I Found The Way To Santa Fe

Ok, the original song was referring to San Jose, but it works for me. Santa Fe was the home of this year’s TequilaCon – the 5th annual event/blogger meet up. After watching everyone last year have a blast in Philly, I felt I needed to attend this year. My wife also went with me. Here’s a recap in photos and captions of our trip, from start to finish.

Leaving Utah

We started the drive last Thursday night, but only went 2.5 hours before stopping at the Super 8 in Price UT for the night.

Passing through Moab on the way out of town was nice. It was my first time in Moab. Yes, seriously. I’m sure I’ll visit again soon.

Four Corners

I couldn’t pass up a trip heading towards New Mexico without visiting another place I’d never visited before. My wife and I decided that it was worth the extra hour to go out of our way to go to Four Corners. We didn’t stay long, but long enough to be in all four states at once.

Look at that pose

“Ribbit!

BeerHer

We didn’t make it to Santa Fe until 9pm at night, but once we checked into our room at the Sage Inn…

… we headed to the event known as BeerHer at the Santa Fe Brewing Company.

Before this event, I had only met one other blogger in person – Dave from Blogography [who would be at TequilaCon tomorrow night]. Now, I was about to meet many more bloggers in person for the first time.

Dawg and Poppy… being the cute couple they are

Wayne, Rachel and Karl (Ren was there, too, just not in any of my pics from BeerHer)

I’m not a beer person, so it was only a single pale ale for me before heading back to our room to get some much needed sleep after a long day of driving.

Santa Fe

Waking up Saturday morning, we got ready and headed to breakfast at Zia Diner with Wayne and Ren.

and enjoying a bloody mary to start the day…

Reba had to have her iced tea as well.

We spent some time walking around downtown Santa Fe and seeing the sites.

One of the oldest Shrines in the US

Even statues are doing the Wayne pose

Modern art has a place here, too… wait… what is that hanging from the red man?

Whoa! It’s no Dirk Diggler, but it’s artful

Gambling

Turns out there are a lot of Indian Reservations in New Mexico, which most have built casinos on, and close to the outskirts of town. Wayne and Reba wanted to go gamble. I tagged along to see if I could have fun and make a little bit of extra cash. Wayne offered to drive his convertible Mustang out to Buffalo Thunder Casino. I even have video proof:

CLICK PLAY ABOVE – Quicktime Plugin Required

For a YouTube version, click here

And here’s our exit

Wayne is anxious to gamble

After we gambled for a couple of hours [and all of us breaking even], we headed back into town to get ready for TequilaCon 09.

Mirror Mirror

TequilaCon 2009

This year the venue of choice was The Pink Adobe.

Walking upstairs to the room they put us in, I met a familiar face right away – Dave from Blogography. He was chatting it up with Brandon. I wonder what Dave is asking Brandon?

“Hey buddy, got an extra candy cigarette?”

I met up again with Karl from Secondhand Tryptophan. A great guy [and twice a guest blogger here on this blog]

Dustin from Cotters In My Tummy came out in a Tequila suit, which was a complete surprise to most of us.

Diana from Geeky Tai Tai was there, getting caught on camera by Wayne.

At the end, the planning committee got their place in the spotlight. Thanks to everything they did to make this happen.

After an awesome TequilaCon came to a close, some of us stumbled went over to the Catamount Bar a few blocks down the road and continued the party.

My wife quickly made friends – everyone liked partying with her

Heading Back To Utah

After all of the fun we had, it was time to head home.

Making the long drive home

See, I told you I would visit Moab again soon

Linkage

I think I may be the last person that went to TequilaCon to submit a post. Being last has the advantage of being able to link to all of the TC posts. If that’s too much for you, here’s the TequilaCon 09 Flickr photo pool where you can see photos taken by everyone.

• Geeky TaiTai – complete w/ video scandal
• Blogography
• Cotters In My Tummy
• / \
• Libragirl
• Bellaventa
• Dawg
• Poppy
• Sarah
• Renagerie
• Iron Fist

That’s all I could find by the time this got posted. I’m sure we are all linked and will be linked at some point. If you are a blogger and you want to meet up with others, I highly recommend something like TequilaCon. It’s a way to connect with others and a nice excuse to get plowed at the same time.