Le Lecheria Railyard (Bandilier National Monument)

March 18, 2024

La Lecheria Railyard, Santa Fe, New Mexico

La Lecheria Railyard

At a very busy train station, in a recently renovated area of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is La Lecheria Railyard – the first place winner of the 2023 Santa Fe Reporter “Best of Santa Fe” (I have no idea what that means, but it sounds impressive). A clean, modern-looking shop with interesting paintings on the wall (available for purchase) and attractive menu boards. It is a beautiful shop designed to relax and enjoy their craft ice cream. There were books, including children’s books in a basket, which I imagine get a lot of use when trains are late.

“Old School Good” is painted on the wall to sum up their ice cream ingredient philosophy of no stabilizers, no artificial flavorings and no preservatives. La Lecheria had a interesting variety of classic and seasonal ice cream flavors and also sold baked goods and coffee (they are near a train station). the seasonal flavors included ‘Chai’, ‘Butterscotch Miso’ and ‘Red Chili with Toasted Piñon’. I sampled the latter one- a pinon nut comes from pinon trees that mainly grow in New Mexico and surrounding areas – a traditional important desert food source.. The ice cream had an interesting flavor and just a small kick – I liked it, but knew my wimpy ability to handle spice did not warrant a full cup. I ordered a scoop of mint chocolate chip and a scoop of Irish Slammer. The mint chocolate chip had a nice texture with a good number of bitter chocolate chips – the strong bitterness of the chocolate seemed to lessen the mint sensation, but the overall effect was quite enjoyable. The Irish Slammer was a special flavor for St. Patrick’s day – Guinness and Baileys flavored – another delightful flavor with a slant from the traditional.

La Lecheria Railyard

The shop is one to add to your itinerary in Santa Fe – great ice cream, relaxing atmosphere, friendly service.

In the area: Today we started out visiting Bandelier National Monument in Los Alamos north of Santa Fe, Yesterday we drove up to the park, when it was drizzling in Santa Fe, snowing in Los Alamos. We were surprised it was closed, but when we saw the steep drop offs on the park roads, we understood!

Bandelier National Monument – New Mexico has so many national and state parks, it was difficult to decide which ones up visit. Bandolier National Monument was a good choice. It tells the story of the Ancestral Puebloan people who lived in the area for a millennia starting as hunters and gatherers and eventually turning to agriculture. The geology of this area, formed from volcanic ash, compressed into rock, which eventually, through water and wind, formed holes. The Ancestral Pueblonian people enlarged the holes, charred the ceilings (to make them stronger) and made them their homes. Eventually they built structures in front of the holes to further enlarge the living area.

Bandelier ‘apartment house’

Bandolier National Monument allows visitors to see inside of these structures including their sacred Kivas. The park also had hiking trails in the surrounding canyons and mesas which we also visited. This is an amazing and fascinating place to visit.

The City Creamery (Yellowstone National Park)

July 31, 2023

The City Creamery, West Yellowstone, Montana

The name “City Creamery” hit me quite funny because I would not consider West Yellowstone a “City”, but we are in Montana, not New Jersey. Much of West Yellowstone seemed to be a place for tourists visiting Yellowstone National Park to stay, unfortunately we did not explore the area beyond the tourist district – we simply ran out of time. Our visit to the City Creamery was at night after leaving Yellowstone National Park,

The City Creamery

Our friendly server showed us the machinery used to make the ice cream – older traditional machinery that I have seen in antique magazines – it would have been fun to see them in action. The City Creamery prepared a variety of creative flavors including Huckleberry-Honey-Lavender and Cowboy Coffee as well as the old standbys of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. I had Peppermint and it was quite tasty. I cannot say that antique machinery made ice cream any better than modern machinery, but it would have been more fun to watch.

It would have been fun to see these in action.

There were tables next to the store to eat at, which we did tonight. Normally it would have been fun to walk around the town, but since it was quite late, mostly everything else was closed – We were glad the City Creamery kept hours like shops in most cities.

Great ending to a great day

In the area: Yellowstone National Park – Around 630,000 years ago a massive volcano erupted in what is now the western United states, The hollows in the ground resulting from the emptying magma collapsed causing a caldera where hot magma is still relatively close to the surface. The hot magma still causes numerous hot springs, fumaroles, geysers, paint pots, and mud springs.

I first went there as a child over 50 years ago. My memories are of the Old Faithful geyser which as a child I found cool, but not as thrilling as my parents did (now I find it really thrilling) and of hot springs where people would throw in coins for good luck, My brothers and I got sticks and fished the coins out – we never had much money in those days. so this was like a gold mine.. Time has marched on as it always does, and Yellowstone is no longer a place where throwing anything into hot springs is okay and getting that close to hot springs is not okay either. – But the changes make it an even better place to visit. There are fabulous boardwalks which enhance the experience by allowing folks to safely see a wide variety of hot springs, geysers, fumaroles and many, many other things close up and safely. I absolutely loved it.

Yellowstone also has wide sections outside the caldera that include waterfalls, canyons, mountains and lots of wildlife including bison, elk, and bears.

Sheep Eater Cliff – here you can leave the restrictions of boardwalks and climb on the rocks – a uncrowded area that was a great place to explore and rest at.

In 1872 Yellowstone National Park was created – the first national park in the world.

Grand Prismatic Spring – so amazing beautiful – like so many of the sights at Yellowstone.

Lake Isla – only natural body of water that flows into both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans

Yellowstone National Park far exceeded my expectations – we explored it for two and a half days and never tired of it – there were so many great things that I will not even pretend to describe much more that a very small fraction.

Old Faithful Geyser had been going off at regular intervals for longer than the national park existed – it is not as regular as it used to be, but it is still close to a schedule, so we enjoyed watching it, Right next to Old Faithful is the Bee Hive Geyser which normally goes off once a day, we were able to get very close to it and feel the pressure that forced the water far into the air, Another of my favorite geysers was the Steamboat geyser, called Old Unpredictable, because its eruptions have varied between 48 hours and 50 years – it did not go up while we were there.,

Yellowstone National Park is a not-to-be-missed park.

The Churning Caldron – in the Mud Volcano Area –