New Mexico, Part 3

On to our northernmost destination --Taos. Like many towns in New Mexico, Taos has a central plaza, shown here. The buildings include a couple of restaurants, shops, a fabric store, and souvenir stores.

Also located in the central plaza is the War Memorial. Taos is one of a handful of places where the United States flag may be flown 24/7 without a light on it. This is in honor of Kit Carson and a group of citizens who, during the American Civil War, raised the US flag in the plaza and posted a round-the-clock guard to make sure it stayed up.

Kit Carson maintained a home in Taos, which is open to the public. Tours include a movie outlining Carson's life, as well as a guide available to answer questions. At right is Carson's grave. His third wife, Josefa, is buried beside him on the left. (Carson's first wife, Waa-ni-beh or Singing Grass, was an Arapaho woman and died within five years of their wedding, after bearing two children. His second wife, Making-Out-Road, was Cheyenne and supposedly divorced him after 18 months.)





At left is the Saint Francis of Assisi Chapel, also in Taos. We didn't have a chance to go inside, but did get to walk around the grounds.



One of the highlights of the trip is a visit to the Taos Pueblo. At least 19 tribes of Pueblo Indians are located in New Mexico. Visitors are permitted at Taos, but must adhere to strict rules about photography and privacy for the residents. You're welcome to bring cameras into the area as long as you show them at the entrance and pay a $5 fee. Certain areas of the pueblo are off-limits, including the cemetery and private homes. If you want to take a picture of any of the residents, you have to get verbal permission first. (After all, would you want a tour-bus full of people trampling all over your property without permission?)

There is no piped running water or electricity in the pueblo village itself. About 150 people live there year-round; many more of the tribe live in homes outside the pueblo, but still on tribal lands. A stream runs through the pueblo, dividing it into the North and South Villages, and providing the residents with their sole source of drinking water. At right is a picture of the North Village (Hlauuma in Tiwa, the language of the Pueblo people). Note the van on the left -- it belongs to a village resident. They are allowed to own cars and trucks.

The walls of the pueblo buildings are made of a mixture of mud and straw. They must be "re-plastered" every year or two to offset the erosion caused by weather.

We were given a tour by a young woman who had grown up in the pueblo and who was going off to college in the fall. During the tour she provided us with information on the tribe's history and way of life, as well as answering general questions. Around 48,000 acres of tribal land was returned to the Taos Pueblo by then-President Richard Nixon in 1970. (As our guide commented, "No matter what anyone else thinks of Nixon, he's honored here.") The land is used for various purposes by the residents -- for example, I spent part of an afternoon taking a horseback ride through some of it.

Our guide showed us the San Geronimo (St. Jerome) Catholic Church onsite and explained some of the rituals and decorations that were unique to the Pueblo Catholics. At left is the outside of church; pictures were not allowed inside. Many of the Pueblo people also practice their traditional religion as well; a kiva is located on the grounds, although visitors aren't permitted there. Some of the residents practice both religions.

Like most other Native American tribes, the Pueblo Indians have dancers. One family came to our hotel in the evenings to perform; the grandchildren danced, the grandparents described the regalia (costumes) and meanings of the dances. Since I don't have permission to post these pictures online, I'll just mention this in passing. If you ever get a chance to visit Taos, stop by the Katchina Lodge in the evening and watch the performances.

In the final post, I'll discuss Albuquerque, the last stop in our vacation.

New Mexico (Part 2)

Santa Fe

Five days in Santa Fe. On one of those days, we took a 3 hour tour courtesy of Don Dietz, a fellow who has been living in the area for many years. (You can also take group tours by bus and so on.)

We noticed several things about Santa Fe: the architecture, the mission churches, and the statues. Santa Fe is an artists' community, and we had a chance to tour one of the foundries where they cast the statues found all over the area. The picture on the right is of a large scale, multi-piece statue that commemorated the Santa Fe Trail, which ran from Franklin, Missouri to the town square in the middle of the city.

