hey guys it's Brian with retired 40 today we're headed to Santa Fe New Mexico it's
our first time we've ever been there and it's just a short six hour drive from
Denver
we've heard lots of good things lots of cultures there's lots of history there
and lots of good food we hear well we made it to Santa Fe our first impression
is a good one there's artistic touches everywhere even
on the bridges and the interstates and right now we're going to head up to our
house that we rented for the next three nights
well I've been in Santa Fe for all of 20 minutes and its charm has already got
its grip on me there's so much artistic quality around the city there's so much
cool architecture there's lots of Native American and Southwest touches just
everywhere you go it doesn't matter whether it's an insurance building or a
bank or someone's house downtown everything blends in very nice with
landscape I really kind of have a crush on this place already I'm gonna go enjoy
the sunset and I'll catch you tomorrow
all right it's day two and we're headed to the farmers market if you're here on
a Saturday they have a farmers market every every Saturday and it's indoor so
it'll happen rain or shine bring some cash and get ready to do some shopping
also a lot of Santa Fe is very dog friendly so if you have your dog bring
them with ready to go to Santa Fe Murph? you ready to go? except for inside the
farmers market so the farmers market is 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. every Saturday
they have vendors from all over New Mexico all kinds of homemade breads and
fruits and vegetables that are homegrown there's mushrooms cheese's pastries
anything you can imagine so the farmers market was really really cool there was
lots of fresh produce we got some fresh mushrooms there's fresh greens there's
beans potatoes chilies of course you'd expect in New Mexico and really just a
whole plethora of stuff lots of friendly people and vendors there was live music
and then we headed outside to the railway so just outside of the farmers
market is the railyard district and it's full of high-end art shops and of course
the Rail Runner Express which is a passenger train that will run all the
way through town and then beyond that I believe one thing I'm really regretting
and one thing that I highly recommend is if you if you like to bike a bike would
be a great way to see this town and we didn't bring our bikes with us
unfortunately but next time we definitely will so next we're gonna head
to Kakawa which is a coffee and chocolate shop and they offer all kinds of
different chocolates and you can get a flight of different chocolates you can
add it to coffee you can get ice cream they have chocolate treats and it looks
really delicious so this isn't like your average chocolate shop there's so many
different kinds of flavors of chocolate there's spicy chocolate there's plain
chocolate with no sweetener there's the sweetest chocolate you've ever tasted
and then you can add any of these flavors into coffee you can incorporate
any of these flavors into their treats they have and then they have chocolates
you can take and make at home all right we're fully caffeinated now
and now we're going to head to the oldest house in the United States which
is no surprise because Santa Fe is actually the oldest city capital in the
United States
so this is a free you're just real quick self-guided tour it just shows that all
of the oldest structure in the United States there's just the simple way that
they used to live back then there's some tools and some some fireplaces some
utensils there's a coffin in there with a headless guy and something worth
checking out real quick so you can head on to the next thing that we're heading
onto right next door to the oldest house in the United States is the oldest
church structure in the United States the San Miguel church built in 1610 this
is also a free self-guided tour and something you don't want to miss if
you're in Santa Fe many of the original elements of this church are still intact
and you can walk freely about the church and look at these elements things that
are several hundred years old some of the original structure and artifacts are
below the glass in the floor
so we came back to the house for lunch and we ordered pizza
just real quick delivery from a place called upper crust pizza incorporated a
lot of southwestern type foods into the pizza we kind of wanted to come back
just a little bit before lunchtime and kind of regroup because the downtown
area the restaurants do get pretty crowded during meal times and we wanted
to kind of eat a little bit earlier so we could head back into Santa Fe while
everyone else was eating lunch and hit some of those hot spots I also wanted to
mention just pay attention to your parking because the parking is a little
bit tight downtown the the downtown is very old and it was obviously built a
long time ago so streets are narrow there's not a lot of parking and we're
here on the offseason I would imagine during the summer it's probably pretty
congested down there so just keep that in mind so while everyone else was
taking their lunch we decided to hit some of the hot spots
our next stop being the Cathedral Basilica another free spot to go to and
one that you don't want to miss during our time here the Cathedral was having
some renovations done but it almost made you realize how elaborate the ceilings
and the vaults and the paintings in this church are in this church just like the
others has many of the original items intact painting sculptures and
construction that were original to the church
our next stop was the Loretto Chapel home of the miraculous staircase the
chapel is only about a block away from the cathedral so it's a short walk to
the next stop
the chapel was impressive however it did cost us about 15 dollars for a family of
four to get in and after going to the Cathedral first the assistant size up if
you want to save fifteen dollars here's a shot of the staircase if you don't
close your eyes well it's day three happy puppy happy owner I just wanted to
