New Mexico

What beautiful country views New Mexico has.   Our first stop was at Roswell to search for the elusive aliens.   Even the McDonalds has a spaceship theme.  We went to the museum but found it to be a bit of a joke.   The local historic and art museum was fantastic, though.

Next stop was Santa Fe   Instantly fell in love with the local architecture and beautiful homes.   None of which are affordable!!   We went up the mountain road to the local state park but realized we were into the snow line and cold weather was forecast.   So we dropped back down and found the Rodeo grounds and stayed there for a few nights.  We spent a bit of time walking around the Plaza where the Indians sit in front of the government building selling their beautiful silver and turquoise jewelery.   The St. Francis Cathedral is wonderful, of course.

There is a wonderful legend concerning the St. Loretto Church.    The church had been built however the loft had no access to it.  The nuns prayed and prayed for a solution to their problem and one day a man arrived who said he was a carpenter and built this spiral staircase with no supports then mysteriously left.   They believe it was St. Joseph himself who showed up to build the staircase.

We drove up to Taos.  Unfortunately the pueblo was closed due to religious ceremonies taking place there.   We did find the Rio Grande gorge and saw some interesting earthship homes built from simple materials, very "green" and many with an artistic flair.

Visiting the Gila Cliff Dwellings was probably the highlight of our New Mexico experience.    We were able to tour around inside the ancient homes of Mogollon Indians  and had to look closely along the trails to see pictographs left behind....

On to Tucson!!!