Santa Fe Trail

From Las Vegas (NM) we went North West to Montezuma. There a former hotel of the Santa Fe Railroad has been transformed into an international college (Armand Hammer Foundation). Most parts of the school are closed for public, but the Dawn Light Sanctuary, a building designed as a place of contemplation and reflection was open. It's a new round building with 12 large prisms built in the windows. The prisms break the sun light shining through the windows and project rainbow colors at the white walls of the room.

The reason why the Santa Fe Railroad Company built the hotel there at that particular spot at the Gallinas River were the hot springs. Of course James and I soaked our feet in the hot water for some time.

On I-25 we continued our way South to Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico. We first visited the state capitol. The building is different from all the other state capitols I have seen till now. We were actually able to see even the inside of the building with access to the Senate and the House of Representatives. The capitol houses a wonderful art collection from local artists. Santa Fe itself is a very art friendly city. Many museums and galleries can be found here.

We visited the Santa Fe Museum of New Mexican History, that had just opened the day before and therefor the admission was free. The museum was packed, but the exhibits were quite interesting. (So we learned everything how New Mexico became the 47th state of the union in 1912 just a few weeks before Arizona joined the union. For those curious to know which states followed: Alaska (49th) and Hawaii (50th))

Santa Fe gave name to the Santa Fe trail, one of the trails that the early settlers followed on their way west. (Oregon trail is an other well known trail.)

Santa Fe kind of blends in with the surrounding (spectacular) landscape: only low rise buildings mostly from adobe or at least built in the classic (Mexican) adobe style. The mountain tops around Santa Fe still are covered in snow while down here the temperature is a cozy 26ºC.