CANMT Trip: Auto Museum and Santa Fe

This part of the trip we were driving from Santa Rosa, NM to Gallup, NM. A fairly short drive, but made longer by a stop in Santa Fe. First though we went to the Auto Museum in Santa Rosa. Melodie had a tough night sleeping (coughing) and we were up early. This gave us plenty of time for breakfast and the museum.

There were a lot of beautiful cars to look at.

Melodie's favorite

My favorite

Rocky's favorite

And then we were on our way to Santa Fe. The whole time the song from Newsies was in my head.

"Santa Fe
Are you there?
Do you swear you won't forget me?
If I found you would you let me come and stay?"

Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi was our first stop.

Rocky and I have been in many Catholic churches, but Melodie hasn't. She was so full of questions, since our church looks nothing like this. I love stained glass, and Catholic churches always have beautiful windows.

We went to the part of the church that is left from the 1714 church (still not original though) where the statue that is the oldest representation of the Virgin Mary in the United States is kept.

Then we walked to the Santa Fe Plaza, the San Miguel Church and the oldest house in the US.

San Miguel Church is the oldest church in the US, built in 1610 by Tlaxcalan Indians

The oldest house

Unfortunately, neither the church or house were open that day, so we only got to see the outside. When we got to the church Melodie asked, "Didn't we already see an old church?" Old churches are not the most interesting thing to a five year old, and by now we'd seen enough for her on the trip. We walked around some more to find a place to eat. This took us through the plaza again, where Mel enjoyed looking at the jewelry being sold on blankets on the street. She wanted to buy some, but after debating a long time she decided to save her money. I was glad. Melodie doesn't take the best care of her jewelry and this was nice stuff. We stopped at a few restaurants, read a few menus and finally picked Tia Sophia's. It was a small place. We loved the atmosphere. There was even a bookshelf with kid books (the first place we had been to in a long time that had anything to entertain kids while waiting for food). And the food was delicious. Some of the best of the trip.

Rocky ordered the Atrisco Plate which was green chile stew and a cheese enchilada. Melodie ordered a chicken taco.

I ordered a sopaipilla stuffed with chicken and covered in cheese with chile sauce on the side (Christmas...red and green). Plus, we each got a sopaipilla to cover in honey, cinnamon and sugar.