We left here at 7:30 am Wednesday and got there at what would've 2:30 pm our
time but because it's MST there it was 1:30 their time, we gained an hour.
First thing into town, we stopped at a tourist info branch of the Chamber of
Commerce which happened to be in an outlet mall.  I resisted the urge to
splurge in the Liz Claiborne (sp?) boutique but we did buy some t-shirts in
the Big Dog outlet.  I told DH that when I'm at goal weight, we'll go back
and I'll really go shopping.

We did about 2 hours of walking just south of the historic plaza after we
checked into the motel and saved most of the sight-seeing for Thursday.   We
adored the Chapel of Loretto with its famous spiral staircase and gothic
architecture most of what we saw that afternoon.  In Santa Fe, you park and
walk to sight-see, because most of the sights are around the plaza.

For breakfast Thursday, I ordered a two egg, ham and cheese omlet for
breakfast and those two eggs must have been ostrich or emu eggs!  It was
huge and I could only eat about half of it along with one slice of whole
wheat toast, a bit of jam and a bit of the hash browns.  It carried me
through the whole day with getting hungry.  Lunch was some cheese crackers
and a diet lime coke.  New Mexico is the only place I've found diet *lime*
coke.  We have the regular diet, cherry, lemon and vanilla diet cokes here
but, of course, I love the diet lime coke above all the others.  It's
probably a good thing for my WOE that it's not here or I'd consume mass
quantities.

We were on our feet walking and site-seeing for about 12 hours with my DH
estimating that the longest we sat and had a mid-day snack was for 15
minutes and the bus ride back and forth from the plaza to museum hill was
about 20 or so minutes each way.  We saw and enjoyed way to much to even
begin to describe it all.  Everywhere you look in Santa Fe there is art and
beauty!  Many of the artists have very quirky senses of humor and it's
wonderful to discover their art in unexpected places.  Great place to people
watch, too.  Late in the day, I discovered that as long as I kept moving, my
legs didn't complain but when I stood in one place too long or sat down,
they let me know they were there and not happy.  We carried a water bottle
with us and sipped as we needed.  The higher elevation at Santa Fe causes
dehydration to happen faster than it would at a lower elevation, we were
told.

We had arranged for a walking "ghost" tour at 5:30 pm with a local and it
was so much fun although we were very tired by then.  If you go to Santa Fe,
I would highly recommend it.  Our guide, Stefanie Beninato "has Ph.D., Will
Travel" and is very knowledgeable about the history of the places, people
and ghosts that she showed us:

www.swguides.com

When the tour was over, we stopped in at the Pink Adobe Restaurant which is
in a 350 year old building and has prices that would buy tons and tons of
adobe and marble or granite for that matter.  E X P E N S I V E.  We split a
salad and it was just the right amount of food even though we were both
almost too tired to chew.  We picked up a couple of bottles of beer and went
back to our motel room and I had another small snack of one of those lunch
kit of tuna fish, mayonnaise, relish and crackers about 220 calories before
we finally went to bed about 10:30 pm.

Since we couldn't get a cat(s)-sitter (being Spring Break they left for
vacations, too), we had to make it a short trip and came back yesterday.  I
didn't have any appetite so I only had some toast and jam for breakfast.  We
stopped and bought snacks at a trip stop in Santa Rosa.  I bought a Luna
bar, some beef jerky and almonds and DH shared the big bag of "diet" trail
mix he bought.  Dinner was some veggies and chicken nuggets at home.  It may
have not been the best WOE for three days (probably too low in calories for
the exercise we got and not enough vitamins, etc.) but we did good, I think.

All the working out has paid off, I think.  My endurance in the higher
elevation with all the walking was tremendous.  I still weigh 191 but I feel
a lot "lighter" and very, very strong.   I'm anticipating looking as good as
I feel, soon!

Tonia