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Cheyenne to Santa Fe and a Day in Santa Fe (480 miles)

The group split up on Day 7: (1) the McIntoshes headed for Mt. Rushmore, Sturgis, Deadwood, the Beartooth Highway in Montana and Yellowstone; (2) the Keefers, Priebes, Weeks and Weir/Reichardts headed for Moab and white water rafting; (3) the Glenores headed for Denver and Albuquerque to visit family; and (4) the Sommars, Urmans, Venns and Webers heaed for 2 nights at La Fonda in Santa Fe, NM and 2 nights in Sedona, AZ. The following photos and journal entries refer only to the last group.

Day 7 – Our four cars left at 7 a.m., even after a very late night, with Jim Sommars in the lead. As advised by Jim's sister and the Urmans' friends, Marilyn and Terry, we took the by-pass around Denver to avoid morning traffic. Our lunch break was in Raton, NM at K-Bob's Steakhouse and Salad Wagon – some had salad but no one had steak. Rob and Daryl had a green chile cheeseburger to get in the New Mexico mood. We arrived in Santa Fe about 3:30 p.m. and were fortunate to find parking places in La Fonda's tight parking garage. We checked in and agreed to meet on the terrace We enjoyed the views of the city and the nuts provided from Judy Venn's never-ending stash of goodies. We had a reservation for dinner in the hotel restaurant, La Plazuela, which is in the central atrium and serves New Mexican style food and margaritas. Carl was suffering from a first-ever sinus headache so didn't join the group, but had a doggie bag of pork carnitas tacos, albeit cold ones, when he woke up. We all headed upstairs for an early-to-bed and long night's sleep to make up for the previous night.

Day 8 – The Venns were up early, as is their habit, and headed for the Plaza Cafe, a favorite with the locals, for breakfast. The Sommars, Urmans and Webers went to one of the Webers' favorite places, Cafe Pasqual, for a breakfast/brunch at the communal table. Everything came New Mexican style, with red, green or Christmas (both) chile toppings. Afterwards, everyone went their own way for the day with plans to meet on the terrace at 5 p.m. for drinks. At 5:40 p.m we left for a walk to Vanessie's of Santa Fe to get seats in the piano bar to hear Doug Montgomery perform. The Webers had seen him in both California and on previous trips to Santa Fe. He started playing later than we had planned, but we got in an hour's worth of music, including Rob's request for "Somewhere in Time/Rachmaninoff's Concerto #2 in D Minor". A favorite song of the evening was the sing along of Mac Davis' "Oh Lord It's Hard To Be Humble". At 8 p.m. we walked back towards the hotel to the Coyote Cafe for dinner. Our waiter, Brooke, was excellent as was the meal. Four of the eight had elk tenderloin and it exceeded even Carl's well-schooled taste for game meat. We determined that, even though we had a long day's drive ahead of us again, we would stay in Santa Fe until about noon in order to see the Spanish Market stalls which opened at 8 a.m. the next day.