Courageous Joy

MONDAY - 14 AUGUST - DAY TWELVE

TAKING SANTA FE BY STORM!!!

With the exception of Stacia and I, we all enjoyed a leisurely wake up call this a.m. Mike and Jamin hit the fitness center. Eventually, we all made it to the "free" breakfast by 10:00 - though Bre slid right under the wire.

Armed with a tourist map and lots of info from the internet, we set out to discover Santa Fe. Mike remembers being here with his family years ago - but I think it must have been 30 - 40 years ago. He remembered Loretto Chapel; this was a spot we were determined to find.

Our first stop was St Francis Cathedral. Wow. It was simply awe-inspiring to walk into the cathedral. The intricate tile work and paintings on the ceilings and columns were marvelous. The atmosphere was majestic. It called me to prayer. They had a pretty fountain sort of in the middle of the main room. Zander and I inspected it. When Mike came up I told him that it was cool that they had the fountain in the middle of the sanctuary to remind you that Jesus is the living water. I commented that the fish (carved - not real) must be to remind us to be fishers of men.....I told him that I thought we needed something like this in our chapel. He looked at me funny and told me it was the baptismal font. Zander had been wanting to throw a penny into the fountain and I stopped him because I'd noticed no one else had thrown anything into it. Shew- that was a close call. :::snort:::: Seriously, this was a great start to our day. The majesty of God was so apparent when you walked into this church. They DID have a gift shop that you could opt to visit but there was no entrance fee.

Next we headed to Loretto Chapel. Mike was surprised that an entrance fee is now charged. It cost us $25 to enter. This chapel had much less of the sacred feeling that we experienced at St. Francis and it troubled me in some way....I think because of the entrance fee, but also because they now have a tape piping the story through speakers "conveintly hid here and there in the architecture". It didn't feel "sacred" - it felt "commercial". The staircase is still awesome. The story is one of those "unbelievable" stories that the media reports from time to time. We discovered that the city or state now owns the chapel and it is now a MUSEUM and not a CHAPEL - which would certainly explain the difference we felt between St Francis and it.

Next we hit the Plaza. There are a lot of really unique shops to visit. I hope to be able to make it back there later without so many little ones along. It is daunting to try to go in and out of itty bitty shops with this many little ones along.

We found the Governor's Palace. It would be close to $90 for us to tour - so we are debating. We had thought we might buy a day pass to four museums in town - but it turns out that they are mostly art museums. I think, with the little ones, one good historical museum would be better. We may go back to the GP tomorrow.

It began to POUR and thunder while we were out at the plaza. We took this as a sign to find a place to eat. We settled on the Burrito Co. Cafe. They made all the food from scratch and even had Blue Sky Organic sodas for sale. The food was good but the most memorable part of the meal for ME was that Stacia somehow managed to spill ICE WATER on me twice!!!

We parted company after lunch. Mike headed for the bank and the kids and I braved the rain and planned to meet him at The Loretto Chapel. Imagine our surprise when we met him at the bank. ::;snort::: We'd missed the turn and walked all the way around the Plaza....good thing we literally ran into him. He gave us directions and 1/2 of us headed for the dry and warm van while the other 1/2 headed to the chapel to buy mementos for staff at home.

Back at the van we drove around and found San Miquel Mission - the oldest church in America - or so the sign said. We drove up Canyon Road. This road houses lots and lots of artist's galleries. We continue to be surprised that 90% of the buildings and houses are brown and pueblo style. I really wonder if there is a city covenant saying you MUST build this way and use this color scheme. Even the residential areas we found were the same style and color. I think it would be boring to be an archetict here.

I'm not sure how I got to the room but it appears that Krista and I took a sound 2 hour nap when we got back to our room. Mike took the other children to the pool. We went in search of dinner.

Mike is now watching Monday Night Football (a pleasure he doesn't get at home as we don't have TV/cable); Krista and Arielle are watching cartoons; Zander and Nolan are putting the dino puzzle together again; Josiah, Bre, Jamin and Jared are playing card games in the lobby; Stacia is taking things out of Arielle's bag and putting them back in.

Mike has been busy entering way points to his GPS. I wish we'd thought to print out some caches to find here. WAIT - we could do that NOW. Maybe we will.