To the right is one piece of artwork found on the grounds of the New Mexico State Capitol Building. It was created by a Native American artist, and includes the names of tribal groups once living in the United States. Unfortunately, many of the tribes are gone, wiped out during the Western Expansion.

Speaking of the state capitol building: we were touring on a Saturday, so the offices were closed, but we did stand outside the building and learn some of its history. New Mexico became a state in 1912, and the area was originally owned by Mexico. The state's seal reflects this history. It includes two eagles: a large one, representing the United States, and a smaller one, representing Mexico, symbolizing America's acquiring the area from Mexico.

The State Capitol Building is built in the round. Our guide joked that that's to insure that the politicians can't be backed into a corner on any issue.

My mother especially wanted to see some of the mission churches for which this part of the country is famous. We saw three on our tour, and a fourth a couple days later when we headed north to Taos.

The first church was the San Miguel Mission, which is the oldest continuously-used Roman Catholic church in the US. It was completed in 1625 by the local Pueblo Indians, who at the time were being used as servants by the Spanish /Mexican settlers. In 1680, the Pueblo revolted and drove the Spanish out. Twelve years later the Mexicans returned. (Depending on whose story you believe, they either came back and reconquered the natives, or were allowed back as long as they promised not to force their religious beliefs on others.) San Miguel was partially destroyed during the revolt, and re-opened in 1770.

A few blocks away is the Loretto Chapel, shown here in a postcard from the chapel gift shop. As more families settled in the area in the 1800s, the Sisters of Loretto requested that a school and chapel be built for girls. Work on the chapel began in 1373. When the chapel was almost finished, the Sisters discovered that no plans had been made for getting the girls from the ground floor to the choir loft. A ladder was out of the question, given the long skirts the girls would wear.

The Sisters prayed to St. Joseph, who is the patron saint of carpenters. According to the local story, a few days later an old man appeared and offered to built them a staircase. He spent about six months working on it, and when it was finished, he vanished. No bill was ever submitted for the construction, the materials used in the staircase were supposedly not found in the area, and there are no nails holding the staircase together. It makes two complete 360-degree turns and originally had no handrails. Architectural students from all over the world still come to study it.

The Loretto Chapel is no longer commissioned by the Roman Catholic Church. It is now privately owned and rented out for weddings, classical music concerts, and other events.

The third church we visited was the St. Francis of Assisi Basilica (where we attended mass in the evening). This church was designed by Jean Baptiste Lamy, the first Archbishop of Santa Fe. He patterned it after the churches in his native France, so its architecture is different from everything else in the area. (By the way, Lamy was the inspiration for Willa Cather's novel Death comes for the Archbishop.)

The designs on the Basilica's doors, shown here, depict scenes from the church's and state's history.

A few days after our tour, we headed north to Taos, but stopped along the way to visit El Santuario de Chimayo (the Shrine of Chimayo), a little church with a big reputation.

Around 1810, Don Bernardo Abeyta supposedly saw a flash of light in the hills around the village. When he dug down into the dirt, he discovered a crucifix. Abeyta tried to ship the cross to his superiors in Santa Cruz three times, but each time the cross disappeared during the journey and ended up back where it had originally been found. In 1814, construction began on a shrine, which was completed two years later.

The soil of El Santuario de Chimayo is reported to have healing powers. People rub the dirt on themselves, or they can take small containers of it back to others. One whole room off the chapel itself is full of mementos left or sent by those who say they've been healed. According to the priest in charge, it's not really the dirt that heals so much as the faith of the people who use it.

Below left is the front door and courtyard to the church. At right is the room where visitors can dig up dirt (from a gift shop postcard).







We continued on to Taos after this stop. More in the next post.

Traveling to New Mexico (Part 1)

In September of 2007, my parents and I took a trip from New York to New Mexico. The next several posts will include pictures and captions of our two-week excursion. This is actually the first page of my scrapbook, which features a postcard of the pueblo-style housing found throughout the state. Please note that there are links throughout the text -- these will take you to websites with more information about the topic. What can I say, it's a librarian thing.

