On the Road; Taos NM

Sacred River


Pueblo Church of St. Jerome


Pueblo Cemetery


Taos Pueblo



<Downtown Taos <

Taos Pueblo
The most interesting part of the Taos visit, was our visit to the local Indian tribe Pueblo. This dates back to ??? In the background of the cemetery is a remnant of the first church. The Spanish missionaries converted them to Christianity. Our guide, whose understanding of English was not all that proficient, told us about their religion. Actually, I kept asking. They say that they are Catholic. For funerals the difference is that they must bury the deceased the next day and are forbidden to embalm or cremate. It sounds like Judaism and then she told us that they have no wake but have a celebration of the person's life for about a week after the funeral--their version of the Shiva. The cemetery is sacred ground and cannot be entered except for funerals and on All Saints Day. Each body in the cemetery has a simple cross marker carved by a family member. The only headstones in the cemetery are for veterans of the military (I guess the army gives them these so they take it). After the grave markers fall or deteriorate they gather them and add them to a pile of old lost crosses. They do not replace them.

I find it great the way that they have integrated their ancient customs into Christianity. They do their corn dances and pole climbing contests(You can see on a picture the big pole that was put up at the end of September and will be chopped down after the pole climbing contest before Christmas). the Catholic holidays. They have a river that they consider sacred and from which they take drinking water, cooking water etc. No one is allowed in as this would pollute the water but a big dog was wallowing in it when we looked at it.

The Pueblo is divided into an inner circle and an outer circle. The inner circle is primitve having no electricty and no plumbing. They have adobe ovens outside the little houses and they bake all their bread and cookies in here. I think that 300 people live in houses in the inner circle or maybe they just have houses --each house almost be the site of a store for the tourists.

They have a business of the pueblo. Everyone must pay $10 to walk in and pay $5 for each camera that you bring in.

ontheroad-Santa Fe

Mission of San Miguel


Oldest House


of Guadalupe


Loretto Chapel with spiral staircase


Santa Fe

Palace of the Governors!



Originally constructed in the early 17th century as Spain's seat of government, this adobe building with an inner courtyard is a museum of Santa Fe history. It was actually a little hard to figure out what it looked like originally.

Oldest House

Built supposedly in 1646, this is claimed to be the oldest house in the US (or maybe the oldest house that has been continuously lived in) because the Palace of the Governors is older as are a couple houses in the Northeast US and the Pueblo housing that we plan to visit today in Taos may have been built in the year 1000. You could not enter this house bit I took a picture of it.

Chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Located on Agua Fria Street, the Chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe is thought to be the oldest shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe in the United States. It was built in 1795 and the chapel was once dedicated to non-Spanish speaking catholics.
San Miguel Mission

The church is one of the oldest churches in the country and first began in 1610. A bell was cast in 1356 from Spain. Inside the mission are ornaments and paintings. The structure has been strengthened over the years. All records of the church's early history were destroyed in a fire in 1680. They have a large bell on display and it is dated either 1356 or 1856. It isn't clear when you view it. I asked the curator which date it was and he said no one has any idea. It is hard to believe that an expert could not date the bell when there is a 500 year difference to pick from.

The Loretto Chapel

The Loretto Chapel is the home of the Miraculous Staircase, which has two 360-degree turns and no visible means of support. Built between 1877 and 1881, the mystery of the builder remains unknown today. The legend is that the chapel, as a girl's school, had only nuns as teachers and the nuns could not climb a ladder to reach the choir loft. So they prayed to St. Joseph for 9 days and on the 9th day a carpenter appeared at the chapel and began to construct a spiral staircase. It took him 6 months and as soon as it was completed, he left as mysteriously as he appeared.

The Museum of International Folk Art

This place was the most fun for me. The biggest wing is the Girard Collection. This collector, a famous interior designer, collected all kinds of articles from gods to toys and placed them in cases as he wanted them to remain for eternity. Lots of these things could look like junk but they are put together very well and create a great feeling for me who loves folklore. The museum also has a collection of old New Mexican Furniture, Navaho textiles, Spanish heritage art of NM, puppets and musical instruments from Indonesia and other Eastern cultures. There are great masks from South America and religious items from many places.

ontheroad-Albuquerque

Albuquerque Balloon Museum

Above is a picture of David and me posing in the gondola of a balloon. This is a unique museum. It deals with the history of balloon flight from its earliest French beginnings. Some went 22 feet and then one went 22 miles and now they go around the world. They originally got the idea from watching smoke ascend from a fire and attempted to make a balloon that would be powered by fire. These were hot air balloons. Hot air balloons have a hole in the bottom of them as is shown in the blue balloon. The zepelin is a gas balloon. On the first photo I tried to catch the size of the actual balloon. Later on they discovered gas and were able to enclose Hydrogen in the balloon. Now there are even hybrid balloons that combine the gas and hot air. People tried a lot of things that did not work such as oars to move around to steer the balloon.

