Santa Fe with my gal pals

I’ve been all smiles since Thursday late afternoon when three of my Chicago gal pals arrived in Santa Fe to spend a long weekend here with Fred and me. To be more accurate – they stayed in a nice hotel while Fred and I had a campsite for us and Charley five miles away.

Lunch on the patio at The Shed
Color in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Strolling and shopping in the city
Very cool Santa Fe architecture
Santa Fe architecture
Wonderful art in Santa Fe
The square in Santa Fe

Santa Fe is wonderful and historical and colorful all at once.  The adobe architecture is beautiful.  The restaurants and stores and street vendors and boutiques are all inviting.  We celebrated friendship and life and birthdays over equal parts meals and cocktails.  We shopped and hiked in equal parts, as well, with one day in Santa Fe, and a second day out in the mountains – a separate post about our time at Bandelier National Monument is forthcoming.

Dinner at El MasonI can’t thank my girlfriends enough for taking time out of their busy schedules to come Out Here to treat me to some girl time, inspire me to shop for some slightly more feminine clothing (10 months in hiking gear was getting a little depressing), experience a little of our current Charley life with Fred and me, and share their awesome, amazing selves with us.  As they know, I miss them terribly but am comforted to know that while distance separates us for now, our hearts keep us close.