Day 4/5 - Santa Fe

June 8/9, 2008 - Santa Fe - 0 Miles


Murial across from the Santa Fe downtown transit center.










Well, it's zero miles today if you don't count the ride to breakfast and the laundromat this morning. The plot got us. Whenever Bobby J pulled into Santa Fe his rear break pedal went "to the floor." No rear brake at all. Of course, this isn't the end of the world since 70% of stopping motorcycles rests on the front brake. But, it's not something one overlooks either. So, while he drove his bike to the Harley dealer I had breakfast and did needed laundry. (See, these trips are exciting.)

The bad news on the bike was that he'd somehow managed to pick up a pinhole sized leak in the brake lining. Sounds easy to me. But, of course, not to your average Harley dealer. He didn't have the brake lining in stock and "had no one to run down to Albuquerque to pick it up." So the bike stays in the shop and the part will be in sometime around 11:00 am tomorrow and he'll "get on it right away." That's Harley-speak for whenever and you can bet it'll be around 5:00 pm.

It's not too big a deal, though, because we'd planned to spend the day around Santa Fe anyway. Looks like we won't be able to make any of the two scenic loops I wanted to make to Taos and around Hwy 4 through San Ysidro. So, we'll have to make lemonade...or something that goes well with Tequilla.

So...it's Santa Fe today. Took a taxi down to the Plaza (it's not called the square here...they're pretty adamant about that...don't know why; it's a square). There is an open trolley tour route which passes by all the areas of interests and we'd originally planned to take it to get our bearings. According to the schedule it left the La Fonda Hotel at 12:30pm. We got to the La Fonda at about 12:15pm and took up stations at the pickup point (no, not the one in the hotel bar, the one for the trolley).

View from the front of the La Fonda Hotel toward the plaza. The two-story building directly across the plaza has a very good restaurant an excellent lady pops singer.

Amy D-W: You'll remember it. We had BBQ Salmon there one Sunday afternoon a few years ago.


View to the right from the hotel. The beautiful St. Francis Cathedral. Pretty stuff. Yesterday they had some colorful ceremony going on with people in interesting costumes. Still don't know what it was, but it was neat.

By about 12:45pm I'm thinking the plot's at work again so I called the trolley service. The lady said it was supposed to leave from there and that she'd have the manager come out to see us. Sure enough, about five minutes later, this guy comes out and tells us the trolley was full so it had already left. We were sort of incredulous, and said, "Full? How? We've been standing here for thirty minutes." He reiterated that he'd sold out early and so they left, adding, "You don't expect us to wait around full do you?" We told him no, but asked how were we supposed to know it as potential customers. He mumbled something and started walking away, so I just said forget it, we're not giving any money to this operation and we left.

Service: it's just not what it used to be. Is Tom Peters still alive? If so, he's out with Diogenes on a futile mission.

Trolley? Trolley? We don' need no stinkin' trolley! We took off on our own.

First stop, Loretto Chapel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loretto_Chapel). Amazing piece of carpentry, and I know two things about the story behind it: 1) I know enough to know I don't know everything, and 2) wasn't Jesus a carpenter? Hmmmm.



It's a beautiful church.




















The vestry.












The "Stair"

It's really a work of art. And equally impressive is the skill with which the carpenter put it together. The banister was added much later. And steel supports were added at the top where it meets the landing and at a couple of other places. But you can see how it was a free-standing, almost free-floating stair and absolutely a work of art.


This view gives a little of the magic effect the carpenter used in curving and molding the wood into the shape needed for such an enclosed space. I think of shipbuilding carpenters when I see wood warped in such ways. They would generally have been the only ones used to performing such acts with wood at the time. But then, there's that other theory too.









The lounge at the La Fonda hotel. A lot of mahogany, dark, cool interior. And excellent Mexican food. Bobby J had the chili rellenos and I had shredded beef enchiladas. Both meals came with the usual refried beans and, a treat, posole. Not the hominy soup usually associated with the name, but hominy cooked down to almost pasta-like consistency. They were excellent...but, it turns out, problematic.



Caught the "M' line public transit to Museum Hill. Ironically named route, huh? These Marketing/PR people must have IQs approaching 20, maybe even 30.


Museum of Indian Arts and Culture

Lots of really great weaving exhibited, both cloth and basket weaving. Additionally, there is a lot of pottery, something these folks can really do. They carried all the usual Indian subjects, bows, arrowheads, arrows, etc. Good stuff, but the pottery and the weaving is really special. I know that because I watch Antiques Roadshow.





They had a show going on about Indian comic art. One was a take off from the famous America Man pictograph in Utah, showing him as Captain America. I snapped this shot before asking if we could take pictures. We couldn't. The point here is I can understand why this is in a museum; sort of a take off on modernization of ancient art. (The original pictograph dates back to the Anasazi.)

But there are always exhibits I just can't figure out for the life of me why they are spending money and wasting my time with such stuff. This (illegal) photo is of an exhibit showing what Indian trading posts looked like 50-60 years ago.














For cryin' out loud, using this as a guideline I'm a museum piece! (For those saying, "Well, Duh," you can kiss my Texas butt.)

It was about 3:30pm when we got there, and they close at 5:00pm so our time was limited. The guy selling tickets was a decent sort, though, he post-dated our tickets for tomorrow so we can go back for more. This was a really nice thing to do and I hope he doesn't regret it. It turns out, with refried beans the posole is absolutely a deadly combination. And museums are so quiet. We'll understand it if they stop us at the door tomorrow.



By 5:00pm I'm tired of walking and ready for some quality time with a Lazy Boy recliner. More later.