After our roadtrip, Karen had to return to her regular work routine. Left to my own devices, and having temporarily reached my fill of long drives, I made plans to have lunch with Jaymin and explore Santa Fe. My first stop was the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi.
In case you can't tell from other entries on this blog, I enjoy visiting churches. I really liked the fountain in the nave.
Relics! They had a piece of the True Cross, along with several saints’ bones! Awesome.
I checked out Loretto Chapel next. I had heard about it years ago, with its miraculous staircase. You have to pay 3 bucks to enter, which is kind of annoying. However, I’m sure they rake in money – there were probably 10-15 tourists during the ten minutes I was there. Weirdly enough, the chapel is attached directly to some hotel / spa / shopping complex. Like, you exit the Chapel into an arcade lined with shops.
So, the story associated with the Chapel is that the architect died before he could build stairs to the choir loft. The Sisters prayed to St. Joseph for guidance. Soon after, a man showed up out of the blue. He offered to build a staircase; they readily agreed. He locked himself in the Chapel and worked alone for some three months using only primitive tools. When the Chapel was finished, he disappeared without requesting payment for his services, or even reimbursement for the materials he used. The spiral staircase supposedly defies engineering principles, and is considered to be a ‘miracle.’ The name of the mysterious carpenter was never revealed (dot dot dot).
The miracle stairs. Tourists aren’t allowed to climb them.
The chapel, filled with tourists.
San Miguel Mission is supposedly the oldest christian church in the United States. It was built in 1610. The Spaniards wanted a church, so the Jesuits got some Tlaxcalan indians from Mexico to build this church for them. The walls are thick adobe. Part of the wall section is removed so you can see a cross-section. They are around 14” thick, I think (or more). Apparently some of the native laborers were buried in the walls. There was no visible evidence of this, though a sign near the altar indicated such. The church contained a bell that was supposedly cast in 1356 in Spain, in celebration for a victory over the Moors. It was brought to Mexico in the 1600s, and eventually made its way to Santa Fe.
The altar.
The caretaker of the “Oldest House in the US” was out to lunch for a couple hours. C’est la vie.
So, Santa Fe is an interesting city. It's rather large and sprawling, but lacking any tall buildings. There are galleries and exhibition halls everywhere. This is also true of New Mexico as a state, to some degree. At times, it seemed like everyone has a gallery or gift shop, whether it be a house along the highway, a diner, or an anonymous brick building off the center of town. We passed through a tiny town on the way to the VLA. You could drive through the town in a minute. There were several places along that road advertising art for sale. It’s like the entire state's main output is cultural / artistic.
My focus was mostly on pots. The main problem with the art for sale is that the stuff I liked tended to be the stuff that was well outside of my price range. I’m talking like a bowl the size of my palm for 180$. I mean, it was a nice bowl, but... that's a bit high. So, I purchased several bowls more kind on my wallet that were made by people from the surrounding pueblos. Still, it seems like there is some supply chain from the pueblos to resellers to shops in towns, such that many of the shops contained works by the same artists. I purchased a couple of bowls in Albuquerque from a reseller who, while I was browsing, was packing pots up to send to shops around the state. A better (well, cheaper) strategy might be to figure out which pueblo the artist lived at and try to cut out the middle man.
Anyway, I ended up having lunch with Jaymin at a local cafe whose name I can't recall. The food was good, but expensive. I ordered a turkey soup with beans and a berry smoothie - 15$. I hadn’t seen Jaymin since Karen’s wedding, so it was fun to catch up. Apparently there is another scholar from my undergrad group working in some art collective. Much like Sarasota, Santa Fe has become an enclave of sorts for my former classmates.
That evening, Karen made soup and I hung out with her, Bill, and their friend Nicole. The potato soup was excellent. Between her camp cooking and her soup making, Karen's culinary skills were impressive. Afterward, we ended the night with a movie from Netflix, "Clue."
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