Day 9 - Leaving Santa Fe

We left Santa Fe about 11 am. I wanted to post up a photo of us sitting around a table with Gail because we spent so much time doing that during our stay in Santa Fe. Thanks so much for your wonderful hospitality, Gail.

This is Day 9 of our trip. We traveled 510 miles to Tucson, stopping only for breakfast in Lemitar, New Mexico and periodically for gas, water, or potty breaks. So far on the trip, we have logged 2,200+ miles. We arrived safe and sound at Colleen and Dan's house in Tucson about 8:30 pm.

Shopping and Dining

Friday was shopping day. We went shopping at K-Mart and World Market for small empty glass jars. Found some really nice 1/2 cup ones at K-Mart and some really small ones at World Market. Then went shopping at an open air market close to The Plaza. I bought a beautiful Southwest style shawl with turquoise highlights that perfectly matched the shirt I was planning to wear to dinner that evening. Also found a gift for Brent and a couple of the grandkids.

Along the way Carol and I stopped at the Loretto Chapel to see the unsupported spiral staircase to the choir loft. The story goes that the church was the first Gothic style church built in New Mexico. In those days, most members of Catholic church choirs were men and they would climb ladders into the choir loft. But this chapel was staffed by nuns who had a mission to start a school for girls. So, they needed a staircase. Because the chapel was small, a conventional staircase was out of the question. So the nuns started a novena. Before they were finished with the novena, a mysterious stranger appeared and said he could build a staircase. He built a staircase that is still a marvel of engineering. It is only supported at the top and bottom; the sides are kept in place only by superior engineering and construction. After completion of the stairs, the mysterious stranger disappeared and never submitted a bill for the 6 months of his work.

We stopped at the gallery where Carol's nephew Jordan works on Canyon Road. We talked to both of his co-workers and an interesting woman named Eva who is planning to move to Santa Fe. The Meyer gallery had just acquired a new piece by a local Santa Fe artist who likes to paint rural scenes from around New Mexico. We left a bottle of ginger beer with the boys and headed home.

Jordan took us all (me, Carol, Gail, and Lisa) out to dinner at The Osteria, an Italian restaurant downtown where the owner still talks to the staff in Italian. It was superb northern Italian food. I had veal picatta, which was done perfectly. It is one of those few ingredient dishes that is surprisingly hard to cook well - but they did a fantastic job. The owner suggested a Valpolicella to go with the meal - and it was a perfect choice.

Bandolier National Monument - Pueblo Cave Dwellings

Carol and I drove north out of Santa Fe to Bandolier National Monument near Los Alamos, New Mexico. A National Monument is a piece of land that has great historic and/or environmental significance, but our do-nothing Congress can't get its act together to vote to make it a National Park. Bandolier is a ruin of an ancient Pueblo cave dwelling village in the Frijoles Canyon. Jemez Mountain - the largest land form in the park - is actually a long inactive volcano that spewed out some volcanic ash called "tuff" that settled sometimes miles deep all around it when it last blew and created very soft rock that naturally and due to man's influence develops caves easily. The photos below show the natural landscape: Jemez Mountain, Frijoles Canyon and some of the Swiss cheese rock formations.


The Pueblo discovered this land 10,000 years ago, and then in the 1200s they hollowed out the caves with stone tools and created cave dwellings for themselves. In about the 1400s and 1500s, they also built structures on the ground to create a canyon-floor based village.

We took the self-guided main trail tour of both dwelling types. The photo mashup below shows the ruins of the ground dwellings as they exist now. At their height these buildings would have been two and sometimes three stories high with wood and mud roofs.

The photo to the left is an artist's interpretation of how the ground dwellings would have looked in the 15th and 16th Century.

