Home is Where Your Story Begins

For Easter this year our entire family was together.  We went to church at First Christian Church in Logan, and it was wonderful to have us all together there.  Easter is one of my favorite holidays, and the main reason is we’re together every year in the same church service on that day.  It’s cold here today–this morning it was about 26 degrees, and during this past week it’s snowed, so the dress for today was WARMTH.  The kids at church were so cute.  Today Jacob Rollins (Tim and Carol’s grandson) came down for his first children’s sermon.  He was so well behaved.  He sat right in Charles’s lap and just gazed up at him.  Our choir did well, and I can’t wait for the cantata, which had to be postponed.  It will be performed next week.  Charles preached really well today.  It was one of his best sermons ever, and he just seemed so happy and enthusiastic.  More so than his usual self.

After church we went to Easter dinner at the convention center.  The food was good, and the company better.  We had one of the round tables, which is my favorite way to sit when we’re all together, because we can all participate in the entire conversation.  The hotel section of the lodge is now open, and it has a beautiful entrance room, with a fireplace and comfortable seating.  We went down there and checked it out. 

Overall it was a terrific Easter day.  I came home and had a 3-hour nap, and Ernie played on the computer and with our music collection.  As always, the best part of any holiday is the family, and we were abundantly blessed today.

Today was our last day in Santa Fe.  We went on the Santa Fe Southern Railway today.  It was a 1.5 hour train ride up into the mountains surrounding Santa Fe.  We went on a 2.5 - 3 % grade up into the high desert.  It was a terrific way to see the country, and see how other people live.  We traveled through some unique towns.  One, Eldorado, is a new community that works to look very traditional.  People who move there can only build Adobe houses, or traditional pitch-roof homes that are native to that part of New Mexico.  All power and service lines are underground, so when you look at the landscape there is nothing “modern” to destroy the scenery.  In that community the standard is to NOT landscape.  Whatever plants, trees, shrubs, etc., that grows in your yard must remain there — again to enhance the natural look of the place.

We went to Larmy, which was an old west town on the railway back in the day, but today only about 150 people live there.  We saw about 6 of them.  We had lunch there, and a 45 minute layover, then it was back on the train for another 1.5 hour trip back out of the desert.  Well, I should say that many people had lunch there–Ernie and I didn’t.  We were going to get the Bar-B-Que Beef Brisket Sandwiches, but they ran out, so we opted just to wait to eat till we got back to Santa Fe.

The train was wonderful.  It had very comfortable cars, and between the cars there was a flat car which was open, so you could walk out on it and stand there and enjoy the scenery and take pictures.  Our car attendant told us that the desert is about as green as it ever gets at this time of the year — so as you look at the pictures know that’s about as green as it will be.  The dark pine trees are Pinions.  You’ll notice a bunch of dead ones there, also.  Our car attendant told us they’re being killed off by the Pinion Beetle. 

After the trip we had a late lunch/early dinner at an Italian restaurant — probably the best food we’ve had all trip, and that’s saying something!  We went back up to the plaza at Santa Fe and looked around one last time.  We’ll be starting the return piece of our trip tomorrow.  I’m getting homesick, even though I’ve been having a great time.

The second day of Santa Fe was a lot of fun.  Ernie and I got up and had breakfast at the hotel, then we started site seeing.  We visited the “Sanbusco Center” which is a renovated warehouse district.  It’s being changed into a shopping area.  They had the world’s biggest Borders book store — at least the biggest Borders I’ve ever seen.  I wanted to go to the “fine pens” store, but they were closed.  We did visit a pet store.  We got Peanut and Ginger new collars and a leash.  Ginger’s of course has a bell — since she is Ginger Jingles.  Peanut’s and hers are both very New Mexico in looks — red, with lots of geometric designs in bright colors.  The’ll be so cute.

For the rest of the day we toured up in Santa Fe.  We went to Loretto Chapel.  It’s a neat place.  It was a church of course, and like most churches of its kind it was build so the  choir members had to use a ladder to get into the loft.  The problem was the church was for the sisters of Loretto, and so they were not able to use a ladder to get to the choir, yet there wasn’t room for a regular set of steps in the church.  The sisters made a Novena to pray for a solution to their problem, and on the last day of the Novena a carpenter named John appeared at their church, and told them he could make the stairs they needed.  He worked for 6 months; he used only a hand saw, a hammer, a carpenter’s square, and water to shape the wood.  On the day after he finished the steps they planned to have a celbration and honor his work, but he was gone the next morning.  He had left no bill for service, so they were never able to pay for his work.  He had also left no expenses at the local planing mill for the lumber he used.  It had never been charged to the sister’s accounts.  The stair still stands in the chapel, and it is amazing.  Even today moder engineers and architects cannot explain the stairs.  It makes 3 complete 360 degree turns, and it has no center or wall supports.  It is free standing and it should never work, and certainly not have been able to have been built a few hundred years ago.

Later we spent time around the plaza, and visited the Native Americans who are set up for trading every day on the plaza.  Ernie bought a fabulous silver cross necklace for himself –the cross is made out of feathers.  The artist who made it told us it’s sacred to his people as well as ours.  He said that we use the cross to pray, and Natives use feathers to pray — and by making a cross out of feathers it’s a symbol that our cultures aren’t that different, and we can find ways to come together.  Ernie wasn’t even at our conference this weekend — but it sure sounds like a lot of what we were hearing at the conference.

We had a late lunch early dinner at a restaurant called “Tomastinas” which was highly recommended to us.  The food was good, but honestly the salsa for the chips was so hot I nearly cried, and I definately DID get mad that someone let me eat something so spicy it hurt me that badly.

We spent some time driving around the city and looking at houses and architecture.  We accidentally found the Scottish Rite Masonic Center, which was really suprising.  Unfortunately it’s only open for tours on Thursday and Saturday, so we couldn’t get inside the building to see the cathedral there.  That was a little bit disappointing.

Tomorrow we have scheduled a train ride — similar to Cass scenic railroad.  We’re looking forward to that. — T