As usual, we took AmTrak across the country from Syracuse, New York to Chicago, and then from Chicago to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We generally book sleeping cars, since the trip takes at least three days. One of the advantage of AmTrak is that travelers can spend their time looking out the window at the scenery, eat in the dining car, and often find entertainment in the lounge car. On this trip, a man from the National Park Service rode the train for several hours, pointing out plants along the route, telling us about the history of various places we passed, and describing the lifestyles of people in the area. Very educational, and at no extra charge.











In Albuquerque we rented a car and drove south to Alamogordo. About 13 miles outside this city is the White Sands National Monument (and the White Sands Missile Test Range). White Sands is full of, naturally, sand dunes. The sand is gypsum, carried down from nearby mountains by run-off water into shallow lakes. The lakes dry up, and wind picks up the sand and deposits it throughout the park. You can get a good idea of the vastness of the dunes from the above picture. The dunes actually move as wind pushes the sand and gravity pulls it down when the dunes get too tall. A variety of plant life has adapted to the area. In the picture at left, there is a small yellow flower called a yellow evening primrose. At right is a yucca plant, one of the symbols of New Mexico.


Skunk bush sumac, below. Remember when I mentioned that many plants had adapted to this area? This is one of them. These bushes are everywhere in the park. They grow a very thick, deep root system while young. Because the sands move, many plants would lose their anchorage as the dune shifts. The sumac, however, holds the sands in place with its roots, thereby forming a distinct hump on the landscape.

I'm not sure if the picture at right will show enough detail, but across the central dune is a row of footprints left by one of the park animals. We saw only a few small lizards while we were there, mostly because we visited in the middle of the day. Most creatures are smart enough to come out during early morning or evening, when the air has cooled and there is still some moisture around.

Carlsbad Caverns

No trip to New Mexico is complete without a visit to these famous caves. We drove from Alamogordo to the caverns and spent the afternoon touring the rock formations. Below are several pictures of some of the more interesting sites, such as the Sword of Damacles (left), the Lion's Tail (center), and a small grotto off the main cavern. (Please excuse the picture of the baby bat in the corner of the right-hand picture. I was trying for "cute", since some of the people looking at my pictures were afraid of bats....)

At right, my parents at a table in the underground cafe near the elevators. Taking the elevators down shaves about 90 minutes off the time you spend in the caverns. While I would have liked to go in through the natural entrance, we didn't have the time, and my parents certainly were in no condition to make that kind of trek.

And then there are the bats. The caverns are home to thousands of Mexican free-tail bats during certain times of the year. Visitors can sit and watch the bats leave the caverns in the evening, or return in the morning. The bats are out all night forage for food -- insects. Naturally the bats are drawn to street lights, which is where the insects are. (I watched a couple of bats later that evening outside my motel room.) There is a seating area just outside the caverns' natural entrance where people can sit and wait for the daily migrations. A couple of park rangers talk about the bats and their habits, as well as myths about bats. Everyone in our group was told to turn off their cell phones and cameras, as the sound from the batteries apparently messes with the bats' echolocation, making it difficult for the animals to navigate. Anything that requires people to shut off their cell phones is okay by me! This picture of the bats is actually a postcard, purchased to commemorate the event. I also bought an "Adopt a Bat" kit that included pictures, information sheets about bats, and instructions for building a bat house.


The History of Space Museum













Back to Alamogordo, this time to visit the Space Museum. New Mexico has been home to many projects that tested missiles and aircraft. The Museum has four floors of displays, including whole sections on rocket testing and history, a spacecraft cabin you can walk through, actual satellites, space suits, food packs that astronauts have taken to space, and a section on visions of the future found in books and other media. There are also interactive computer games that deal with space and rocketry. Around the walls of the building on all four floors are pictures belonging to the "Hall of Fame". The pictures depict various people who dealt with space or space-related sciences, from Copernicus to Ray Bradbury to many astronauts and rocketeers.

The picture above shows the outside of the museum. Below is a lunar rover on display. Both are postcards that can be purchased at the gift shop.














After Alamogordo, we moved on to Santa Fe. More in the next post.