Pat wandered off and climbed up one of the ladders into a cave dwelling. It was not particularly easy to climb up that ladder, but it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. The inside was very cozy and warm, with two pits hollowed out on the floor - no doubt one was for a fire. Coming down the ladder was considerably harder than going up. We passed on going up the other two ladders on the trail. The photo mashup below shows the ladder, me in the cave, me sitting at the mouth of the cave when Carol relocated me, and Carol sitting in the same cave.

We drove back an sunset, picked up a bottle of champagne, and returned to Gail's house for a dinner of left-overs with champagne. A good time was had by all.

Day 6 - Chimayo and Truchas on the High Road to Taos

It is Day 6 of Pat and Carol's Excellent Adventure. We have driven 1,500 miles so far on our trip.

Today we decided to head north out of Santa Fe and take the high road to Taos up to two tiny villages in the mountains: Chimayo and Truchas. First stop was Chimayo where the Sanctuario de Chimayo is the star attraction. It is a very small, humble, mostly hand hewn church for the small population of Catholic residents of Chimayo. But is famous for its holy dirt that is alleged to have magical healing properties. People make pilgrimages to Chimayo from as far away as Mexico to access the healing powers of the Sanctuario's holy dirt. One can purchase tiny metal cylinders (like the kind that hold one or two pills) to take the dirt home with them, or can kneel on the stone floor and put some dirt on their hands while they pray for relief from whatever brought them here.

< br>
I bought a candle and lit it for Brendyn, who will face his biggest troubles so far tomorrow. I can only hope now that God will hold Brendyn in his hands.

The walls of the church are lined with wooden statues and icons that also appear to be hand-made. The overall impression is of a church that serves a very small and poor community, but displays an enormous amount of talent and love.

The town of Chimayo is also known world-wide for the quality of its green chile. They also have excellent red chile. In a town with a one block downtown and probably about 6 businesses that are not the church, there are two shops that sell chiles. Carol and I purchased bags of green and sundried red chiles from Potrero's Store.

We drove back to Santa Fe to have pizza and salad dinner with Gail at Il Vicino on San Francisco Street. It was fabulous - even if it was vegetarian. Gail told us that the Christmas lights were still up in The Plaza, so we drove over there to see the lights. Which reminds me that Carol and I went shopping at the Native American street vendors who sell turquoise and other hand crafts at the Palace of Governors. I bought a couple of things.

Met a Navajo Code Talker and State Senator

Carol's nephew is dating Lisa, whose grandfather is a State Senator in New Mexico. He is, at age 91, one of a handful of Navajo code talkers who are still alive. Tuesday was a lovely ceremony in the New Mexico Senate at which the Senators all had to officially sign in as present at the upcoming legislative session. They called it an inauguration, but the ceremony consisted mostly of them walking up to a podium at the front of the chamber and officially signing in as present. Then they introduced the guests who were there supporting them - who were sitting on folding chairs behind them at their desks. It was a lovely ceremony and Carol and I both came away feeling that we know the members of the New Mexico Senate much better than we would have with an ordinary inauguration ceremony.

And Senator John Pinto is amazing. At 91 he is still an imposing man whose colleagues (and their children) all want to be photographed with him. You have a sense that you have come in contact with living history.

Lisa brought us up to his office where we also met his wife JoAnn and his daughter Flora. His wife taught us how to say "hello" in Navajo (Yá’át’ééh, which I think is pronounced Yah-tay), and gave us a history of her equally illustrious family. There were portraits on his wall of both his and his wife's famous ancestors. I asked his grand-daughter Lisa if it would be disrespectful to him to ask if we could have a photo with him. She said he just loves to be in photos with the people who come to visit him.



Jordan and Lisa then took us for a tour of their state capitol building, called the Round House, to see the amazing artwork they have on the walls and the art gallery in the Governor's office, which is situated on the floor above the legislative chambers and offices.



