It feels good to be back from vacation. I thrive on having a routine whether that’s scheduled workout classes, printing out new recipes, and having time to see friends and family. This trip was exactly what I needed as I was on the brink of feeling burnt out. While we stayed mostly in downtown Albuquerque, I did want to make a separate trip to Santa Fe. Santa Fe is northeast of ABQ by about an hour, so it’s easy to get to. From what I knew about Santa Fe, I knew it was a touristy area, but also an artsy city. I couldn’t agree more and I enjoyed our time exploring Santa Fe even though we had only a day to spend there.

When we arrived in Santa Fe, we stopped at Clafoutis, a breakfast cafe outside of downtown. Clafoutis is a French bakery and a sit-down restaurant. I’m all for having a cup of coffee and starting the day with classic breakfast food and a croissant because why not. After Clafoutis, we started driving more toward downtown Santa Fe. I’m not an architecture person, so don’t come after me, but part of the beauty of Santa Fe is how everything is historically restored. The buildings are all styled in the Spanish Pueblo architecture. Part of what I enjoyed about exploring Santa Fe was finding a bench and looking at our surroundings.

One request my mom had was to check out the Georgia O’Keefe Museum. While Georgia O’Keefe was born in rural Wisconsin, she spent the majority of her time in New Mexico and the beauty helped inspire her in many of her paintings. I’m not going to lie, I’m not a big art museum person, but I think this museum was an exception. While Georgia is known for her paintings of flowers, I was drawn to a painting she did of an animal skull. The painting has this darker, grittier, gothic tone to it and it was my favorite painting throughout the exhibit. The exhibit took about an hour or so to walk through and it was worth it.

Besides the Georgia O’Keefe Museum, the next item on our list was to check out Meow Wolf. Meow Wolf is difficult to describe. I would say it’s a mixture of an escape room, interactive art, and exploration. One thing I would recommend is to make sure you buy your tickets ahead of time. I figured it would be okay to show up, but when I looked online, I noticed the tickets were for a time slot. I would have been bummed to miss out on Meow Wolf if the tickets were sold out for the day. Our tickets were for 12:40 and when we arrived, there was a long line. Parking was limited, so if you’re planning on checking out Meow Wolf, taking an Uber is a good idea. We parked a little ways away, but I hate going somewhere and struggling to find a place to park, it puts me on edge.

We didn’t end up waiting long and the line moved fast. Once we were inside, there was a door that led to the entrance of the exhibit. As we moved inside, it was mesmerizing. There was a huge house directly in front of us. We went up the stairs and the museum guides recommended touching everything. Certain puzzles could be solved and the chimney of the house was open, so you could crawl underneath it. I wore a dress to this, so you would not catch me accidentally flashing someone to crawl throughout the area. By touching some of the gadgets, hidden doors would open which revealed hidden passageways connecting parts of the exhibit.

Meow Wolf is interesting because there are no readily available maps, so it was difficult to know if I truly explored everything. My type A personality did not like not having a map of the area. I felt like I saw everything, but it wouldn’t surprise me if I ended up missing something. Meow Wolf recommends spending at least 90 – 120 minutes, I felt an hour was the perfect amount of time. I was able to take pictures and roam around. I’m glad I checked out Meow Wolf and if I happened to be in a city where there was another Meow Wolf, I would go.

After Georgia O’Keefe and Meow Wolf, me and my mom stopped for lunch at Palacio Restaurant. I ordered enchiladas while my mom opted for a sandwich. I mentioned this in my ABQ post, but we had such good food throughout the week. After lunch, we were debating on what to do next. Santa Fe has a ton of shopping, cocktail lounges, and art galleries to see. Most of the art was completely out of my price range as most of the pieces we saw were thousands of dollars. I’m not here to nitpick the cost of art as I think that’s rude to do so. After all the walking, we decided to drive back to ABQ as it’s still an hour’s drive and the next day was when were going to begin driving back to Minneapolis.

Santa Fe was a beautiful city, there’s a lot to see and I found the city to be walkable. Being able to park and walk to everything is a plus. Both Georgia O’Keefe and Meow Wolf were worth the drive and I would recommend checking both of those places out. To finish my ABQ three-part post series, I will recap all the fun little stops we made throughout the drive from Minneapolis to ABQ and then back to Minneapolis again.