Day 13 – Albuquerque, NM and Santa Fe, NM

Miles driven today: 150 Cumulative miles: 3023 I woke up to my internal alarm clock at 6:30am and lay in bed for a half hour before waking Daniel up. We got up and showered and went downstairs for breakfast. Two of the four grandkids (all of whom live across the street), Hannah and Missy, were there as Jim was taking them to school today. Jane made Swedish pancakes for breakfast and we ate out on the back patio. The temperature was perfect for eating outdoors, even at 8:00 in the morning. Jim got the girls to school and then we headed towards Santa Fe (Jim drove). The drive there took an hour or less. The town is definitely more commercial than the last time I was there, but it was still nice and calm. We walked to the big old Catholic Cathedral (that I can’t recall the name of now) and went inside to have a look around. Next, we walked a few block to Loretto Chapel. Apparently when they built the chapel, they didn’t leave room for a staircase to the choir loft. As the story goes, the sisters at the chapel prayed for some help with their predicament (they were going to have to take out several rows of pews to accommodate a traditional staircase). A carpenter with a gray beard showed up armed with a hammer and a saw and said he would build a staircase for them. He went to work building a spiral staircase. He worked by himself and never asked for money for supplies. The staircase makes two complete circles as it ascends and has no supports (not even a center post). Architects believe the staircase gets its stability from the double-helix shape (similar to that of DNA). After completion, the man disappeared just as mysteriously as he had shown up, without ever collecting pay for his work. At that time, it was not proper for the sisters to make conversation with a man, so they barely spoke with him and never got his name. It was also common at that time that the builder would not be paid until the commissioned work was completed, so there were also no written receipts which may have indicated who the man was. After he left, the sisters searched to find out where he got his supplies and if there was an open account that they needed to pay; they found neither. The staircase was originally built without handrails, but another carpenter was later commissioned to add them as it was a little scary to climb. After the chapel, we meandered through the town, stopping in various shops along the way (we picked up a few goodies including a Green Chile Cookbook). We had a very good lunch at the Blue Corn Brewery (the same place Mom & Dad ate the last time they were in Santa Fe). Meandered some more and went into San Miguel Church. This is the oldest church in the U.S. The current chapel was built in 1610. The previous structure, the ‘Hermita de San Miguel,’ was built for Christian worship in 1598. And both were built over the remains of a kiva of the Analco Indians, dating back to 1300 AD (as confirmed by archeologist excavation in 1955). That means this has been a sacred site for more than 700 years. Before leaving Santa Fe, Jim & Jane took us to see a Madonna carved in the back of a tree in some random parking lot. Jim, who has lived in the area his entire life, didn’t know about this until last year when my parents were visiting and a geocache led them there. We headed back to Albuquerque and made a quick stop at the house to put the dinner Jane had prepared the pervious day in the oven before going to the National Atomic Museum. The museum holds inactive versions of the “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” that were dropped over Nagasaki and Hiroshima during World War II. They had other atomic weapons and information on the history of atomic weapons and atomic energy. We were only able to spend about 45 minutes at the museum before they closed – not near enough time to see everything and take it all in, but we’ll be back again (hopefully to see the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta in the next few years). We went back to the house to get ready for the family dinner this evening. About 6:00pm, Jim & Jane’s kids and their families started showing up. It’s been 15 years since I last saw Peter, Amy, and Andrew and no one looks the same. Plus there were more people there that I hadn’t met before than the ones that I knew (Peter’s partner Joel, Amy’s husband Jason, and their kids Vanessa, Zach, Missy, and Hannah). It was great to catch up with everyone, especially now that we are all adults. I remember the last time I saw them, Peter and Amy were in their late to early twenties and probably didn’t have much in common with 12 year old me. Andrew was 9, so we probably just had video games in common. Now that we’re all adults, the age difference doesn’t really matter and we have interests in common (Peter and Joel are into photography and the outdoors, Joel and Andrew are both into biology, etc). The Green Chile Chicken Tortilla Casserole and Apple Crisp that Jane made were excellent (so much better than the freeze-dried food that we’ve been eating for more than a week now). Everyone left around 9:00pm to go home. Jim, Jane, Daniel, and I stayed up for a few more hours talking about travel, family, etc. before going to bed. I spent some time updating my blog and finally called it a night. Wildlife seen: bison (in a refuge) Miles hiked/ walked: ~1.0