We went down to the Senate chambers thru a phalanx of state police and a lot of legislators and lobbyists, all of whom seemed to know Lisa very well. We (Mrs. Pinto, Flora, Lisa, Jordan, Carol and I) were seated in folding chairs behind Sen. Pinto. The Lieutenant Governor presides over the Senate most of the time, including today. There was a lot of waiting around - which I certainly recognized as a former legislative staffer. When they finally got going, first there was a prayer by the Archbishop, followed by a lot of ritual of the Senate. The Senate appointed three Senators to travel over to the Senate to announce to them in person that the Senate was now organized. The House in turn sent three Representatives over to the Senate to announce in person at a microphone that the House was now organized.



The Senators came up to the podium to sign their names on the roll of the Senate. The woman standing behind Sen. Pinto is the Chief Clerk of the Senate. One of the Chief Clerk's staff told Carol that Pinto had the best penmanship of any of the Senators in the body.

Pampered Travelers

Today Carol's nephew Jordan and his girlfriend Lisa took us to the Ojo Caliente spa between Santa Fe and Taos. There are six different hot mineral spring soaking pools there: (1) Iron, (2) Soda, (3) three Cliffside pools (which included one Lithium pool), (4) Mud, (5) Arsenic, and (6) the Large Pool. We soaked in all of them except the arsenic one. It is hard to describe how lovely it was to be soaking in a hot mineral pool while the temperature outside was in the 40s with a view of the mountains all around us (including one peak that was right above us in the pools). Ojo Caliente also offered both a dry sauna and a steam room. Pat tried both; Carol opted for the dry sauna.

They had luxurious dressing rooms there where the lockers came stocked with bathrobes and towels. Every single thing there was just lovely. Because the spa is a sacred place and a place for meditation, we were asked to only speak in whispers while there. Staff members walked around with large, round signs saying "Whisper." That made the space very peaceful and relaxing.

After 4 hours of soaking and sauna-ing, we were hungry since we had all skipped lunch. We got dressed and went out to eat at Paragua in Espanola, New Mexico - which was on our way back to Santa Fe. Jordan said it was his absolute #1 favorite "new" Mexican cuisine restaurant. And they did not disappoint! I had their enchilada suprema and a black berry margarita. Both were right up there at the top of my list of favorite Mexican dishes I have ever eaten. To top it off, their sopapillas were big, puffy pastry pillows that tasted fabulous. I practically licked my plate.

Arrived in Santa Fe in the Land of Enchantment

Carol and I drove Highway 40 across the Texas panhandle and into New Mexico. We stopped on the side of the road to take a photo of us with the “Welcome to New Mexico – Land of Enchantment” sign. The temps there were in the 50s.

We also took a little detour in Tucumcari to drive along a 4 mile stretch of old Route 66 – and of course take some photos. There are some remnants of the old Route 66 businesses still there. They are lonely and a little derelict, but you can see that the town elders have taken some effort to keep them looking like they are frozen in the 1950s. This mostly consists of stationing 1950s era cars in the front and painting a big “66” or “Route 66” on the building. Other than that, the whole stretch has mostly been demolished and is now scrub trees and tumbleweed. Most of Highway 40 there lies right next to Route 66, which is preserved as a frontage road.


My little Subaru did well climbing up to Santa Fe level during the drive on Highway 40. There were times when she dropped down to 40 mph, but not many. We took Highway 25 into Santa Fe and, besides being an absolutely gorgeous stretch of road, there was not much of an ascent at all on that road. We did start seeing snow for the first time since we left Iowa. Temps in the mid-40s.

We arrived about 4 pm and went to Carol’s nephew Jordan’s house. We are storing the camper there at his apartment complex for the next 5 days. We chatted, got a tour of his apartment and especially his artwork, and took a photo. Jordan drove us over to the art gallery where he works and gave us a tour. He also gave me a hunting knife to give to Brent when I get to Louisiana. Then Carol, me, Jordan, his girlfriend Lisa, and Carol’s friend Gail all went out to dinner at Atrisco Cafe, that proffers a cuisine they call “new Mexican.” They are all a lot of fun and the dinner conversation was lively!