A Day of Rest, and Then ...

After our marathon on Thursday, we slept in on Friday, though we bore the scars of the day.

Connor and I went to the Santa Fe Flea Market, mainly for Connor to see the great rock shop there. Next we paid a short visit to downtown Santa Fe; Connor ran out of gas, so I dropped him back home and picked up Marie for grocery shopping. All in all, a well deserved day of rest.

Yesterday, we were back in the saddle (metaphorically speaking). We got up early to take in the Farmer's Market, which Connor kind of enjoyed. While the organic vegetables, composting worms, buffalo burgers and spelt muffins didn't interest him, this skull definitely did!

Nevertheless, Marie and I were happy to have him along.

After grabbing breakfast at Flying Star, we headed across the tracks to catch the Rail Runner to Albuquerque. On the way, Connor checked out the vintage Santa Fe Southern Railway passenger cars.

The Rail Runner was conceived as a commuter train serving folks working in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, but soon expanded to become a key tourist link between the two cities. Unfortunately, they just announced that weekend service will be terminated in August due to expiration of federal transportation funds. Looked pretty busy to us on this June Saturday morning.

As you can see, the Rail Runner cars have three seating levels. Connor made a beeline for the top level and settled in for the ride.

The ride to Albuquerque took around 90 minutes, with stops at several stations along the way. It was an interesting ride seeing places not visible from the road, including several Indian Pueblos. Upon arrival, we hopped on a bus - free with a Rail Runner ticket - that took us right to Old Town. Pretty amazing considering our all-day Rail Runner tickets cost a total of $17, purchased online.

Connor has been complaining about not seeing any snakes on our hikes, so, after grabbing some ice cream, we made a beeline to the Rattlesnake Museum. That's right, a museum (privately owned) dedicated to the rattlesnake. Connor found a lot to attract his attention, starting with this alligator snapping turtle - look closely and you'll see he's poised to take a bite out of anything that ventures into his tank.

After that, it was one rattlesnake species after another. An amazing number of variants - with pigment anomalies - were present, as well as rattlesnakes from Central and South America. When I asked Connor to pose in front of one of the enclosures, he never took his eyes off the snake. Smart boy!

While not very big, the Rattlesnake Museum had plenty to see and learn and we all really enjoyed it. I understand that they get snakes out to handle when school groups come, but I was just fine with the inhabitants staying on their side of the glass!

After a little bit of shopping for Connor and his sister back home, we headed back to catch the bus. On the way, Connor reluctantly posed for a picture on the Old Town Plaza.

The bus back to the Rail Runner station was one of those long, articulated ones, and Connor managed to seat us right in the joint between the two halves. When we went around corners, our seats seemed to swivel with respect to the rest of the bus. Connor loved it!

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Toward the end of our train ride back to Albuquerque, Connor spotted a big cloud near Santa Fe and asked, "Isn't that smoke?" Yep, it was.

I hopped on my Blackberry and confirmed that a fire had broken out in Pacheco Canyon in the mountains above Santa Fe earlier that afternoon. The fire had burned around 7 acres by 3:00; by nightfall it had covered around 700 acres. By this evening it was up to 3,000 acres, fanned by wind gusts over 50 mph. Fortunately, the wind is pushing the fire away from Santa Fe and toward the Pecos Wilderness; the smoke has been heading in the same direction, though by Tuesday the wind direction is forecast to shift back toward Santa Fe, bringing us lots of smoke, at the least.

Today Connor and I went whitewater rafting on the Rio Grande - more on that in my next blog.

Comments

[Jan]

WOW! It's **that** easy to get to Abq Old Town? (I've never been there.) Had I known I'd have done that rail trip myself. Next year for sure. Golly, I can't bear to have missed the Rattlesnake Museum.

But you know, a person who complains about not seeing any snakes on his hikes otta be careful about what he pines for. Tee hee! (Yikes!)

That smoke looks frightfully close to town. Scary business. Though it would have to 'jump' the Rio Grande valley to get to you, right? We might need an annotated map here, to get a good picture of where this new fire is.

[John]

Hey Jan,

The fire is two miles north of the Santa Fe Ski Basin, nine miles north of Santa Fe and six miles northeast of Tesuque. As a reference for you, Artist Road/Hyde Park Road is closed at mile marker 9, at the edge of the forest. I don't think the fire would have to jump the Rio Grande to get to us, but would run out of much of its fuel on the outskirts of Santa Fe. The big fire in Arizona has threatened so many towns because they were right in the mountains. On the other hand, there are a lot of homes in the foothills around here, as you well know. Stay turned!