May 9 to May 10

We stayed around the campground in Sante Fe on Saturday morning and Toby enjoyed being outside up until we left to go downtown. He was very comfortable in the RV for the 4 or 5 hours that we left him. Toby is not so lucky as the cat across from us. He has a kitty door on the side of his trailer with a screened in porch. It was a cool day and we enjoyed being out in the sun. We caught the bus in front of the RV park and took it all the way into town. You can ride the bus all day for $2 so Charlie was happy with that deal. He was not as happy about the return trip at the end of the day though. We were tired and it seemed like it took forever. Also a man asked Charlie for money. That happens to Charlie all the time, I wonder what it is about him. When we first got downtown we went into a couple of galleries and stores and then we had lunch. It was difficult, for us anyway, to spot the restaurants because signs are not usually visible from the street, but we did see a big Subway sign. I was afraid we were going to have settle for that, but we didn't. We like Subway, we eat there often especially on this trip, but we wanted Mexican food. Finally we found the Blue Corn Cafe, and my lunch was pretty good. Charlie did not get what he expected so he was disappointed. Then we went to the Loretto Chapel. It is a very pretty chapel famous for its 'miraculous' spiral stairway. The stairway is 22 feet high with no center support, and it was assembled with wooden pegs instead of nails. It has 33 steps and makes two complete 360 degree turns. The stairway was built in 1876 by an unknown carpenter. The story goes that the chapel was originally built without stairs to the high choir loft. A carpenter came along and built the stairs and then left without anyone knowing his name. Check out Wikipedia for more information on that, it is interesting. The banister was installed later, in 1887, by Philip August Hesch at the Sisters' request. Though I am sure it is much safer now, the look of the stairway without the banister was truly elegant. I posted a picture of a simulation of how it looked. Next we visited the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, considered to be the heart of Santa Fe. There was some refurbishment going on and there were people praying while the tourists were looking around. Charlie didn't feel comfortable taking pictures while people were worshiping, so he didn't. We noticed that this cathedral, the chapel, and the catholic church we visited in Texas are very similar inside, particularly the ceiling. Maybe it is the southwest style or the time they were built(?) Charlie did take lots of pictures outside of the cathedral and of the statues on the grounds. He stayed there while I went across the street to the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum. It was all modern art, interesting, but not my favorite. One artist I liked at one of the galleries was Ethelinda. Her work was realistic so Charlie liked it too. Her subjects are mostly horses but she also depicts American Indians in native dress. Those paintings and lots of others were stunning. I would love to just have pictures of them. Oh well. After visiting the cathedral, Charlie took a break and I did some shopping. Charlie hung out in the Plaza and listened to some street musicians, and watched a cowboy with two blue heelers pose for pictures. One of the dogs was content to hang on the saddle in a bag. Charlie also struck up a conversation with a retired Air Force officer; so he did okay while I was off spending money. I walked up behind Charlie just as he was calling me on the phone to see if I was ready to go. We were both ready to head back to the bus stop since I had walked myself out, and Charlie had run out of things to do in the Plaza. Sunday morning we got an early start and headed for the Bandelier National Monument. I suppose it is a monument, but it is also a forest with camping. We were too early for camping, but we hiked up to the ruins of cliff dwellings that were occupied by Indians four hundred years ago. The ruins were first occupied about 1250 A.D. The houses might have held between 1,500 and 2,000 people. It is not known why they abandoned the cliffs. It was a fairly long climb with lots of steps to get up to the dwellings. There were some beautiful rock formations near the cliffs too. I took my walking stick along, and Charlie took lots of pictures. Because he takes so many pictures, it is hard for me to pick only one or two to represent the places we have visited. So, instead I pick 15 or 20 pictures! I have started a second slideshow album because the first one has gotten so big. I hope you are enjoying reading our notes and looking at the pictures as much as I am enjoying putting them on the blog. I know it is a lot of stuff but I can't seem to help myself. We kept driving north and went through Los Alamos. We actually drove onto the main facility after being stopped and searched at the gate. The guard said they conduct random searches but that they target RVs! The road we were on took us right through, we did not intend to go there. We then drove on to the town and stopped at the science museum. I watched a couple of short films about the stewardship of America's nuclear weapons and the history of Los Alamos. Charlie slept through one and he didn't show up for the other. There were lots of interactive exhibits, and I think he enjoyed those. We drove and drove through more mountains and went through Taos to a campground in Questa New Mexico. On the way the cruise control quit working. What in the world will happen next? Actually, what happened next was Charlie topped off our water tank at the Questa campground and then saw that there are clumps of dirt in the campground's water. So now we can't drink the water in our tank. We didn't drink it anyway, but now we really can't. About the only good thing we can say about the RV now is that it is comfortable to sleep in. That is important though. The Questa campground is kind of like camping in someone's backyard. In fact that is what we are doing. There are a few other campers here, a couple of them are permanent. We are at 7,461 feet here and we have some nice mountain views. There is some snow on the mountaintops, and it is cold here too. At first we didn't have wifi but they fixed it so now we are both sitting here on the Internet waiting for it to warm up outside.