Summer Vacation, 2022
School starts next week.
Buy a new backpack, meet the teachers, visit the classroom, and talk about “What you did during Summer Vacation”. A few minutes ago, Jae and I were talking about our summer, and I thought I’d write up the list.
Our summer was packed – camps for the boys (Neuron Garage, DoubleCreek, EarthNative, Camp Allen), swim lessons at the Y, movies at the Drafthouse, challenging projects at work with ever-present pandemic complications, traveling to visit my parents in El Paso, camping in the Limpia Mountains, and a family trip to Santa Fe.
Including stops for meals, fuel, and bio-breaks, the trip to Santa Fe was a little less than fifteen hours. We had a very nice home-base for our trip – we stayed on Griffin Street just across Paseo from the city center. LisaDiane and I had been in Santa Fe a few times in last the two decades, but this was our first visit with the Reads and the kids.
Our Santa Fe culinary outings included meals at Dolina, Tune-Up, Upper Crust, Clafoutis, Pasqual’s, and Churro Bar. [NOTE: Churro Bar and Tune-Up were magic – We each tried something different from the Tune-Up desert case: All was perfection. No really, perfect. Absolutely best in class. + Churro Bar was a delight: one thing done exceptionally well]. Some nights we cooked together at the Griffin house; several relaxing dinners in, and homemade chile colorado and a beet salad with farmer’s market tomatoes, feta, and pepitas for B’s birthday.
We all enjoyed the Georgia O’Keeffe museum. We shopped the delightful Farmer’s Market at Railyard. LisaDiane, Lee, and B relaxed at Ten Thousand Waves. I savored a morning at the Randall Davey Audubon Center, and we all went back to the Audubon Center as a group the next morning. We also played for a morning at Meow Wolf, the interactive and immersive art installation founded by an artist collective in Santa Fe.
The Meow Wolf exhibit in Santa Fe is “The House of Eternal Return”. It is a sensory experience, a narrative adventure, a mystery, and a performance space. Admission was by entry time – our tickets were for the first group of the day, which was perfect. We were lucky to be there on a day that performers were working in the space. The number of visitors was small until the middle of the day, and we played until the kids asked to take a brain break and the grownups were ready for a late lunch. Thank you to the Float Café at Meow Wolf for introducing us to the delightful Zia sodas. Their Sandia – watermelon, mint, lime – is very nice.
We are back at work now – which is good. School starts next week – which is exciting. Our summer vacation was lovely, and I am grateful for the time with my family, and I am grateful for the artists, farmers, docents, servers, bakers, line-cooks, performers, birders, filling-station-clerks, masseurs, and park-rangers that enabled our adventure. Thanks everybody. See you next summer.
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