Last of Santa Fe

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Today was my last full day in Santa Fe. Friday I’ll break camp and head south to Bosque. This became - quite by accident - my ‘down day’ for this week. I plan to have some down time (at least in the middle of the day) while at Bosque but this was a welcome break.

It was a beautiful sunny day here but fairly brisk and windy. I did a few things around the RV during the morning and early afternoon (including trying to post this entry but the site was bogging down) and went into town for a few hours in the afternoon.

Wednesday was another fun day. I visited the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops offices and had a most pleasant visit. The friendly folks there gave me several good recommendations for a photographic drive. I drove down the Turquoise Trail to Cerrillos and Madrid and then over to Galisteo. It was a beautiful drive. Cerrillos is a neat little community with lots of older buildings. It had a turquoise mine there and the community grew up around it. Madrid was a coal mining town and became a ghost town in the 60s. But in the 70s it was ‘discovered’ by the artist community and has many interesting shops and galleries.

I hoped to find a church or old cemetery in Galisteo to set up a moonrise shot with the full moon, but the vantage points didn’t work out. I began to think about trying to capture a full moon rising with an interesting subject in the foreground last Saturday driving from Las Vegas. I explored for 3 days and talked with as many different people as I could to try and find a great location. Unfortunately I didn’t succeed. I was about 5 minutes too late on Monday during my drive north to Ghost Ranch. There were some great red rock formations and the almost full moon was coming up. The sun had just gone behind a mesa and the last good light was off the rock. It was a little disappointing, but on the other hand it gives me a much greater appreciation for the time photographers and painters spend learning an area. I’m sure there are many great opportunities around here; I’ve just not been here long enough to learn them. I laughed as I realized I don’t even have a place in mind in my ‘backyard’ of western North Carolina to go to for that moonrise shot I was hoping to capture here in NM.

Here are a few more images from the last two days.

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Photos

Cerrillos
This was a shot taken in the town of Cerrillos.

St. John's Church
Another view from Cerrillos. I liked this angle with the house in the foreground and church in the background.

Wooden statue
This wooden carved statue was in front of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Cerrillos. The church was built in 1922. As I reviewed my images from recent days, I noticed I have shots of several wooden statues similar to this. I think it would be a neat photographic project to search these out, photograph them, and document the history of them.

another statue
This statue is in front of Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe.

Carpenter statue
Here is a wooden statue representing the fabled carpenter who built the Miraculous Staircase in Loretto Chapel. As you can see it is next to the entrance of the chapel. The Chapel is now a private museum.

Miraculous Staircase
The Loretto Chapel was built in the 1870's to serve the Loretto Academy, operated by the Sisters of Loretto. After the structure was completed, almost every carpenter said the balcony would need to be rebuilt or a ladder used to get up there as a conventional set of stairs would take up too much room in the chapel.
Legend has it a carpenter showed up and constructed this staircase with 33 steps and two full 360-degree turns using jst a saw, carpenter's square, a hammer and tubes in wich to soak the wood.
The staircase has no center support, nor is it held from the sides. When it was completed, the carpenter disappeared without seeking payment.

Chile Ristra
As you will see from the next several photos, unlimited opportunities exist to photograph chile ristras. A ristra is a long "string" of New Mexico chiles used for storage and decoration. They can be seen hanging at homes, churches and businesses.

Another Ristra
Here's another ristra. This one was taken outside a shop in Madrid.

Chimayo Ristra
One last Ristra. This one was at a cafe near the church in Chimayo.