It was nice this morning to have my folks call and say they were on their way out of town, up to Santa Fe, to take a stroll through the city’s annual Indian Market. “Would you like to go?”

I thought about it for about two minutes and said yes.

They turned around to come pick me up, and I hurriedly dressed and fed the cats and rounded up my camera stuff for the excursion.

And it was a nice day to be in Santa Fe.

The crowds on the streets around the Plaza square were healthy, but not too large for being able to easily walk and enjoy seeing vendors and their offerings at each booth. The sky was slightly overcast while we were there, from late morning through early afternoon, and while my folks walked and visited with vendors, I used the occasion to wander around and mostly take pictures.

There were certainly many fascinating people and things to photograph, and I tried to capture quite a few of them. Among the vendors and the visitors were also singers, drummers, and dancers from a number of pueblo troops performing periodically at each intersection around the plaza square.

I ended my time in Santa Fe over at the St. Francis Cathedral, photographing statues standing in the yard out in front of the church.

After our time visiting the Indian Market, we left Santa Fe and made our requisite stop at Gabriel’s Restaurant in Pojoaque. We enjoyed their fresh table-prepared guacamole along with our meals, and enjoyed the cool damp air that gave our day a touch of fall the quiet atmosphere that dissipated as other Market visitors also made their way to the eatery. The meal was fantastic. And to cap it, my Cubs came back from a large late meltdown to seize an improbable win in extra innings over the Blue Jays. That was a nice bonus at lunch.

When we came back to Albuquerque, I rested for a while and pulled photos from the camera before I went up to my sister Kristi’s to finish the evening roasting two grocery bags of chile peppers on her backyard grill under overcast and occasionally misty skies. Our chile prep process improving each time we complete it, we ended up with two good caches of chile serving baggies and a handful of still-skinned chiles bagged for rellenos.

Photo Credit: Kristi Welton-Kidder

Photo Credit: Kristi Welton-Kidder

It was a great day in New Mexico, being a New Mexican, doing New Mexican things.

And it was a nice day to be with family.