give you a quick shot of the surrounding area of Santa Fe and you can see all the
possibilities of biking and hiking and skiing so last night we went to Tomah
sita's which is an authentic southwestern restaurant you have to try
the red and their green chili it doesn't get much more fresh and authentic even
at four o'clock it was pretty busy so and they don't take reservations so
definitely planned some time ahead for that so we saved the best for last we're
headed to meow wolf this morning and I would definitely make reservations for
that it does fill up very quickly even in the off season so our weather has
been absolutely amazing for this time of year it's a it's an early March right
now and we've had 50s and 60s and you can see it's sunny out it's only 9
o'clock in the morning right now yesterday really we just tried to soak
in as much of the the culture and the town as possible and I can pretty
comfortably say that you could spend way longer here than we have spent we
haven't even touched hiking or biking or they're skiing closeby there's so much
to do around here if you like to shop there shopping absolutely everywhere
there's vendors everywhere the architecture is pretty spectacular as
well we hit up several churches yesterday and there's churches kind of
scattered throughout town there was a couple of there's actually two that say
that they're the oldest church in the u.s. I'm not sure which one actually is
the oldest but it's pretty incredible that you can go through something that's
four hundred years old that was built four hundred years ago and you can still
actually walk through you can experience the whole thing and the original pieces
are still intact in there so we're gonna head off to me I'll wolf and I think
it's gonna knock your socks off from the exterior me I'll wolf appears to be a
refurbished grocery store but scattered in the parking lot are clues to the
amazing things inside it's considered to be an art installation
the whole thing is a contribution of a hundred to thousands of artists to make
one incredible experience for the user even if art doesn't interest you there's
something for everyone at me I'll wolf my kids enjoyed it as much as I did
the story starts out in a suburban average normal-looking house but before
you know it you're transported into another universe the Alpha is supposed
to be an interpretive or installation so they don't really give you much of a
backstory but you're trying to solve the mystery of the family in the house all
while taking into art installations while traveling through what seems to be
endless amount of rooms you're transported into other universes dreams
fairy tales and then just as you think you've seen it all you'll go through
another hatch or portals through the house or circle back to the house it's
really just an endless maze with clues mind-bending art and something that's
pretty impossible to describe or catch on video each of the rooms is chock full
of clues and entrances to the alternate universe
oh wow the coolest thing about me I'll wolf is
there is no right or wrong way to go through the whole thing and the whole
thing is something like 30-something thousand square feet so plan to spend
three or four hours in the entire exhibit they only allow a certain amount
of people every hour to go through the whole thing
so it really gives you the chance to spend as much or as little time in each
room as you want there's not much that's off-limits almost everything is hands-on
or interactive and they even have live actors throughout in the one-and-only
large and open room they actually use it as a venue and they host bands and DJs
and events what I'm showing you here barely even scratches the surface of
what meow won't has to offer and many of the things pictured are just the lighted
parts of the exhibit there is just room after room of endless fun yah wolf is
mind-bending scary spooky confusing and completely addicting all at the same
time I could see myself going to this multiple times because you would see
something new every time you went there one thing that we found out late in the
game was someone gave us some 3d glasses that can be purchased up front and it
completely changes the experience of the entire installation once we had those
things that were already incredible started popping out of the walls you can
look at the floor you can look at the ceiling and things that you looked at
without the glasses completely change once you put them on
well Miele wolf was everything that we expected it to be we've heard so much
stuff about it I thought it might just be kind of a tourist trap but it's a
it's really pretty amazing it's a it's physically exhausting and mentally
exhausting and just as kind of a preface because they don't really give you that
information when you get there you're you're kind of trying to solve the
mystery at the same time as enjoying the art installation you'll also definitely
want to make a reservation ahead of time because even though we had a reservation
there was people lined up you know clear back to the parking lot
and we were there half an hour early so allow yourself some time to get parked
and and definitely make a reservation ahead of time and buy those 3d glasses
so our last stop sadly is some fine dining it's lacasa Cina and it's fine
dining with twists the the waitstaff actually plays the piano and sings or
there's a piano player a guitar player and the waiter or waitress will sing
they sing anything from the Beatles to show tunes to it's just it really
changes every night so that starts at 6:30 and it's actually that Cantina part
I believe there's two separate parts of the restaurant one where you can just
dine and then one you can go into the cantina
it will require reservations the canteen is not real big there's a limited amount
of seating and tables in there and I'm actually going to close out the video
with some footage from that in the meantime this is retired at 40 remember
to live life simple and I'll catch you next week