Fourth of July on the Plaza

Independence Day in Santa Fe begin with Pancakes on the Plaza, an event that combines food, live music, art and classic cars.

I didn't have much of a plan for today, except I knew I'd walk to the plaza and check out the pancakes and art.

Although I arrived soon after things officially began, the pancake line was impressively long, those people below are at the head of the line that was ...

 

 ... so long that it started on one side of the plaza and continuing across the Plaza to the other side and into the row of artist's booths, making for quite the pedestrian traffic snarl. 

I decided I didn't need pancakes and would check out the art instead. 

That's where I discovered Ginger, the coolest cat I've ever met, calm and oblivious to the chaos around him.

I bought a lovely mixing bowl with a spout and handle in a style similar to these pieces from Ginger's owner, Sandra Garcia.  It will be perfect for making ... my own pancakes.

I am not nearly as cool as Ginger the cat when it comes to big crowds in close quarters, so, after I finished my tour of the artist's booths, I headed away from the Plaza in search of coffee.

The line in the coffee shop was also pretty impressively long, but at least I could see from beginning to end.

I left the house not knowing if I would decide to spend the day as a tourist or come back and work on some quilt blocks, but at the coffee shop, I decided that a cool calm museum environment would be perfect, so I walked over to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum.  Even though I had checked their website, I wasn't really 100% confident that I'd find them open on the holiday ... but I did.

There are no cameras (nor large purses or bags, day packs, knapsacks, totes or shopping bags) allowed and so I cannot visually share anything beyond this image (from their web site) of an oil painting from the exhibit, Georgia O'Keeffe and the Faraway, Nature and Image. It is called, Part of the Cliff.  Along with all of the fabulous art at the Museum, it was fun to see her camping gear, jeans and tennies from the 1940's as part of this exhibit.

I did bring home some images–on a handful of postcards of some of the NM paintings and the book, Wideness and Wonder, The Life and Art of Georgia O'Keeffe. It was an impulse buy, I didn't look too closely at the words in the gift shop and was pleasantly surprised by the first paragraph:

Georgia O'Keeffe's first visual memory was of the patchwork quilt she used to sit on when she was eight or nine months old.  She vividly remembered two patterns: white with small red stars and black with a red and white flower.

During a docent's talk in the courtyard, she described the 1930's Model A station wagon that O'Keeffe drove on her faraway adventures.  Another museum visitor in the group mentioned that there was one similar to it, though not a station wagon, in the classic car show, so on my walk back home and back through the celebration on the plaza, I went looking for and found it.

The range of cars (and at least one motorcycle) was amazing.

Here are a few more that caught my eye--click for a larger image if they catch yours.

 

I'm not sure what the status is on public fireworks in Santa Fe tonight, since there's a ban in place for the state ... but maybe I'll spend the evening celebrating my independence with a little sewing.  I haven't done nearly enough of that since I moved to Santa Fe and I think a little bit of creativity today would do me a lot of good.

How did you celebrate the day? Did you have fireworks?  BBQ? Some other local tradition? A parade?