Santa Fe ~ The Palace

 

On Friday we decided to drive back up to Santa Fe to get closer to our 300th Letterbox Find Goal. We only had 4 more boxes to find to reach that goal and we were determined. We knew there were still enough letterboxes in Santa Fe to help us reach our goal, and well, we just love Santa Fe, especially during the holidays, so we made our way north.

Since Jax didn’t go up with us last time, he wanted to see the little reproduction of the Italian Flour Mill House on Museum Hill, so we stopped there right after we found our first letterbox. And I took a few photos of the kidlets, of course.

Looks like the Keebler Elf moved to a new address. Maybe trees weren't good enough?

A tight squeeze!

Then as we were driving off Museum Hill, I spied an art installation that seemed perfect to challenge my camera skills. The Old Santa Fe Trail. Perfect since we were driving down the that same road.

 

 

 

 

After leaving Museum Hill, we headed down to the famous Canyon Road, a narrow road lined with art galleries and something interesting and beautiful to see every direction you look. We located our second letterbox on this road and afterwards we drove over to the Plaza Library, where we located our third, very cleverly hidden letterbox.

After we found that box, we walked down the block to the Plaza, where we were to enter the thick adobe walled compound of The Palace of the Governors.

Outside, on the front portal, Native Americans sell their handmade jewelry, dolls, and pottery.

Built in 1610, The Palace of the Governors is the oldest continuously occupied public building in the United States.

At night.

Originally constructed in the early 17th century as Spain's seat of government for what is today the American Southwest, the Palace of the Governors chronicles the history of Santa Fe, as well as New Mexico and the region. This adobe structure, now the state's history museum, was designated a Registered National Historic Landmark in 1960 and an American Treasure in 1999.

(All decorated for Christmas)

 

Our first stop was a visit to The Palace Print Shop .  The Print Shop offers visitors an opportunity to relive the lively environment of 19th century publishing inside a working press and bindery shop, where working machinery clanks and groans and the pungent smell of ink hangs in the air. More than just a living history museum, award-winning, limited edition books are published here on historic presses each year.

We were there to learn more about this interesting process and to ask for a letterbox hidden within the shop. What fun!

After we logged in and wandered around enjoying all of the exhibits and machinery, we headed back out to the 400 year old courtyard, which we later learned was the location where over 300, 000 (or was it million?) animal bones were discovered buried. Apparently those who lived within the Palace ate well, as most of the bones were domesticated animals, such as cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, horses as well as rabbits.

We joined a guided tour and learned about Lew Wallace, who wrote the final parts of his book Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ in this building while serving as territorial governor in the late 1870s.

He remembered later in life that it was at night, during a severe thunderstorm in the spring of 1879, after returning from a tense meeting with Billy the Kid in Lincoln County, when he wrote the climactic crucifixion scenes of the novel.

Photos below taken of the Palace Chapel.

We also learned more about the Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1680, which was an uprising of many the Pueblo People against Spanish colonization, which brought disease, slavery and repression to the Native People of New Mexico.

(A “Mud” Wagon)

The Pueblo Indians killed twenty-one of the province's forty Franciscan Missionaries, and another three hundred and eighty Spaniards, including men, women, and children. Spanish settlers fled to Santa Fe, the only Spanish city, where they tried to take refuge inside the Palace’s thick adobe walls.

(Horse-drawn Hearse)

During the Pueblo Revolt, the Pueblo Indians acquired horses from the Spanish, thus contributing further to the vast spreading of horses to the Plains tribes.

 

One of my favorite exhibits was the:

Tesoros de Devocion

Separated from the Viceroyalty in Mexico City by distance, geography, and climate, New Mexico's settlers and their descendents produced a unique culture combining traditions of the Old and the New World.

(Rawhide violin and stirrup)

(The Vara, the official unit of measurement)

 

No better example of this tradition can be found than santos (saints), New Mexican images of religious devotion. Derived from broad traditions of Christian images, New Mexican santeros (saint-makers) "translated" Old World images into a distinctive New Mexican santo style.

Three types of santos are generally found: bultos - three-dimensional figures carved of wood, coated with yeso (white gypsum), and painted with water-soluble paint; retablos - paintings on yeso-coated pine panels; and paintings on animal skins with water-soluble paint.

The religious artwork was amazing and I could have spent several hours just admiring all the details.

(Terrible photo through the glass, but beautifully made saddle. Imagine the stories it could tell!)

We learned so much more and we spent over two hours just exploring the exhibits and displays. I was happily surprised that my kids weren’t bored, but rather totally focused and interested in everything they saw.

(A peek below to the original walls and flooring)

Jax especially enjoyed the hands-on virtual computer models and detailed floor plans of the Palace.

They didn’t want to leave until finally our tummies began to growl.

So off we went to The Burrito Company, where the twinlings and I had Fajita Burrito Platters with beans, rice and posole.

And Jen enjoyed a humongous (kid size?!) hamburger platter. Mmmm!

 

 

After our delicious lunch we went and got our van out of the parking garage and moved it closer to the plaza, because the garage closed at 5pm. Street parking is free in Santa Fe after 5pm anyway.

As we were sitting there in my van, a well-dressed young man, busy gabbing on his cell phone backed up so close to my van that there was barely enough room to fit a person between the two bumpers. I was surprised when the oblivious man, still yapping away on his phone, got out of his car and started off down the sidewalk. I rolled my window down and politely asked if he could move his car a little bit forward and he flippantly answered over his shoulder, “You’ve got room” and turned his back to us and kept walking away.

My kids and I just about had to pull our jaws off the ground. What a jerk! I was so annoyed at his rudeness that I just had to get out and take photos of his inconsiderateness.

(Look at all the room in front of his car, up to the white line, that he could have used, instead of backing up into my van. He should have parked in the center of his parking space)

Thankfully I had made sure to park in the center of my space, so I would still have some space to back up and get out when the time came. And we didn’t have to leave until a few hours later anyway.

(You can’t see the white line that marks the edge of our parking spaces because he parked right on top of it!)

He sure taught my kids an important lesson, of that I should be grateful……how NOT to act when sharing the road with other people.

But best of all, the rest of the night would prove to be so fantabulous as to erase the rudeness of that one inconsiderate person.

(Sneak Peek ~ Santa Fe Plaza)

 

To be Continued…………….