settle past a patience where wishes and your will are spilling pictures

LISTENING TO: Bon Iver - Minnesota, WI

I meant to write a smaller post yesterday, but as my last entry on Saturday night suggested, there were so many things to get done on Sunday that this post is coming to you from the Albuquerque Delta airline terminal as I’m waiting for my flight home (as a side note, can I just mention how much I love empty airports? Hate that it’s because it’s around 4am, but still really cool).

So much to recap, so why not start at the end? Scout’s birthday Saturday night. It was really great to finally meet all of her New Mexico friends, as well as catch up with some other old college friends I haven’t seen since we graduated. It was a grand old time that really makes me wish we lived closer so we could do things like this more often.

But that leads us to Sunday morning, with everyone a teensy bit worse for wear. Good thing that both Betterday coffee and La Montanita CoOp were within walking distance, as there was a real need for an Americano as well as a bagel and some breakfast food. 

From there, it was just waiting for the caffeine to kick in... and possibly everyone waking up.

We made our way back down to the plaza, first to the Saint Francis Hotel to have some cocktails at the Gruent Wine Bar while waiting for our table at Cafe Pasqual’s just down the street. Both were definitely worth the wait - Gruent’s because the building’s architecture was what most people would probably consider to be classic (especially when sipping on an apple cider mimosa), while the food and atmosphere at Cafe Pasqual’s was just to die for - hands down my favorite meal of the trip. 

Pretty much all day up to this point my friend Rachel was getting winter weather warnings for Sante Fe, with multiple inches of snow expected. However, there was no snow to be found... until we made our way up to the Aspen Overlook at the Santa Fe National Forest. This was one of my favorite things we did this trip- it was a completely different world from downtown Santa Fe. Basically, you just kept driving up the mountain and it slowly turned into something out of the endless winter of Narnia. The higher the elevation level, the more snow was on the ground. The trees were a perfect gradient of evergreen to silver. It was breathtaking.There was so much quiet, and so many absolutely amazing views, it completely made up for the fact that I was not wearing proper shoes for traversing a few inches of snow.

On our way back down the mountain, we stopped at Gabriel’s for some margaritas and table side guacamole within the beautiful views of the Tesuque Pueblo (including another short stop at Camel Rock). Prior to heading back into the plaza, we made a quick run to the Shidoni Sculpture Park and Gallery before lucking into viewing one of the most spectacular sunsets over the mountains that I’ve ever seen on the final drive back home. It was the perfect way to end the trip.

Which leads me to now - I started writing this in the airport, and am finishing it somewhere over Oklahoma, I’m pretty sure. There’s a snowstorm back home that hasn’t effected any of my flights as of yet, but I’ve got one more connecting flight in Atlanta, so cross your fingers