Don and I arrived in Albuquerque on Tuesday, regretfully having to miss a planned lunch with Marti due to her having Covid, thankfully mild, but still. Instead, we stopped in Madrid as we drove along the Turquoise Trail …

the better to begin soaking in the enchantment that is New Mexico …

Not surprisingly, we have reveled in the food …

which I have to record lest we forget green chili cheeseburgers at The Hollar … stuffed french toast with fruit compote at The Pantry … breakfast every morning at The Inn on the Alameda with scrambled eggs, fried potatoes onions and peppers, sausages, green chili salsa, fresh cherry cheese danish, fruit, and the best coffee … carne asada, smoked trout hash with gruyere potato cake, and carrot cake for dessert at Cafe Pasqual’s … ice cream bars for dinner because we were still so full from lunch … a simple salad for lunch the following day so we could fully enjoy homemade posole and tostadas with former neighbors Connie & Karl from San Marcos who were pet/house sitting in hills of northern Santa Fe … the best green chili cheese burger and chili rellenos at La Fogata … another dessert-for-dinner of carrot cake (not quite as good as Pasqual’s) and Ibarra chocolate pot de crème with a hint of cinnamon chased with fresh decaf at The Inn … and one last amazing breakfast before heading to Taos.

Each day has had its golden moments, beginning with a studio visit at the generous invitation of Jonathan Parker …

A much-anticipated return visit to The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, where photographs are allowed but not encouraged … hence only one picture of a pot that called out to be remembered …

And a very exciting trip to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum …

where I was privileged to take a tour of the textile vault with Registrar and Collections Manager Judy Chiba Smith and study some of Georgia O’Keeffe’s clothing on the condition of taking photos for personal use only. So you must simply imagine what it was like to see her black hat, wrap dresses, kimonos, white blouses, mending kits of needles and threads, and the iconic black and silver belt. What a privilege, granted by virtue of my past association with Linda Baumgarten, retired Curator of Textiles at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation so many years ago in the 1980s, to whom I am now even more grateful.

Afterwards, Don and I toured the museum’s public galleries, where one painting after another called out to be remembered …

not to mention some of Georgia’s collections …

and best of all, photos taken near the end of her life, some not publicly shown before …

Of course, when in Santa Fe, one can hardly resist the lure of the iconic Canyon Road, half a mile of 100+ galleries, literally one block away from where we were staying …

But I’ll save the gallery tours and the treasures we found for another post.