Spent three days in Santa Fe (though one day was mostly taken up by an excursion to Ghost Ranch - more about that later) & the next bunch of photos I post will feature the unique southwestern art & architecture which can be found in abundance there. A very common sight I kept running across was dried chile peppers hanging from walls & posts. In doing a little research on this, I found out that there is an actual Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University. According to their website: "The Chile Pepper Institute (CPI) is a research-based, international nonprofit organization devoted to education, research, and archiving information related to Capsicum. We are dedicated to educating the world about the wonders of chile peppers." And I found this bit of information on their site about the ubiquitous hanging chile peppers: Q. What is the string of red chile peppers seen all over the southwest United States? A. This stringing process is called a "ristra." In the early days of chile pepper cultivation, farmers would takes partially dehydrated red chile peppers from their fields, string them into ristras and hang them outside their homes to finish drying. Hanging a ristra outside the front door of a house is said to bring the home good luck." Please zoom for a better view...