Americana Travels,
Pt 3: Santa Fe
May 14th, 2012 – Woke up from the trips best
night’s sleep at around . . . oh, I don’t know . . . 9:00am? Something
ridiculous like that. We were both zonked from the drive, subsequent unpacking
and planning for the next day’s tour. I don’t think we turned out the lights
until 1:00am local time. I think we’re in the Central Time zone . . . I can never
keep them all straight. Maybe it’s Mountain Time. There are mountains around
here. The Rockies, I believe . . . if my geographic lessons from a long
forgotten youth are, indeed, correct.
We got up, showered, and packed our topographic charts,
compasses, slide rules, and abacuses so that we could conquer this little burg
that conceitedly calls itself “Santa Fe”. Abacuses? Abacaii? What’s the plural
for abacus? Abacab, perhaps? Maybe that’s what that Genesis song is all about .
. . a multiplying abacus. Double entendre . . . because an abacus is a
mathematical device? Who’s with me? Sigh . . . anyway . . .
I grabbed an apple on the way out the door as we made our
way to breakfast at this great gluten-free bakery that Mrs. Pope had
discovered. Shameless plug here, folks . . . Revolution Bakery at 1291 San
Felipe Avenue is a great joint! We stopped in, ordered gluten-free muffins that
were topped with a hard cooked egg, melted cheddar cheese, and the ingredient
that always puts a smile on Pope’s face, bacon! The typical problem that we’ve
found with most gluten-free cakes or muffins or whatever is that the cake is
dry or mealy. Not the case here at all. This cake was moist enough to require a
towel . . . okay, maybe not that moist, but you get the idea. And the flavors!
Woof! So good . . . the cheese mixing with the crispy bacon, and then the yolk
from the egg . . . then chase that sucker down with some of their fresh brewed
coffee and we got a glimmer of Nirvana. Yes. . . Kurt Cobain’s ghost stopped by
while we were eating and told me to cut the crap. Sorry . . . tangents today .
. . I commented to Mrs. Pope that this particular muffin would be awesome with
a jalapeño in it. Imagine it, right?
We camped out at the bakery for about an hour as we plotted
out the days trek across parts of New Mexico, deciding first that we would
visit an old church about thirty miles up the road first, and then work our way
back into the city. Before we packed up to go, we decided that we wanted some
more of these muffins for the road, and future breakfasts along our path across
America, so we ordered up a small box, even talking with Proprietor John and
requesting that elusive jalapeño to make its way in our meal. He said it
shouldn’t be a problem, but there was a slight chance that they wouldn’t be
able to pull off the request. I have faith in them.
We hit the road around 1:00pm and made our way up the 285,
cruising through some of God’s Country. If nothing else, Santa Fe, like Sedona,
is constant eye candy. Every vista that we came upon was more spectacular than
the last. The contrast of colors made me dizzy . . . maybe it was the altitude
. . . but no matter, it was splendid. We veered off the freeway and headed east
on the 503, along a little river valley vibrant with green . . . leaves so
bright green one might think they were glowing. And considering the New Mexico
history with alien sightings, maybe the leaves were glowing a bit. After about
seven, maybe eight miles of suddenly being in the middle of nowhere, Jack (pronounced
Yawck) informed us that our destination was off to the right a bit . . . who’s
Jack? Oh . . . I’m sorry. Jack is our GPS. He’s the third member of the party .
. . a guide to some, a friend to others, and yet, a scoundrel to many others.
Before too long, we pulled into the parking lot of the
church . . . and folks, this is no mere church. El Santuario de Chimayo is apparently one of
the most important Catholic pilgrimage sites in America and was a small chapel
that was originally built in 1810. Over the course of several years, buildings
were added, and now, the site of the church is actually a campus of numerous churches,
chapels, and prayer halls. The walls are classic adobe plaster . . . when you
stand next to the walls, you can see the straw poking through the surface and
there’s that smell. Not an unpleasant musty smell, but an organic smell . . .
something real, something formed from the earth by the hands of man, and done
so for sacred observances, well . . . it’s a pretty special place.
When we
pulled into the parking lot, we were facing a stream that was cruising along at
a fairly rapid pace, and across the stream was a field as green as I’ve ever
seen the color, with a red and orange mountain acting as a backdrop to the
scene. Cows wandered through the field, lazily soaking in the sun, completely
ignoring our existence . . . kinda’ wish I could do that with most of the human
race . . . man, the lessons we could learn from cows. We walked towards the
church (seems like such an insult to call this structure merely a church) by
way of a path alongside the churning stream, on our left were seven arches made
of stone and draped across the arches were handmade crosses and scrawled
prayers on anything that people could write on. It was an awesome imagery, in
some ways, very primal as some of the crosses looked like they were fashioned
by tying two sticks in perpendicular fashion and calling it good. The next
super fascinating thing we witnessed was one of the caretakers or construction
workers walking towards the stream with a couple of buckets, leaning into the
stream to fill the buckets with water and then lugging them back to the turning
cement mixer where repair work was being performed. Having run a cement mixer
more times than I care to remember, I appreciated the work that this guy was
doing, but more so, he wasn’t using water pumped from some irrigation system .
. . dude was using nature, the natural current of the stream’s water to add to
this already uber-organic church. Talk about using the world’s resources. Yeah,
subtle to some, way f-n cool to me!
From there,
we walked around the exterior gardens and a gazebo where services are held from
time to time, I suspect when the weather is accommodating. We toured the
grounds for a few more minutes until we came to the main church, the actual El
Santuario de Chimayo. Now, I usually find churches pretty impressive,
especially when you look at the ornate detail and extravagance that some of
these churches and cathedrals can have within their hallowed halls. Most are
constructed by artisans and involve so much detail that they can come across as
gaudy. This place was simple, stripped down, almost looked like it hadn’t
changed since the 1800’s. Stone floors, weathered and worn wooden pews, peeler
logs being used as support beams . . . antiquated, yet honest . . . but with a
certain sense of sacredness . . . something I personally think a church should
represent.
