Posts Tagged With: Cerillos Hills State Park

2013, Trip Nine, Christmas in Santa Fe, New Year’s in Flagstaff

Posted on December 19, 2013 by Ed Heimel and Chris Klejbuk, MN travel bloggers; ckeh72@comcast.net

Santa Fe, Thursday Dec. 19

Ed and Jude in Santa Fe

Ed and Jude in Santa Fe

The morning started with domestic activities. While Chris did laundry, I made the first batch of Russian tea cakes. This was my first time with high altitude cooking and discovered the cookies took about 30% longer to bake than usual. The results were still great, though.

Second powdering of Russian Tea Cakes

Second powdering of Russian Tea Cakes

I installed our luminaria outside Jude’s house. Since we were not going to be home for Christmas, it seemed reasonable to set them up here. After all, Santa Fe is the home of luminaria.

Luminaria set up

Luminaria set up

Chris and I returned to Cerillos Hill State Park and went hiking. One of the trails goes by three closed mines. Mines in this area were one man with a pick and shovel-none of the large, commercial mines around here.

Closed mine at Cerillos Hills State Park

Closed mine at Cerillos Hills State Park

A rest area in the park had displays created by a local school group. Besides art work, the students had created a sun dial that is calculated for the various sun angles throughout the year. It only works for noon of each day but it still well demonstrates the students’ research.

View from Cerillos Hills State Park

View from Cerillos Hills State Park

After dinner we headed to downtown Santa Fe for a concert by the Santa Fe Women’s Ensemble. The ensemble has been around for 33 years. This is a group of 12 women who sing a capella. One of the songs they sang was a world premiere of a new arrangement of “Salve Regina Mater”. Supposedly this was being filmed and it will be on YouTube sometime in the future. We made sure we applauded extra loud for this work.

Chris and jude outside Loretto Chapel

Chris and Jude outside Loretto Chapel

The concert was held in Loretto Chapel. Loretto Chapel (www.lorettochapel.com) is famous for its spiral staircase created by a simple workman and is constructed without any visible means of support with two, 360 degree turns. The chapel had been built without a way to access the choir loft and carpenters of the day were called in but no one could figure out how to build a staircase in the narrow confines of the chapel. The unknown workman showed up on the last day of the Loretto nuns finishing a rosary to pray for an answer. When the staircase was completed months later, the workman left without pay or thanks.

Staircase at Loretto Chapel

Staircase at Loretto Chapel

Santa Fe Plaza lights

Santa Fe Plaza lights


Ed Heimel and Chris Klejbuk
Thursday December 19th 11 pm

Categories: road trip, travel | Tags: , , | 5 Comments

2013 Trip Nine, Dec. 18, Christmas in Santa Fe and New Year’s in Flagstaff

Posted on December 18, 2013 by Ed Heimel and Chris Klejbuk, MN travel bloggers; ckeh72@comcast.net

Wednesday, Dec. 18 Santa Fe NM

This route is bringing back memories. We traveled I-40 last spring. We ate at a nice BBQ place in Amarillo. This time around it was closed, owner was deep in debt from multiple, failed investments. We ate at a local steakhouse next door to it (Saltgrass Steakhouse) and had a great meal, well worth the 30 minute wait.

Driving through New Mexico

Driving through New Mexico

As we drove this morning, we passed the “Cadillac Ranch”, a place west of Amarillo where the owner has planted old Cadillacs, about a dozen of them, nose first into the ground. We did not stop and take pictures this time. No one else appeared to be gazing on them either, unlike last April when numerous people were exploring the site.

The western end of Texas has some rolling, eroded hills and then New Mexico starts to have mesas and buttes and finally mountains. A little snow on the ground in the shade and on top of the mountains in the distance.

Getting turned around in Cerillos Hills State Park

Getting turned around in Cerillos Hills State Park

We tried to have lunch in Santa Rosa NM on the old historic Route 66 but the place we were looking for was hiding from us so we kept on going. Lunch ended up being just outside Santa Fe in a local place, Harry’s Roadhouse.

Jude has her Christmas tree up and decorated. Dinner was cooking in the crock pot so we headed out for an adventure. Cerillos Hills State Park became a state park in 2009 and Jude had not been here yet. The drive only took about 20 minutes and the park was having a Christmas open house, cookies and coffee, etc.

Cerillos Hills State Park

Cerillos Hills State Park

It was too late in the day to go hiking on any of the trails so we will have to return at a later time. The park commemorates the mining done in the this area in the late 1800s. Turquoise was one main mineral but others included galena, copper, iron, etc. Of the estimated 5,000 small mines in this area, it is thought that only 12 were profitable.

The town of Cerillos has dramatically shrunk from its heyday when mining was popular. The park service has a new visitor center with a few displays. We talked to two of the park rangers and promised to come back again.

After a short drive to the town of Madrid, we headed back to Jude’s for dinner.

Ed and Chris December 18, 8:30 pm

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