Bound for Santa Fe

 U.S. Road Trip 2013

Part Three

Our second major stop on our USRT13 (or U.S. Road Trip 2013) was Santa Fe. I'm not ashamed to say that I've wanted to come here since I heard Jack Kelly sing "Santa Fe" in Newsies when I was twelve. I was sure then that Santa Fe was a destination for the bold and courageous, but now as an adult I find southwestern history so important. As I studied up, I realized that this would be a great place to notice new styles of architecture. 

Our first stop purely by accident was the Santa Fe Trail building, constructed as a memorial to New Mexican regional architecture of the seventeenth and eighteenth century. A inquired immediately "why don't the buildings have roofs?"

We spent the a couple hours we had at the central plaza. The Palace of the Governors housed the outpost, territory, and state government for 300 years. Additionally, it has served as trading station for even longer. We shopped for souvenirs and enjoyed the little details of the city, including all of the trumpet vine and wrought iron.

 My main goal for our stop there was to see three churches of note, all of unique historical significance. The first is a fully functioning Catholic church near the town center. It is beautiful and we looked for ways that their church is like our LDS chapels. The kids' behavior inside was impressive--they seemed to understand the reverence required.

 We also visited the Loretto Chapel so that the kids would see more stained glass windows (which aren't typical in our chapels) and the famed nail-less spiral staircase.

We didn't make it inside the third church, the Mission San Miguel, the oldest church in the U.S, built over four hundred years ago, but I think our kids got the idea.