Posts Tagged With: Loretto Chapel

Santa Fe, Thursday Dec. 19

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

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

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

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

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

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

Santa Fe Plaza lights