For my birthday week this year I wanted to travel to a new place and do something nontraditional. Now my birthday week is always the week of Thanksgiving, so it can makes things a bit tricky. As much as I love being with my family and eating the turkey my husband and I were craving a bit of relaxation for just the two of us.

When I mentioned that Santa Fe could be an option we quickly looked up the flight loads and saw that it could totally work out for us to get there. (My husband works for the airlines so we can travel on stand-by for free). So we packed our bags, made arrangements and headed to Albuquerque  Thanksgiving day.

Santa Fe Railway

From Albuquerque we rented a car and drove about an hour North West to arrive in Santa Fe. It was quiet, beautiful and we even found a restaurant serving a Thanksgiving Feast.

My favorite aspect of deserts (I’ve lived in Las Vegas, Phoenix and Southern Utah-all beautiful deserts) are the gorgeous sunsets. We caught some great photos as the sun was setting on Thanksgiving.

Gorgeous sunset! The colder the weather the better the sunset I think.

It was a ghost town on Thanksgiving. So quiet. I loved that, and we came across this train station.

One of the main reasons I wanted to go to Santa Fe was to see the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. We took a great tour of the museum and really learned a lot about Georgia’s life. The thing I find most striking about Georgia was that she was a successful woman artist from her 20′s until her death at 96. Not many artists can have that kind of success in their lifetime. Let alone a woman. She really is one of the first American Woman artists of the 20th century to have critical and commercial success.

All in all, the trip was fantastic. We had some great New Mexican cuisine. I found a great turquoise necklace and enjoyed browsing all the local shops. Sometimes you just need a few days away from your reality to give yourself a much needed dose of inspiration and invigoration.