Albuquerque is apparently a great place to fly these balloons because it is surrounded by mountains and the wind currents are low and just right. There are lots of balloonists in the area. Every October they have a Balloon Fest with distance races and contests for balloon designs and shapes. We were there during this week but we couldn't see any balloons go up as it poured rain and was windy. They won't fly them if the wind than maybe 12 mph. For the shape balloons the winds must be below 8mph because the shape balloons are more difficult to manuever.

On the Road-Oklahoma

Sooners

Since I was in OK I thought I should find out what their motto "sooners" means. The information presented below, I got from a waitress. She told me that when the federal government offered free land for people to develop, the government selected a date for people to be allowed to register some land. These people were called "land boomers." But some people snuck in ahead of time and grabbed huge tracts of land. They became known as the Sooners because they came sooner than the boomers.

NationalCowboy abd Wester Heritage Museum

This is to a large extent an art museum. There are lots of good oils depicting Western Life. The museum today collects a broad array of material that reflects the variety of peoples, cultures, and historical currents found in the West. We were permitted to take photograhs in the old Western town replica so I include one seidled up to the bar and one for my incarceration.

On the Road;Oklahoma City, OK, Oklahoma City National Memorial

To my readers--I am just getting in to using pictures so I must apologize that my pictures are in backwards order. I can't change them and I can't get rid of the duplicate. Susan, can you help me from the Greek Islands?












Oklahoma City
October, 5, 2009

Oklahoma City National Memorial

This museum in memory of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building is extremely well done and truly heartfelt. At the opening to the park are large shiny black arches. The first picture shows their mission statement. picture is the The next picture is for the time of the bomb.

The third picture shows some of the 168 chairs laid out in an outdoor park, one mpty chair for each dead victim.

There is a picture of the south side of the building which was left externally as it was. There are black bricks where the windows had been (all windows within blocks were blown out), the exposed red bricks show a detachment, and at the very tip you can see where the bricks were blown out of the wall.

After the explosioon children from all over the world sent painted ceramic tiles in memory of the children who were killed. I can't help but include trhree from these outdoor walls because they all touched me show deeply.

Inside the museum where you were not allowed to photograph were pieces of the building crunched every which way. There are cases with shoes, watches, keys etc that were found in the rubble.At the time time of the explosion there was a water board meeting going on across the street. It began punctually at 9a.m. and was recorded. You hear the applicaton for water usage and then you hear the explosion and sounds that follow.

There is video of McVeigh's Ryder truck passing on the street and there are newscasts from all over the world that the visitor can view. There are testimonies of some survivors.

On the Road; Forest City, Arkansas

October 3
Forest City AR


About 50 miles west of Memphis, we stopped here for the night. There were 5 motels lined up in a row and it really paid to look at a room in each one. We ended in a nice Hampton Inn. One of the motels was passable and was only $45. a night but the clientele were so repulsive, it eliminated the place completely.

We went to dinner at the "best restaurant in ton" which was quite terrible but it was housing a dinner for the Wynne AK Hot Rodders Assn which was quite interesting. They call themselves the Hot Rodders but it seems mainly a 50's nostalgia group. Many of the cars are 1950s, all shiny and finny. Some of the women participants dress in poodle skirts and saddle shoes. In their dining room played 50's music and a strobe light(not 50's) added to the atmosphere. The group has done Route 66 to CA and plan to do it again next year now that 66 has been somewhat improved.

Knoxville, TN

Thursday October 1, 2009

Knoxville TN
Family Time

We will be heading out soon but we have had a wonderful visit with the kids. We went with them to synagogue, to swim lessons and to gymnastics lessons. We see how they are growing up. Abby gets up each morning and dresses herself in an always coordinated outfit of her choice. She swims with total confidence and dives. Jeff does all of his buttons and snaps and wants to learn to tie shoes. He petals bikes. They both know all the letters and colors and shapes and Abby can write each letter quite clearly. They both wash their hands very carefully before eating and after using the bathroom and always use a fork or spoon with which to eat. This is just grandmother talk and for this I apologize.