In 1610, I'm thinking the tourists probably didn't wear Bermuda shorts

Santa Fe is celebrating its 400th birthday this year. I feel kind of bad that we didn't bring a cake or a present. On the other hand, we will spend some money here at restaurants and such, and in a town that relies heavily on tourism, cash probably is truly the best gift.

It's true that Santa Fe has become commercialized in recent years; we are far from being the only toursits that crowd the sidewalks around the plaza. But I still enjoy visiting here. There is plenty of good art to peruse here, a plethora of excellent restaurants, and the people watching is world class. Plus, the locals aren't intimidated in the least by the swarms of tourists, as evidenced last night by the lowriders cruising the plaza, while high school kids practiced skateboarding while dodging tourists.

Do you ever use Trip Advisor (tripadvisor.com) ? I find it can be helpful to learn about a hotel, restaurant, or other destination one might encounter while travelling; it provides reviews written by travellers. So I was interested when I saw that a new restaurant in Santa Fe had 21 reviews posted, and ALL of them gave the place a full 5 stars! I had never seen a restaurant score 100% before with more than 20 reviews. I was getting hungry just reading the reviews that gushed about how fabulous this place is. So when we showed up at 8pm on a Friday night, why was there only one couple there? Seriously. Just one. And the rest of the place was completely empty. This was puzzling, and somewhat shocking. Normally during tourist season you have to fight your way into a good restaurant on a weekend night. The weather was perfect to dine alfresco, but they didn't have any outside dining, and it was a bit warm inside, so we opted to move on to another place down the street that had a nice patio. I'm still scratching my head over how a place can get such great reviews, and be empty on a weekend night. Maybe the proprieter has lots of friends that wrote the reviews.