Santa Fe

For our second weekend trip, we went to Santa Fe just to walk around and see the old buildings and the local sights. We weren't entirely prepared for this trip but luckily we took a friend who has been to Santa Fe multiple times and she helped us get around and explore.

We started by seeing the oldest church in America. It's actually now a basilica which is pretty unique all in itself. One-third of the world's basilicas are in Italy so you don't see one of these every day.

Here is the outside - gorgeous right? If you click the link in the previous paragraph you can see what the original idea was. It didn't happen due to funds but it's still pretty amazing!


And here is the inside. This reminded me of being in Spain and makes me want to go back!


This chair belonged to the original Bishop, Father John Baptiste Lamy of France. I don't understand how someone can carve such intricate designs without destroying it on the last detail accidentally.


This little chapel is the oldest part of the church. Unfortunately, James did not get much of the ceiling in this picture but it is of course the traditional adobe-south-western design.


Here's a back view of the church. I was hoping it would have an incredible organ, but from below it doesn't look too impressive. Maybe if I went up there or got to play it I would be impressed. But even for the wedding they were setting up for that night, they were going to use a modern, electrical organ down at the front. (Have I mentioned I'm not a real big fan of digital keyboard instruments in church? I see their advantages obviously - especially when congregations are small and nobody plays the piano - but I also see a loss. There's a loss of desire for church members to want to learn piano, and there's a loss of art in piano playing when you can just push a button and have a recording play instead. Oh well.)


This guy is playing an Australian instrument called a Didgeridoo. Somehow James knew the name of it and that surprises me because how has ever heard of a didgeridoo? It sounds really cool though!


And here's some metal work that I loved! These are the kind of cacti that I would like in my yard...


And some more yard art that I would like in my future yard... A Giraffe! His head really nods, too. You can also see the HUGE bull behind it. That bull was probably 10-12 feet high and the horns were probably 14 feet wide. It was ginormous! And probably a liability to anyone who has it in their yard because his head really nodded in the wind, too!


These dogs were pretty darn cool! Literally! They are wearing baseball caps built for dogs that you soak in cool water and it keeps them cool - supposedly. They were cute for sure...


Here is my favorite picture of the whole trip! We ate a Mexican restaurant that was stuck back in the middle of a block and guess who our server was?? ZORRO!!! Right? He came to give us our drinks and walked away and I told James and Kim that Zorro was our server but at any minute he would disappear and Sergeant Garcia would be our server. Then, a more robust guy came up to take our food orders and I was like, "See?" Haha! It was great! James asked him if we could get a picture with him and he totally blushed, but he said yes! We explained that he looked exactly like Guy Williams from Disney's 1950's version of Zorro. I think he was flattered. When we went to my in-laws house after we got home, I showed my 9-year-old brother-in-law the picture and asked who he looked like and Bradley immediately said, "That's Guy Williams!" Haha! Too cool! What do you think?



Here's James with R2D2. Apparently he's had hard time finding jobs since the movies came out. That's the trouble with type-casting these days. So now he works as a mail collector... What do you do? Times are tough...


And Here's James being a cougar...


And me sitting be a cougar...


I guess you can't take the cougar out of BYU Alumni. They really need some more cougars like this on campus though. How are we supposed to get cool pics like this as students?


And here we are in front of the church on our way out. It was a lovely day and we didn't have near enough time to finish. We did see a Georgia O'Keeffe museum and planned our next visit to see the Staircase Chapel and the Palace of the Governors. Hopefully we make it back soon!