Santa Fe With The Chapmans

Day eleven was family time.  We wanted to see a bit of Santa Fe, and Kristi's Aunt Mary and Uncle Kevin were great tour guides.  Santa Fe is a very art-rich area.  We ended up going to a gallery and a little place where they did glass blowing.  I have seen glass blowing before, but this place really did classy art work.  We watched for quite a while.  We looked at some of the pieces that were in the shop.  They were very expensive, but everything was done right there.  The shop was run by Charlie Miner.  He had been working with glass since 1975.

We had a brief thought it would be cool to have a piece from this shop as a souvenier, but everything was so expensive.  Uncle Kevin commented about how it would be really cool to actually buy a piece you saw being made.  Now our interest in purchasing something was raised a little higher.  We watched him make two pieces.  One was a wine class and the other was a vase.  We didn't really want to spend money on a wine glass, and the vase wasn't really a good color for us.  We thought about it for a while and decided it would really be cool to have something to remember our stop in Santa Fe.  Kristi asked one of the workers if Mr. Miner would do a custom piece that had colors we wanted.  They said he would be happy to, but when he did custom pieces he liked the people he was making it for to help make it.  So, this event turned out even more cool than we thought it could.  The kids got to help him make what became "our vase."  It is sitting in our living room as I write this.  It has a very special meaning to us.  Mr. Miner signed the vase or piece of art, but he insisted on adding Alex and Adri to the bottom of the vase, too, since they helped him make it.  If you stop by our house, don't forget to ask to see it.

From there, we went back and just had some family time and conversation.  As I said, it was very nice to see family and make this a part of our trip. We had one more night to spend with the Chapmans.  The next morning we were heading to Albuquerque to spend the night before we flew home.