Santa Fe- The Ultimate Destination!

 

What a fun place- Santa Fe, N.M.! (Elevation 7,199 feet). 

We spent three nights here (at the very nice Residence Inn Santa Fe) that culminated in my niece Nicole’s wedding to Tyler on June 15. See some of my photos from those festivities at the end of this post. 

We were fortunate to have clear skies and moderate temperatures in this small city (population 89,008 in 2022) with a big reputation for culture, art, history and shopping. 

The Spanish in 1610 founded (claimed and named) Santa Fe, making it the capital of Nuevo Mexico, a province of New Spain. It was first called Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis. In English that would be Royal City of the Holy Faith of St. Francis of Assisi. 

I’m glad the name was eventually shortened to Santa Fe! 

The church in these photos is the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. It was dedicated in 1887 and was built on the site of the original adobe church from 1610. St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) of Italy, is the patron saint of Santa Fe. This statue is of him. 

St. Francis Cathedral would be the backdrop for Nicole’s wedding that took place on the terrace of a nearby hotel. 

To follow are some of my photographs taken inside this beautiful house of worship. 

Time for Taos and its Special Native People

 

Taos, New Mexico (elevation 6,969 feet) was the next stop on our Southwest journey. Alesia did her research and really wanted us to visit the Taos Pueblo UNESCO World Heritage Site- and I’m glad we did because this is a fascinating slice of American history. And it represents a people today holding on to traditions and a way of life. 

Upon arrival, I didn’t know what to expect. I guess I was thinking ancient dwellings in the side of mountains, a la the Aztecs and Incas. Not really the case at all. 

The adobe dwellings are old but they are also very much in use today as homes for today’s Tiwa or Tiwa Puebloans (or Taos Indians which is easier to remember). Other structures are shops where art, crafts, jewelry, and other items made by these native Americans are sold to tourists.

A Perfect Storm of Stone, Sand and Stream

 

Destination: The Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in Mosca, Colorado in Alamosa County. 

In the middle of nowhere are North America’s tallest sand dunes. In the picture at the top the dunes don’t look so big. But (right) when you’re on them, the dunes are daunting! 

These sand dunes in Southern Colorado dwarf the ones in Kill Devil Hills, N.C. Where the Wright Brothers tested something called an airplane in 1903. 

The dunes there are 100 feet high. The dunes here crest at 750 feet. The Sangre De Cristo Mountains are in the background. The range’s highest elevation is 14,351 feet. These mountains are part of the great Rocky Mountains. 

Alesia did a great job mapping out this adventurous trip. After two nights in Colorado Springs (see my Fort Carson, Garden of the Gods and Rock Ledge Ranch Historic Site posts). we drove 160 miles to this out-of-the-way National Park. The remote route made for an interesting and scenic drive that I will document in a later post. 

We had a surprise upon entering this “wilderness.” 

You must walk through water before you climb the sand dunes. Seasonally the water can be so high you have to wade or swim through it. 

On this day, we just had to take off our shoes…

Historic Ranch Conveys Lives of Early Pikes Peak Settlers

 

After touring the Garden of the Gods Alesia and I made the short drive to the Rock Ledge Ranch Historic Site. It is part of Garden of the Gods park, located in its southeast corner. 

There is a fee to get into the ranch, $8 or less per person. 

The ranch is an interesting complement to the massive red rocks of “GOTG.” Here visitors are immersed in the lifestyles and homes of the Pikes Peak region's early inhabitants. 

The first American settlers built modest dwellings like this. 

A surprise upon entering the log cabin is finding these young ladies ready to tell you about what life was like back in the 1860s when the Galloway family made their homestead here. 

Dressed in period clothing these historical interpreters not only tell you what life was like but they can show you too by demonstrating cooking, washing clothes…

…and milking the family cow (well not sure if they actually milk Ol’ Betsy but I’m sure the girls could tell people how it was done). 

Garden of the Gods- Great Name, Great Place!

Garden of the Gods- such a big, bodacious name but in this case there’s no hype, this place is awesome! 

What a national treasure is the 1,341-acre park in Colorado Springs. I do not recall coming here when we lived in the area for three years in the early 1970s. Maybe we did and I just don’t remember. 

Our visit on this beautiful June 2024 day, I will never forget. 

Garden of the Gods is a series of large jutting sandstone formations. They were created by millions of years of geological processes such as uplift, erosion and faulting.

Fort Carson, Colorado- Returning to a Long Ago Home

 

Our Western trek next took us from Estes Park to Colorado Springs (144 miles). The Marriott Hotel where we stayed offers a great view of Pikes Peak. 

