Day trip to Las Vegas, New Mexico

Day trip to Las Vegas, New Mexico, 66 miles one way. 

Of course it was a big breakfast at the La Fonda hotel.  Dane had a biscuits and creamy sausage gravy that he thought was the best he had since an encounter with “biscuits and dirty gravy” in New Orleans about 15 years ago.



Dane's biscuits and gravy breakfast (and Joan's much healthier omelet in the background) at La Fonda Hotel



We then dug the car out of the hotel garage and took a trip to Las Vegas New Mexico, about a one hour drive away.  Las Vegas is town that prospered during the railroad years, but has seriously withered.  It is undergoing a revival, assisted by the National Trust’s Main Street program.    The big news, which Steve Wimmer, the concierge at La Fonda, had told us, was that a buyer had been found for the Castaneda Hotel, the endangered Las Vegas Fred Harvey hotel.  The woman at the Las Vegas visitor center was beside herself with the news; we had fun gossiping with her. 

The boarded up Hotel Castaneda in Las Vegas, New Mexico.  A Fred Harvey hotel.
 

On the old town plaza in Las Vegas there is a very nice restoration of the Historic Plaza Hotel.

The two restored Victorian buildings that make up the Historic Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, New Mexico

To see the Fred Harvey Montezuma Hotel just outside Las Vegas in the hot springs town of Montezuma, on the campus of Armand Hammer United World College, we drove five miles northwest from Las Vegas.  UWC restored the hotel in 2001 and it is used for student residences, classrooms and dining.  Although we missed the Saturday-only tour of what is now called Montezuma’s Castle, the guard at the gate let us drive onto the closed campus for a better photo view of the magnificent building.

The old Fred Harvey Montezuma Hotel, now on the campus of United World College in Montezuma, New Mexico.

We returned to Santa Fe in the afternoon and did a leisurely stroll up and down Canyon Road, a cluster of art galleries, seeing some very tempting pieces (we took all sorts of pictures and artist information home with us, and may inflict some serious damage on the checkbook later on).

This evening we had dinner at Café Pasqual's, about a block away from La Fonda.  Though larger, this restaurant reminds us of one of our favorite Cape May NJ restaurants called Louisa’s. Cafe Pasqual's food is all organic and the preparations are very interesting.  Dane had Prince Edward Island black mussels with a cream and anise sauce that was to die for.   He mopped up as much of the gravy as the garlic bread would accommodate, then Joan came to the rescue with some of the quinoa fromher stuffed acorn squash and Dane sent his dish back to the dishwasher all but polished.

Mussels and stuffed acorn squash entrees at Cafe Pasqual's in Santa Fe, New Mexico

The double chocolate gelato with mocha sauce and hazelnut topping was very good, but we still find CapoGiro in Philadelphia hard to beat.  We got back to La Fonda in time for Downton Abbey – happy and stuffed.

Double Chocolate Gelato at Cafe Pasqual's in Santa Fe, New Mexico