Santa Fe to Pueblo

I decided not to leave Santa Fe too early and went out to explore a bit more.

I found the oldest church in the USA.

And then got lost along the river walk.

 

This is the State Capitol building. It was really nice to go inside as by now the temperature was in the 90's.

 

There was a quilt exhibition in the Rotunda building!

They were Art quilts and were really amazing. This one is of Shiprock which is near Four Corners.

This is a class project in response to the tragedies of 2001.

My favourite piece of art though was this statue outside.

Leaving Santa Fe I decided to drive part of the way cross country to avoid too much interstate driving and started by going 40 miles in the wrong direction. The road was going north but on the wrong side of the mountains. Might be time to crack open the GPS.

I followed the Rio Grande river for a while which was lovely and then entered the 1.5 million acre Carson Forest. The road started to climb as I crossed the Santa Fe mountains. I should have guessed that I would be climbing as the next town on my list was called Eagle Nest. The weather changed dramatically and by the time I got up to Cimarron there was snow on the ground! In August. I was relieved to get down to the Santa Fe trail which crosses the prairie for about 40 miles at this point. By now it is raining and this is not the English variety. There were rivers running either side of the trail and I was glad to get to the interstate at Raton.

I found the hotel in Pueblo easily and decided to stay in this evening. I've had enough of the outdoors for one day!

 

Posted with Blogsy