Natural Bridges National Park

 April 2006 - Natural Bridges National Park Utah

In 2006 we did a road trip around New Mexico, Colorado and Utah, click here for more of that trip.

Natural Bridges National Monument is a U.S. National Monument located about 50 miles northwest of the Four Corners boundary of southeast Utah, in the western United States, at the junction of White Canyon and Armstrong Canyon, part of the Colorado River drainage.

Loretto Chapel, NM

April 2006 - Santa Fe New Mexico

The history of the Loretto Chapel began when Bishop Jean Baptisite Lamy was appointed by the Church to the New Mexico Territory in1850. Bishop Lamy, seeking to spread the faith and bring an educational system to this new territory, began a letter writing plea for priests, brothers and nuns to preach and teach. In one of his letters he is said to have written, “I have 6000 Catholics and 300 Americans.” The first acceptance of his general plea was from the Sisters of Loretto.

In 1852 the Sisters of Loretto responded to Lamy’s pleas by sending seven sisters who agreed to make this arduous journey to Santa Fe. Their trek was through St. Louis, then up the river to Independence, Mo. This small group was beset by a cholera epidemic, the Mother Superior died, and another nun was too ill to continue the journey and returned to Kentucky. An additional story continues that they traveled by wagon through bad weather, and Indian country.

The Sisters arrived in Santa Fe in 1852 and opened the Academy of Our Lady of Light (Loretto) in1853. The school was started and grew from very small beginnings to a school of around 300 students, despite the challenges of the territory (smallpox, tuberculosis, leaky mud roofs and even a brush with the rowdy Confederate Texans during the Civil War).

Two mysteries surround the spiral staircase in the Loretto Chapel: the identity of its builder and the physics of its construction.

When the Loretto Chapel was completed in 1878, there was no way to access the choir loft twenty-two feet above. Carpenters were called in to address the problem, but they all concluded access to the loft would have to be via ladder as a staircase would interfere with the interior space of the small Chapel.

Legend says that to find a solution to the seating problem, the Sisters of the Chapel made a novena to St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters. On the ninth and final day of prayer, a man appeared at the Chapel with a donkey and a toolbox looking for work. Months later, the elegant circular staircase was completed, and the carpenter disappeared without pay or thanks. After searching for the man (an ad even ran in the local newspaper) and finding no trace of him, some concluded that he was St. Joseph himself, having come in answer to the sisters' prayers.

The stairway's carpenter, whoever he was, built a magnificent structure. The design was innovative for the time and some of the design considerations still perplex experts today.

The staircase has two 360 degree turns and no visible means of support. Also, it is said that the staircase was built without nails—only wooden pegs. Questions also surround the number of stair risers relative to the height of the choir loft and about the types of wood and other materials used in the stairway's construction.

New Mexico Golf 2006

 April 2006 - Santa Fe NM

This is a record of John's golfing in New Mexico.

Black Mesa Española, NM

Designed by Baxter Spann, this 18-hole course is ranked among America’s top 50 by Golf Magazine.

Santa Fe Country Club is a semi-private golf facility that lies on acres of scenic country in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The course gives the golfer an experience as unique as the City itself. Our championship golf course invites players of all skill levels to enjoy our fabulous New Mexico climate and our legendary Southwestern hospitality.

Located in the dramatic scenery of northern New Mexico’s Pojoaque Valley just 12 miles north of the Santa Fe plaza, Towa’s three independent nine-hole courses challenge with dramatic elevation changes, seasonal weather conditions, and scenery of such extraordinary beauty it threatens to distract the most focused golfer. Part of the Hilton Santa Fe Buffalo Thunder Resort, Towa was designed jointly by twenty-time PGA titlist Hale Irwin and noted golf course designer and landscape architect William Phillips.

Saturday Sculpture

Sculpture Saturday

April 2006 - Albuquerque NM

Pre-blogging trip and photos.



Sculpture by Lincoln Fox
The Shepard

La Jornada, the combined work of sculptors Sonny Rivera and Betty Sabo. The figure at the forefront is Juan de Oñate, often referred to as ‘The Last Conquistador’. In 1598 he was granted permission by the Spanish to lead an expedition from Mexico into what is now New Mexico and bring ‘civilization and the Word of God’ to the people who had been living there for millenia. Among the tribes of the southwest he is remembered as being the perpetrator of the Acoma Massacre that resulted in the slaughter of over 800 people at the Acoma Pueblo including 300 women and children. Survivors, and that is an apt term in this case, were sold into slavery and some had their right legs cut off. N
Behind Juan de Oñate are these conquistadors and the priest Fray Alonso Martínez who was in charge converting the people of the pueblos, whether they wanted to be or not.

Next are representations of a few of the eighty-three ox carts that brought provisions from Mexico and introduced many food items that have become staples of New Mexico cuisine. The way they are portrayed in the midst of desert plants and native rock adds a great deal of authenticity to the work.

It was not just men who made this journey, but women and children as well, which adds a humanizing element to what otherwise would have been just a brutal conquest.

Tuesday Treasures

April 2006 -  Bandelier New Mexico

Bandelier National Monument is a 33,677-acre (13,629 ha) United States National Monument near Los Alamos in New Mexico. The monument preserves the homes and territory of the Ancestral Puebloans of a later era in the Southwest. Most of the pueblo structures date to two eras, dating between 1150 and 1600 AD.

This was part of our 2006 Satan Fe New Mexico trip which also included Utah and Colorado.

Details courtesy of Wikipedia.

Bandelier was designated by President Woodrow Wilson as a National Monument on February 11, 1916, and named for Adolph Bandelier, a Swiss-American anthropologist who researched the cultures of the area and supported preservation of the sites.

Frijoles Canyon contains a number of ancestral pueblo homes, kivas (ceremonial structures), rock paintings, and petroglyphs. Some of the dwellings were rock structures built on the canyon floor; others were cavates produced by voids in the volcanic tuff of the canyon wall and carved out further by humans. A 1.2-mile (1.6 km), predominantly paved, "Main Loop Trail" from the visitor center affords access to these features.

Human presence in the area has been dated to over 10,000 years before present. Permanent settlements by ancestors of the Puebloan peoples have been dated to 1150 CE; these settlers had moved closer to the Rio Grande by 1550.The distribution of basalt and obsidian artifacts from the area, along with other traded goods, rock markings, and construction techniques, indicate that its inhabitants were part of a regional trade network that included what is now Mexico.] Spanish colonial settlers arrived in the 18th century. The Pueblo Jose Montoya brought Adolph Bandelier to visit the area in 1880. Looking over the cliff dwellings, Bandelier said, "It is the grandest thing I ever saw."

Much of the area was covered with volcanic ash (the Bandelier tuff) from an eruption of the Valles Caldera volcano 1.14 million years ago. The tuff overlays shales and sandstones deposited during the Permian Period and limestone of Pennsylvanian age. The volcanic outflow varied in hardness; the Ancestral Pueblo People broke up the firmer materials to use as bricks, while they carved out dwellings from the softer material.

Like past inhabitants, you can climb ladders into several of the small carved rooms