Checked Santa Fe off my bucket list ;)

Santa Fe was never actually on my bucket list -- but it was a place that, if given a reason to go there, I'd visit. My parents have travelled several times to the American Southwest, and like Santa Fe quite a bit. So when they decided to go on a trip to the southwest this past fall, I decided to meet up with them during their stay in Santa Fe.

I arrived in Albuquerque, NM on a Sunday in early October.  My parents picked me up at the airport and we made the roughly one hour drive to Santa Fe.  They had parked their RV at a campground just a few miles outside of Santa Fe. During the week I was visiting, the Balloon Fiesta was going on in Albuquerque -- a hot air balloon festival where balloonists from all over the country, and world, come to get their balloon on.  So the RV park was pretty busy.  Lucky for all the balloonists, I brought the rain with me from Seattle. The week I was in Santa Fe it rained, torrentially, for like 3 days.  Yay! Vacation!

My parents and I didn't really have a set itinerary for my trip. We had a rough outline of what we planned on doing each day, mostly shopping and visiting churches.  There is one exact buttload of churches in New Mexico. My first full day in Santa Fe, we drove to The Plaza and checked out quite a few shops -- so much art and jewelry in Santa Fe!

Lots of adobe, archways, and crosses.

This is the San Miguel Mission -- apparently the oldest church in the United States. I was having a hard time believing this, but I guess it is true. I mean, oldest Catholic church maybe. I can't imagine the Native Americans didn't have some sort of place where they would worship their gods before Christianity was brought over.

Lots of ornate alters. Pews. All things Catholic. Peace be with you, and also with you.

Here's my mom next to, what I assume, is some sort of important historical bell. If you know my mom, you know that she pretty much says whatever she is thinking, as she thinks it. At least in front of people she feels comfortable with. Which makes for some pretty entertaining situations. One of my favorite lines of hers, from the entire trip, was said while we were in the San Miguel Mission. We were looking at some sort of ancient nativity scene, carved out of some sort of stone that looked weathered and falling apart, and she points at the baby Jesus in the nativity and says "Hey, look, they left the balls on that kid!" Love it!!

Across the street from the oldest church in the US, was the oldest house in the US. I'm still skeptical. I've been told I need to just have faith, but these claims seem somewhat hard to believe. I mean, really?!? The oldest house in the US is located in New Mexico? I'm not losing sleep over this, but lets just say I could probably write a 5 paragraph essay supporting my argument about why this house probably isn't the oldest house in the US.

Oldest house in the US had a pretty colorful doorway next door.

About a block from the San Miguel Mission is another church called the Loreto Chapel.  The Loreto Chapel if famous for it's spiral staircase that was built by a mysterious stranger who built the staircase then skipped town. Long story short -- when the Chapel was built, the genius who drew the blueprints failed to connect the choir loft to the main floor of the church -- so no one could actually get up to the choir loft without use of a ladder. That is a lawsuit waiting to happen. So the nuns prayed and prayed and prayed -- and what happened? Some strange man arrived in town and built a spiral staircase using no nails, only wooden pegs -- then boned out after he was finished. No joke. No one knows who the guy was or how the staircase hasn't fallen to the ground yet. A movie was made about the story called "The Inexplicable Stairs" and it stars Barbara Hershey as one of the nuns. It was playing in the gift shop while we were there.

Pretty impressive staircase. No nails people, no nails.

Outside of Loretto Chapel.

First day of my trip to Santa Fe? Success! In my next trip installment, I will cover our trip to Taos.

Bailey shot! While Spuzz was contracting kennel cough back at home, I was cheating on him with Bailey, my parent's cute lil' Westie.