greetings from Santa Fe

hello there.... been a few days. Lauren and I are alive and well in Santa Fe, NM. Camping has been scarce last few nights. Food here is amazing. We are learning to order like the locals and say "Christmas" when we get food so we get both red and green chile. Laur and I had an awesome campsite a few nights ago for our anniversary. We camped at 9800 ft and cooked tacos for dinner. Last night was high again and we cooked chicken. Haven't done much hiking yet except around Santa Fe. there is tons of awesome pottery here and we have enjoyed just walking around exploring the shops. In the main square there is an arts festival going on. We are planning to head out of town tonight and look for some good camping and hiking about an hour west in Jemez Springs.

THe other town we went to and loved was Manitou Springs, CO. We tasted water from each of the springs which was sort of horrible. They tasted like flavored carbonated water. Each flavor was a different dose of awful. We went to some art galleries and had pizza for lunch. We also ran into our old buddy Floyd who has the airstream and knows all the secret boondock spots. He hooked us up last year. We saw him again and he sent us above woodland park on a dirt road. Another cool guy we met in Manitou was at a custom guitar shop where they make cripple creek guitars. I played for a while and it was probably one of the best guitars I"ve ever had my hands on. It sounded and felt really good.

Last but not least we went to the local King Soopers (or as everyone back east calls it "KROGER") and stocked up on mountain dew throback!!!!! Now the vacation is really underway.

elevation 7100 ft
temp 93
not a cloud in the sky