Annie had an appointment with a Dr. of Chinese Medicine in Santa Fe on Friday, so we packed up the tent and headed north Thursday. Spent the night just outside of Santa Fe in the Hyde Memorial State Park (didn't see Franklin or Eleanor). The acupucture treatment seemed to do Annie some good, as she's been walking around a lot more while we've been out in the willy-wags for the past four days.It was great to leave the heat of Truth or Consequences behind and get up into the mountains around Santa Fe. The campground was at around 8,000 ft elevation and it got quite cool at night.
Santa Fe is very beautiful, but a little too quaint for my taste. They control the architecture and colors to make sure everything looks like a post card. 
The classic southwestern look was developed to attract tourists and although the individual buildings are gorgeous, the enforced similarity makes it less a city than a theme park. We did see the Georgia O'Keafe museum, which was a treat, and walked around the square in the center of town. We also stopped to see the St. Francis Basilica. St. Francis is the patron saint of Santa Fe. The Franciscans originally showed up with Coronado and Juan Onate when the Spanish came north from Mexico. Annie posted some pictures at https://picasaweb.google.com/homerhorns/StFrancisBasilica?authkey=Gv1sRgCPbCqojxheqE6gE#slideshow/5617816201622807410
The classic southwestern look was developed to attract tourists and although the individual buildings are gorgeous, the enforced similarity makes it less a city than a theme park. We did see the Georgia O'Keafe museum, which was a treat, and walked around the square in the center of town. We also stopped to see the St. Francis Basilica. St. Francis is the patron saint of Santa Fe. The Franciscans originally showed up with Coronado and Juan Onate when the Spanish came north from Mexico. Annie posted some pictures at https://picasaweb.google.com/homerhorns/StFrancisBasilica?authkey=Gv1sRgCPbCqojxheqE6gE#slideshow/5617816201622807410
Upon leaving Santa Fe Saturday morning, we drove south along the western edge of the Cibola National Forest. The only campground we saw was closed, due to the fire danger. It's been very dry and windy and we have been inundated with smoke from the 700 square mile Wallow fire in easte
rn Arizona for over a week. We ended up driving all the way home, spending Saturday night in our own bed, and then driving down to the Gila National Forest Sunday morning. We spend the night at a beautiful deserted campground on Gallinas (chicken) Creek. We drove about a mile off the road along a dry creek bed in an amazing canyon with rock spires towering overhead.With no threat of rain, we left the rain fly off the tent so we could look up and watch the moon through the trees. A very loud Whip Poor Will seranaded is all night.
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