spend almost the whole day in Santa Fe before shoving off for Las Cruces.  We stayed at the Inn on the Alameda, www.innonthealameda.com

Our book had recommended the Inn and Spa at the Loretto but after seeing that hotel I'm glad we chose otherwise.  Loretto looked like a gigantic fake adobe hut hotel you'd see in Disney World.  I'm sure the spa was lovely there but I much preferred our place.  The location was great; just about a 5 minute walk to the main plaza in town.  We checked out some of the merchants in the square and stores, as I obsessed over the Day of the Dead items. (no worries, no skeletons were purchased...yet)  I'm in love with all the tile out there though and did purchase a beautiful mirror which will have to find a home in our studio apt. back in Brooklyn. :)  After perusing the shops I headed over to the Georgia O'Keeffe museum by myself (Jaime and Steph had seen it already).  If you love or even like Geogria, you MUST check out the museum.  www.okeeffemuseum.org/home.aspx  It's a fairly small museum but there's a really lovely collection of her paintings there. When I rounded the corner and saw some of the Evening Star series I teared up.  It's like I was sitting in 9th grade art all over again discovering my love for her paintings.  I was overjoyed to a few of my favorites in person.  There's also a great 15 minute film on her life that's a must.  It has a few clips of interviews with her and some of the photos Alfred Stieglitz took.  I enjoyed hearing her speak on how she came to consider New Mexico her home and the joy she took in the solitude out there.  I spend a little over an hour there and emerged ready to paint again. :)

We grabbed a late lunch and then headed over to this fabulous chocolate shop called Kakawa.  www.kakawachocolates.com  A local had tipped Jaime and Steph off about it and thank god! They make all their own chocolate and truffles with very interesting flavors such as pear cactus, chili, goat cheese, etc.  I'm a sucker for chocolate and chili so I had a truffle with a mix of that and some fruit and it was delicious. But their mexican hot chocolate was my favorite. It was absolutely delicious! Extremely chocolatey with just the right amount of spice.  mmmm... the perfect beverage to start the 4 hour road trip to Las Cruces.