roaming through the southwest (updated by request)

amy and i left for santa fe on friday morning around seven am. we were lucky enough to hit rush hour in denver AND in colorado springs, too!

as we were driving down we stopped here and there at various gas stations and convenience stores and other places with public toilets. at one of them, in wagon mound, new mexico, there was an 8-year old or so little boy who kept staring at amy and i and hiding behind the aisles and peeking, etc. while we were waiting in line for the bathroom. when finally amy got to go in, he said: "pssssst!" looking over at him he said, "why are you guys talking to each other?"

an interesting question, so i thought about it and said, "because we're friends and we like talking." (just fyi, it was a tiny story with little ambient noise so we were talking quietly). he said, "you should really stop, because you're bugging me."

what? just then amy came out and i told her she should talk to him, but he had disappeared. so, that was over.

we began to see signs for ft. union as we were leaving wagon mount, so we decided, hey! let's go see a fort! We got there and learned that it was the largest of the western forts a la dances with wolves. here's a picture of the remaining ruins:

while inside, i asked who kit carson was. in colorado, he has a county, he has streets, and he's all over the place. he's also all over new mexico. luckily, we learned who he was:

i also took a picture of the fort name that makes me feel SO happy on the inside!

Anyhow, we were back on the road and we made it to santa fe around 2 pm, checked into our hotel, and realized we REALLY wanted food. thus began the quandry. we were going to eat dinner at the shed that night (amy having been to santa fe before i let her take the lead), but realized we'd need to eat before then. and amy couldn't wait for the green chile a second longer. so we went to the blue corn cafe.

luckily, i was insanely thirsty and had 3 full glasses of water before getting our food, so i ate about a 1/4 of it. but we were both uncomfortably full at that point, so we went for a walk through old town and the plaza.

we looked at the numerous jewelries being sold, looked at shops, and people-looked in the plaza. then we wandered down to the cathedral of st. francis:

in many ways, i felt like i was on the abc tour of rome (another blasted cathedral) but it was nice because the art was amazing and it always feels familiar. so we wandered more and found the loretto chapel, which was a required stop since loretto is my mom's middle name and an uncommon one at that! but it was closed, so we decided to go back on saturday. but here are some outside pictures of the chapel from friday:

and then we saw st. francis again at night:

by now it was 10 to 9 so we figured we wer as hungry as we'd get so we went to the shed... it was really good (as were the margaritas - vacation!) but i was still too full to enjoy it really, yet i woke up the next morning craving their bread. we walked back to the hotel and went to sleepies.

i woke up early saturday morning, had the free breakfast and knitted in the sun by the pool until yaymee woke up. we then went to the bishop's lodge to wander about the lovely lovely grounds:

hi yaymee!

and saw some amazing parcels of land that we'd buy if only we had millions of dollars. this is the view of the sangre de cristos that the development has:

we went back to loretto chapel, went in and looked around and saw the miraculous staircase (it didn't used to have banisters, and it has neither a central support or external trusses holding it up, and it's totally made with wooden pegs - no nails or glue). also the inside is modeled after saint chappelle in paris:

we spent the rest of the day laying low by the pool and napping (vacation!) when we got moving we went back to the blue corn cafe and had more new mexican food... it's all so good! and then took pictures of strange things in santa fe:

a big-footed, fertile kachina. their mouths are ALL OPEN!

a headless cowboy riding a harmonica-playing horsie

a watermelon-eatin' jackalope. anyone know why so many kachinas eat watermelon?

an oasis of judaism in a catholic- and native religion-filled city (hi mara!)

a spooky statue that kicked yayms in the head. i was so startled to see how anatomically correct the statue was i made a bit of a spectacle of myself and shouted, "oh my gosh, it has avocados*!" to the dismay of a passerby who heard those words coming out of the adjacent shrubbery and he jumped and the couple walking behind him had the best laugh of their month. it was really funny.

anyhow, the next day we drove up to chimayo (the lourdes of the u.s.!) and looked around there. (you can go to their website for the history, frankly, i'm tired of writing this post...) we went to the santuario:

there was a store next to the santuario that sold milagros. that's spanish for miracles. who knew that's where you went to buy them?:

and then we had lunch at rancho de chimayo... seriously, yum. best food i've had in AGES. here's a picture of the green chile stew:

is there any need to have food that insanely good? the scenery was also excellent:

from chimayo we drove up to the taos pueblo and looked at (as well as wandered around inside) buildings that are 1000+ years old. they hold up pretty well:

from taos we came home by way of the enchanted circle. i got carsick so i was happy to stop in eagle's nest, nm. we didn't stop again until we reached pueblo to pee (hence it being called p-town), and then got back to denver around 9:30 to the delight of my pet.

FIN

*(i changed the word describing what i saw on the anatomically correct statue under the picture below because i didn't like the search strings people used to wander into my site. so sincei hate to think that i succumbed to the decree of mary queen of scots steve, i will say i took his advice and called those particular bits avocados)