We strolled
through the Welcome Center, gift shops, some of the galleries, and then came
upon another church, very similar in design to El Santuario de Chimayo .
. . and forgive me, I missed the name of this one, something like Santo Niño. Sorry folks . . . anyway,
this particular church looked to be made for the children in that the
decorations and motif were straight out of Disney’s Greatest Hits. Lots of
birds and scroll work, almost a page out of Fantasyland, but still . . . it retained
that classic Catholic Church stoicism. The best part, well . . . there were
two, was above the rows of pews were hanging scrolls that had words like Peace,
Joy, Love, typical be good to your fellow man messages written on them, on the
opposite side of the scrolls was the Spanish translation . . . it was just
cool. Pictures would definitely out do my words, but alas, photos were not
allowed within any of the churches. The second totally rad part of this church
was an adjacent chapel that had shelves upon shelves of infant footwear lined
on them, left there by parents as the children outgrew them as an offering (?)
and a prayer for God to watch over them as they made their ways through life.
It was pretty damn powerful.
It was about 3:00pm when we finally started working our way
back to the greater Santa Fe area. We cruised back up the 503 to the 285 and
dumped off in the downtown area, which has a great architectural vibe to it.
Influenced heavily by the Pueblo Indians with the squared off, open beam look .
. . almost every building in the area carried
this natural architectural quality. We pulled up to the Loretto Chapel around a
quarter to four (yeah, Pope and Mrs. Pope apparently go to church on Mondays .
. . we don’t like the Sunday crowds . . . or something), and paid our donation
to the cause to sit in the chapel to hear the history of the phenomenon known
as the Mysterious Staircase of Loretto Church. This staircase is pretty bitchin’
in that it spirals up about twenty-four feet or so, is comprised of
thirty-three steps (the same age Jesus reportedly was when he was crucified),
and was constructed by a mysterious carpenter, who simply disappeared when he
was done with the six month construction, asking for no compensation for time
and materials, and never to be heard from again. The really trippy part of all
of this is that engineers from around the world can’t tell you why it’s still standing,
or how it was used for as long as it was without ever collapsing. There’s no
center structural post bracing this thing, and up until a few years ago, it
didn’t even have a balustrade system installed! Imagine trying to walk up a
spiral staircase with a twenty-four foot incline with nothing to hold onto . .
. oh yeah, you need to be wearing choir robes while doing so. Oh . . . you made
it up? Great . . . now go back down. Insane.
Staircase prior to balustrade system
After the Loretto Church, we wandered the streets, thinking that
we were going to make it to our next destination by foot. I know. Who did we
think we were? We grew up with the mentality that nobody walks in L.A., why
should Santa Fe be any different? We did walk a bit and stumbled on a store
that specialized in flavored vinegars, oils, and salts . . . with free
tastings. Alright. I’ll bite, err . . . sip. We walked out of there with some
bottles of vinegars and oils. Dinners at The Red Hawk Inn will be wondrous this
summer!
From there we decided it was time to eat, both of us feeling
peckish, if not flat out hungry. We wanted to try another gluten-free pizza
joint and this one had the unique characteristic of being on one of the
downtown rooftops. I suppose that’s why they called the place The Rooftop
Pizzaria. The wine was excellent, I had a Spanish Tempranillo that was
somewhere along the lines of Cabernet and a Merlot mixture. I liked it . . .
Mrs. Pope, not so much. We then had a gluten-free pizza with lobster, shrimp,
bacon, this, that, some of the other . . . it was not good. At least my wine
was good.
As the sun was going down, we made our way to three more
sites that had big ole things to snap photos of. The first was a dud. It was a
park that at one time or another had pairs of elephants, cows, swans, and
ravens in statue form. We only saw the ravens . . . and I was expecting to see
Ray Lewis and Ed Reed, then realized . . . wrong ravens. What? No football
fans? Okay . . . from there, things got better by leaps and bounds. We found a
chunk of land that had a giant hand holding a mailbox, a rock lizard, and a
couple of abacab. Eh? Eh? You should see the smile on my face with that call
back! We then tracked down a family of life sized Brontosaurus frolicking in a
field in front of a warehouse. These guys were pretty cool . . . Mamasaurus,
Papasaurus, and Babysaurus just chilling. We then made our way back to the
hotel, for we had accomplished many a mission on the day when Mrs. Pope pointed
out the window and asked, “What does that look like to you?” I looked in the
direction that she was pointing at and said, “That would be a dinosaur busting
through the side of a building.” “Dude, I want a picture of that!” was the response
I got just before I felt my skull ping-pong off the passenger side window from
the abrupt U-turn that was pulled. In a matter of minutes, we were parked
adjacent to the Bronto-family and snapping photos of a T-Rex bursting from the
side of the warehouse. Concussion was totally worth it!
We returned to the hotel at around 8:30pm, the sun has sunk
behind the mountains, and we decided it would be good to get a quick (and
refreshing) swim in. So, we suited up and walked to the in-door pool, splashed
around for awhile, and then welcomed a new travel companion to our merry band
of Americana Wanderers. Meet Samuel. He was at the bottom of the pool and Mrs.
Pope rescued him from his watery grave. If anything goes wrong from here on out
. . . it’s his fault. He’s the Hawaiian Idol from the Brady Bunch. I sure as
hell better not wake up with a spider in my bed or have a warrior mask crushing
me to death!
‘night
Pope
"I refuse to believe that neither of us said anything funny all day" -- Mrs. Pope
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