That’s snow-capped Pikes Peak, elevation 14,115 feet, in this photo. Great views of the Rocky Mountains abound! 

We would spend two nights in Colorado Springs where a highlight for me was going to Fort Carson, a nearby U.S. Army post where my family and I lived in the early 1970s. 

The post was first called Camp Carson when it opened in 1942 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Colorado Springs donated the land south of the city to the U.S. Army. The quickly bustling training center was named for the legendary Western frontiersman and scout Gen. Christopher “Kit” Carson. He died in 1868 at age 58 and is buried in Taos, N.M. (wish I had tried to find his grave when we were in Taos a couple days after this Ft. Carson visit). 

Western Birds and Other Critters

 

Capturing this rainbow on our first day in Colorado signaled a stellar start to a magical 10 day trip! 

I spotted the rainbow over the shoulder of my sister Ann at her and Paul’s beautiful home in the Estes Park area. 

Moving to their back porch I changed my iPhone setting to wide to capture the rainbow in full glory, then enhanced the image using the handy Snapseed app. 

Ann snapped this picture of me as we prepared to go to Mass. I was in photographer heaven out West in raw and rugged Colorado and New Mexico. From June 8-17 Alesia and I took a relaxing 460-mile multi-day drive from Estes Park, Colorado to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The ultimate destination and event was my niece Nicole and Tyler’s wedding in Santa Fe. 

This post is the first of several documenting our interesting and illuminating trek. 

I wanted to capture the lay of the land, from the many mountain ranges we would see…

…and the often fast-flowing rivers, creeks and streams…

…to the arid geography of southern Colorado and New Mexico. 

Mount Auburn Cemetery- America’s First and Finest

In Cambridge, Mass. is a vast and beautiful park that happens to be a cemetery. 

It is called Mount Auburn and has the distinction of being the first of its kind in America: a landscaped rural garden Victorian cemetery. 

Mount Auburn opened in 1831. Today it encompasses 170 acres in Cambridge and also parts of neighboring Watertown. More than 100,000 people are buried here. 

Wow! 

More on Mount Auburn's history here. 

The impressive entrance near Harvard University was built in 1842 of locally- quarried Quincy granite. The wings at the top are of ancient Egyptian influence symbolizing the sun and therefore power, according to cemetery material.

The inscription under the rings says the following: 

“Then shall the dust return to the Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” Ecclesiastes 12:7” 

Credit for founding this Garden of Eden of burial grounds is Dr. Jacob Bigelow (1787-1879), a Boston physician, botanist and Harvard professor. Bigelow chapel, (right) located near the entrance, was named in his honor. The grand Gothic Revival edifice, built in 1844 and rebuilt in 1855 (also of Quincy granite) emulates the style of cathedrals built in England, France and Germany in the 1200s or 1300s, a cemetery publication says. 

Another Busy Backyard Owl Season

 

Fast and furious is how I would describe what I immediately noticed upon our return from Boston on May 29. 

I got out of our car in the driveway ready to take in suitcases when I heard that distinctive young owl sound. 

I have described the sound as a shrill hiss or whistle. My neighbor calls it a screech. The sound is clearly not the hoot associated with owls. 

For four of five years in this time period: mid -to-late May to mid-to-late June, Barred Owls have been making daytime visits to the trees at my house and some neighbors yards. Here are links to a few of my posts in previous years. 

•  June 2022 Post (includes an owl in a birdbath on our back porch!)
• June 2023 Post

These are young Barred Owls that may not know that they are nocturnal. While the parents are sleeping during the day, the youngsters fly away to play. That could be what is going on- curiosity about this big wide world they are part of now. 

I'm the Guest on a Cemetery Podcast!!!

First time experiences can be exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. There was anticipation for the event to finally happen as the interview with me was set up months ago. But June 4 finally arrived and at 10 a.m. I was in my chair in our home office ready to talk Charleston and its many interesting cemeteries and graveyards. 

Dianne Hartshorn and Jennie Johnson have hosted "The Ordinary, Extraordinary Cemetery Podcast" for more than three years. I was honored to be the guest for episode 188. They let me go on for more than an hour about my books "Stories from the Underground: The Churchyards of Charleston" and "In the Arms of Angels: Magnolia Cemetery- Charleston's Treasure of History, Mystery and Artistry" and how I became interesting in these offbeat topics. 

Here is a link to the podcast's page about my appearance.

On YouTube it can be viewed here: 

To just listen to the podcast (and not see us as you do in the YouTube video above), it is available via all the popular streaming services such as Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Podcasts. 

Dianne and Jennie are fellow "taphophiles" (obviously) and they were so much fun to speak with and share my passion for Charleston, S.C.- the Holy City!