Today we set about exploring a few more places we have not seen. How about this mailbox? Just a tad unique eh? It’s out on Airport road, a couple miles from the town center.

Santa Fe is steeped in history.It’s origins go way back to before the Spanish came to America, but the town that exists today is laid out in the typical Spanish way, with a main square with government buildings on one side, shops and home around the exterior, and religious sites within close proximity.

The San Miguel Mission is the oldest church in the USA that still is in use today. Services are still held here every Sunday. It was first built in 1610 but was subsequently destroyed twice and the structure today was constructed in 1710. Some parts of the original 1610 church still exist. The Tlaxcaltecan Indians of Mexico, brought to Santa Fe by the conquistadors, were the principal people who built all three iterations of the chapel.

The bell inside the church was cast in 1356 in Spain. It sits on a rugged structure just inside the door of the church and you are encouraged to strike the bell. It gives off a wonderfully full sound, echoing throughout the church. Both Pam and I took a shot at being musicians! I mean, come on – how often do you get to touch something that is nearly 700 years old, let alone whack it with a hammer? Here is a short video of Pam’s playing.

Across the alley from the chapel, is a small adobe structure, used by the Tlaxcaltecan Indians while they constructed the chapel. It’s considered to be the oldest house in the USA. (I’m not sure how accurate that is, since the Taos Pueblo has been continuously inhabited for over a thousand years… but granted, the Pueblo is more than simply a house.)

Afterwards we went to the State Capitol, a more recently constructed circular building that houses the offices of the Governor, the Lt Governor and various other government officials, as well as the Legislature. It is an absolute must-do if you ever come to Santa Fe. You can tour the whole building. You start off on the top floor in the office of the Governor. There is a mini-museum, right in her office, showing the prehistoric beginnings of New Mexico. As you wind your way down the circular building’s three floors, the art goes from Old West, Spanish Colonial, to mid century, to modern. On the main floor was a recently opened gallery of modern quilted items. It’s an amazing place!

Since it was our anniversary, we naturally spent some time in a local casino! But about midnight, we went back to the main square and took a few pictures of the St Francis Cathedral and the Loreto Chapel all lit up.
Obviously it’s been tough to show everything we’ve seen here in Santa Fe in the blog posts. There are even more shots up in our gallery, that are not referenced in the posts, so if you are interested in seeing other interesting items that we’ve been seeing, they are up there!

Click here to get to the gallery.

Saturday we took a drive south to Roswell for an overnight stay. The drive took about three hours, it’s around two hundred miles, through cattle country. Lots and lots of cattle, with the odd sheep and llama farm mixed in. The land is not as mountainous as around Santa Fe, but with rolling hills, and dried arroyo beds cutting through the landscape it was a very scenic drive. It turned out to be an easy drive, with very good roads.

Roswell is a town of about 50,000 people – and much larger than we expected. The alien theme is apparent almost as soon as you drive in, with Galaxy Car Wash – Galactic Sushi, it’s how we roll… etc. There are little aliens peeking out all over the local businesses. Even the large chains get in on the act! Arby’s proclaims that “Aliens are welcome“, KFC proudly puts the Colonel right beside a towering alien, and even the USPS gets in on the act.

I thought the USPS R2D2 post box was one of the best alien icons. It was really well done, with a great paint job… and hey, he has his own website! (Although when I went to it, I was denied access, which is not all that surprising. I’m not a Jedi Master yet – I can’t whack the little globes with my helmet on… YET!) Even the local community center got in on the whimsical act… this carving is right in front of the main doors.

There are of course, lots and lots of shops and “museums” dedicated to the Roswell Incident of 1947 (or 1957 if you believe the government). The first we entered was called Area 51, and wouldn’t you know it, they required Pam’s help right away. We hadn’t been in the place for more than five minutes when a call went out for a nurse to assist with an alien who had gone into cardiac arrest. The doctor in the lab had gone for coffee, and only the guards were left. It’s not easy being a nurse on vacation!

Afterwards, a couple of friends invited us to relax and have a few beers. They were pretty grateful, and they told us that the government has been keeping them there since the crash. They give them old computers, so they can’t access the internet, and it’s been tough for them, since Facebook was their idea.

At any rate, the next stop was the museum, which was not very well done. They now charge five bucks to get in, but the displays look like a high school got together and did it for a science project. It’s kinda sad really, because a lot of the evidence they have, could really be persuasive if they did a more professional job. I get the impression that most people in Roswell don’t really take it all that seriously. Although one store in particular had a fellow who did seem to be serious about the whole thing, he was definitely in the minority.

The city itself has put up a museum and cool statue of Dr. Robert Goddard, the man who basically figured out how to launch rockets. They have kept the tower that he repeatedly launched liquid fueled rockets from, right in the spot from which he did the experiments. And that’s right on Main Street, across the street from Arby’s!

Roswell is not all aliens – another famous citizen was John Chisum – one of the early cattle barons. He was portrayed in the movies by no less than John Wayne, so you know he had to be something special! He was contemporaneous with Billy the Kid and was instrumental in having Pat Garrett track him down. They were apparently on friendly terms but had a falling out when Chisum failed to pay Billy what he felt he was owed for his part in the Lincoln County Wars.

The drive back to Santa Fe was in a bit of rain, so we stopped in Encino and took this picture of an old clunker of a house. Encino seems to really have hit the skids, with most shops and gas stations and homes crumbling. It’s population is only 94, but it did have a famous citizen, the 8th Governor of New Mexico! It fell into disrepair as a result of the rail line discontinuing the depot there…

It was a fun couple of days, though, and definitely worth the drive to see everything.