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July 24-26, 2011
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This summer, I visited Santa Fe, NM, for the wedding of my lovely friends, Laura and Adam.
I left hot, sticky, gross NJ and arrived in hot, dry, fabulous NM with about an hour and a half to spare before the first wedding event. The hour-long drive from Albuquerque to Santa Fe was gorgeous. The open space of the southwest was refreshing.
After a quick change and attempt to fix travel-hair, I walked a short five minutes to the art gallery for the dinner and jazz reception. Weddings are typically fantastic reunions: several former classmates were there! We thoroughly enjoyed the food, music, and art.
This statue startled pretty much everyone with his eerily realistic face:
Saturday morning, I woke up bright and early to run. My goal was to run 6.5 miles along this route:
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After huffing, puffing, and almost fainting through a very slow mile, I remembered that Santa Fe is over 7000ft above sea level. This sea level girl decided that a walk would be just fine. Plus, it allowed me to stop and take tons of photos.
I saw lots of artwork:
Pretty neighborhoods:
And desert:
I was incredibly thirsty and out of water by the time I got back to downtown, so my sweaty self bought an Odwalla green juice and bananas in a grocery store next to my hotel. Best idea ever. Then I swam in the pool for a few laps. Second best idea ever.
Laura and Adam did a wonderful job of choosing the hotel, chapel, and gallery all within a few minutes' walk of each other and downtown Santa Fe. For lunch, I found a cute cafe near the main square serving green chile nachos. (Okay, based on empirical evidence, every restaurant in New Mexico serves green chiles.)
Soon it was time to get fancied up for the afternoon wedding ceremony at the Loretto Chapel!
This beautiful Southwestern chapel is famous for its "miraculous" staircase, which was supposedly built by a strange man who disappeared without asking for pay once it was finished, and is apparently a marvel of engineering.
We eagerly anticipated the arrival of the bride.
Soon, the ceremony began!
And beautiful Laura walked down the aisle, escorted by her parents:
(I didn't realize how poorly my camera settings reacted to the lighting until too late.)
They said their vows:
And got MARRIED!
Princeton classmates rejoiced:
The reception was held at the Hacienda Dona Andrea, a lovely 45-minute drive out into the desert. They provided buses for the guests, from which we saw the big Albuquerque fires:
What a perfect reception location! It was gorgeous!
Dinner was delicious, toasts were lovely, dancing was fabulous, and the night pretty much perfect.
The next morning, we enjoyed a brunch reception at the wedding hotel and said goodbye to the gorgeous Southwest!
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