4/1 A Day In Santa Fe, NM

Spending the day in downtown Santa Fe is not easy when you are driving a big vehicle because the streets are narrow and there is not much parking.  However, when I called the people at the town visitor center, they suggested that if I came on a weekend that I would have lots of parking available in the big parking lot of the state Capitol Building because it was closed over the weekends.  It worked out well because the big lot was only a few blocks from the main tourist area of museums and shops.  

My first stop was San Miguel Church, the oldest church structure in the USA.  The sign below says it was build by the Tlaxcalan Indians from Mexico, but I strongly suspect that their labor was not voluntary!  

Note that it was constructed ten years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock!

 

 

The church was constructed of adobe, but the original blocks have been covered by years of mud. 

 

 

It is small, but large for such an early construction in this country. 

 

 

A good friend once told me to always look up when I am taking photos in an older building because ceilings and roofs are usually more interesting than the wall.  The docent told me that this is the second roof from 1720 because the original was burned.  That is still over 300 years old.

 

 

Looking from the front back to the balcony in the rear. 

 

 

The front altar.  

 

 

The original church bell.  Hundreds of visitors over the years have left religious medals on the stand. 

 

 

Walking down the street to the shopping area.  

 

 

Found several bronzes near a shop selling them.  I felt like this lady.

 

 

Next two are children reading books. 

 

 

Outside the shop selling a lot of large bronzes and carvings. 

 

 

This is the main town plaza.  There were a few musicians and dancers.  

 

 

The rest of the photos were of the New Mexico History Museum.

 

 

This was a display of some of the artifacts from the La Fonda Hotel, which is one of the original Harvey Hotels that were built to serve the Santa Fe Railroad travelers in 1920.   Harvey Hotels were famous all over the western states for their food and service. 

 

 

This is a list of the amount of food purchased by the Harvey Hotels in 190.  Hard to read, but it shows that the Harvey system bought 954,000 lbs of beef, 554,160 lbs of ham, 116,000 lbs of bacon, 155,541 lbs of chicken, 7,000 turkeys, and 15,262 ducks that year.  

It was cold and windy today, so I headed back to my motorhome and drove back to the campground at Cochiti Lake.  Brrrr.