Santa Fe, New Mexico, the state capitol, is on I-25 about 55 miles north of Albuquerque. It is located at the south end of the U.S. Rocky Mountain chain.

Santa Fe is paradise for the artist. As such, the town reflects that culture. All over town are art galleries, studios and museums. The famous Plaza shopping area in downtown is full of such shops. Local artists set up their temporary sidewalk shops along several of the city streets.

My early-twenty-something waitress at Olive Garden said she moved to Santa Fe from Maine just because she wanted to pursue art. Obviously the place does draw people here for that sake.

It must be me because, just like Taos, I immediately hated the town and was ready to leave within the first hour. First of all, the one and only highway into town from the north was down to one lane. It took over 20 minutes to go four miles.

Again, once into town, nothing is marked for the first-time-into-town tourist. I kept seeing signs pointing to visitors information places but rarely actually saw the place. And, like Taos, all of the streets curve instead of running north and south, or, east and west. I had no idea what direction I was heading most of the time. Several times I thought I was in one part of town only to find out I was in another part.

I was trying to get to any of the following places: state capitol building, Loretto Chapel, Georgia O'Keefe Museum and The Shed Restaurant. According to the map, Loretto was on the east part of town. I could not find the street. I spotted a tourist info center. I went in and discovered it was the state capitol building (which is in the center part of town and I'd already unsuccessfully tried to find). They gave me yet another map and gave directions to Loretto. I did the directions. Not even close.

After 2-1/2 hours of driving around the central part of town, stopping at most every traffic light (gotta love these New Mexicans and their traffic systems), I finally began to figure out where things were. I found O'Keefe Museum only to learn it is closed this week and next week (reason unknown).

I won't even go into the hour-and-a-half-forty-five-miles-I-have-no-idea-where-I-was I did in the evening when I thought I was going on a ten minute 2 mile jaunt just to get some milk for the morning. Grrrrrr....

I checked into my hotel early and took the rest of the afternoon off to relax and unwind from the ordeal of dealing with yet another frustrating-for-tourist-drivers town. I hear Albuquerque is laid out nicely in a grid system. Yesssssss!!!