Today we decided to head to Old Town during the lunch break. After lunch at the Rolling in Dough Bakery, we looked in a few shops and then went to the Atomic Museum. We went there mainly for the ZOOM zone, but found quite a few interesting exhibits. Ryan really liked looking a the Trident Submarine models. There was a very sobering exhibit featuring exact replicas of Fat Man and Little Boy.
It was interesting to see how the words atomic, radium, x-ray and radioactive were used over the years to advertise and name brands.
In the afternoon Chloe and I got involved in the collage funshop. This was specifically supposed to be hot air balloon collage. Chloe made her own collage, then joined a group making a collage mural. She made three little hot air balloons with musical gnomes in the gondolas. I also joined in by making the collage road runner. That was really fun. Chloe must have spent about 2 or 3 hours in there.
When the conference day ended we headed back to Old Town for dinner. We ended up at the Church Street Cafe, otherwise known as Casa de Ruiz. It is one of the oldest buildings in New Mexico and was continually lived in as a residence for nearly 300 years.
We sat on the front porch were we could watch the goings on.
As it turned out there were native American dancers performing around Old Town, but we never got to see them perform. We heard them to the right, but couldn't see them. They walked past us and performed on the street to the left, then walked back right in front of us again. By the time we were done eating they were done performing.
We walked around a bit again and took more photos by San Felipe de Neri Church. I found the church to be very photogenic so I couldn't resist more photos.
This evening was the Southwestern Banquet for the conference. We didn't have tickets for it so we were looking for something to do. Chloe and I decided to follow the directions for the conference letterbox, even though she had forgotten her letterboxing stamp. It was really cool! If you haven't tried letterboxing or geocaching, just do it! They are both very much like treasure hunts and they are a lot of fun.
This one took us through the main areas of the hotel, out to the hotel chapel, back through the courtyard, then through the hotel again and out the other doors to San Felipe Square. There we found this statue of a native American woman. The letterbox was hidden at the base. It was so much fun and great because, although I'd walked past this statue numerous times over the past week, I hadn't really looked at it.
