Friday we headed to Santa Fe. We had never been north of Silver before. It was a long drive, and despite fantastic directions from a friend, we made a few mistakes. Nothing tragic, just added time. We were actually headed north of Santa Fe; the Ohkay Casino. Brent's wrestling tournament was at a middle school near there. We arrived early and had nothing to do until the weigh in at 5pm. Brent didn't wrestle until the next day.
After a day without much food, I was really looking forward to dinner. We decided to head into Santa Fe since there were not many options near our hotel. This may have been where we made our first major error. We were too hungry, everyone was grouchy, it was dark and we had no idea where we were going. Sarah lead us to an empty parking lot, where I'm sure a restaurant once stood. Tensions were escalating. It was not pretty. We found another possibility, but couldn't find parking, though we gave up too soon. We went around in circles, literally. I guess they are actually rectangles, but whatever. Irritated, we stopped for gas; found another possibility and headed out into what quickly became a residential area. Fantastic.
We came out on the other side and a Furr's appeared like a beacon in the night. We stopped. This was probably the largest error of the night. It was a buffet, I'm not against them as a whole, but this didn't look great. But we were too hungry for rational thought. There was no way I was going to get everyone back in the car to continue the search for sustenance. Unlike normal buffets, there was only one trip down the counter, then your waitress served you if you needed more food or drink. The theory sounds good, unless your waitress won't come near your table unless she is taking food you haven't eaten yet and can't handle more than two things at one time. I'm bitter, she took my pie.
JT had warned us about choosing seafood as an option, yet his plate contained both fish and shrimp. Now that I think about it, this was the largest error of the night. He didn't even make it out of the restaurant before he was ill. Callie needlessly reminded him that he shouldn't have picked the fish and that he had just told everyone not too. I couldn't stop laughing. We should have just picked up microwave TV diners and taken them to our rooms. I couldn't believe we had finally made it up to Santa Fe, with endless dining options, and I was eating at a buffet, and a bad one. Oh well, the weekend wasn't supposed to be about food.
Breakfast was only marginally better than dinner, however no one ended up in the restroom. JT was telling Brent that he had to stop smiling at his opponents; it wasn't intimidating. So JT asked him to make a tough face and this picture was what we got.
Brent had 3 matches total. He worked really hard and I saw him use more technique than he has at any other tournament. His first match was around 9am, though we arrived at 8am. He won the first one and lost the other two by decision. He still enjoyed himself and seemed to understand that he was doing better despite the losses. We were done wrestling by 12:30 or so. We had enough of Santa Fe, so we headed to Albuquerque.
We shopped until around 6pm, nice mall. It reminded me of Bell Square in Seattle. The drive was nice and we were home by 9pm.
