2012 December – New Mexico, Arizona, Vegas
Published Friday, December 7th 2012 - Updated Saturday, January 15th 2022
Day 1, To Santa Fe, NM –
San Antonio to Vegas (our final destination) is about a 20 hr drive. We decided to take it easy for a change and take a few stops along the way. 7 hours from San Antonio is Roswell, the place that claims to have had the most alien visits. No wonder even the McDonalds there is shaped like a spaceship.
After about a total of 10 hrs of driving on the first day, we reached our first destination Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico. Even though we were tired, we ventured out to see the much heard about the beauty of the town. Set in the foothills of Sangre de Cristo mountains, Santa Fe boasts of a beautiful downtown with Adobe homes being of particular interest. We also got a chance to visit the beautiful St Francis Cathedral in the middle of downtown. Time permitting, we would have loved to visit the exquisite Loretto Chapel too with the amazing round staircase. Unfortunately, this being the holiday season, most visiting hours were over by 4 PM. We spent the rest of the evening walking around downtown and enjoying the quaint little stores (mostly specializing in Indian handiwork and bluestone jewelry).
Day 2, Skiing in Santa Fe and Taos –
Who would have thought Santa Fe would have all this snow all around? Bright and early in the morning, we put on ALL of our warm clothes and headed out to the Santa Fe Ski Resort. To be honest, that was a bit of a letdown – the area was supremely crowded (perhaps because of the holiday season), the ski lessons at the resort took forever to begin (my daughter waited for 2 hrs), the lines were very disorganized, etc.
We gave up halfway through, only after a bit of skiing, and headed to Taos Valley – a couple of hours away from there (also because they offer Snow Tubing there). We liked that much better….. more scenic and better/wider ski slopes. Perhaps that had something to do with it being a family-owned resort. We enjoyed snow tubing there even though it was later in the afternoon that we got there. We loved it – not a bad deal for $15/person unlimited tubing!! The snow was fluffy and extremely soft. The drive and the views weren’t too bad either.
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