Chimayo

We have returned! Intentions have been prayed for*! Wow, that was a LONG DAY!

Let's see how it went, shall we?

I was shooting for an 8 a.m. departure, and finally managed to get everyone in the van at 8:15. Not bad.

A. is a great proponent of the backroads style of road tripping. That is, he avoids freeways if possible. It is possible to avoid the freeways to get to Chimayo, if you're willing to drive winding mountain roads. That is what we did to get there.

This route brought us to Fort Union, which was supposed to be a field trip destination for the elementary children a couple of years ago when the wildfires closed it down. 

There are very extensive ruins to explore, but I stayed with the non-ambulatory child at the (quite thorough) little museum while A. took the others to run amongst the ruins.

These smaller ruins are right when you drive in. The rest of them are farther back and require a lot of walking.

Then it was back in the van for a rather, um, nauseating ride. At least, for those of us in the back. I had been sitting in the middle seat with two of the children, but had to switch with one of the children who was all the way in the back and found the curvy road to be too much for his stomach.

I had to admit, though, that the nausea was worth it for the spectacular views.

This was the best photo I could get of them from my seat in the back.

We stopped one more time, in Trampas, to see the church there and to eat lunch. Construction on this church started in 1760, which makes the church older than the country in which it currently sits.

We couldn't go in, but I did admire the door.

After lunch eaten standing around the van--sausage and cheese sandwiches--we all piled back in for the last part of the trip to Chimayo. Everyone was VERY over driving at this point, as we had been traveling for five hours already.

After turning off the main road in Chimayo, everyone but me and the non-ambulatory child got out to walk the rest of the way to the church. I drove the van the rest of the way and met them there when they arrived. They were disappointed because what I thought was about a three-mile walk, based on the maps I had seen, ended up being only about a mile. They did not consider this a sufficient distance for a real pilgrimage, but given the amount of traffic on the road before we turned off, I think it's still as far as we would have wanted them to walk.

Coming up from the parking area is kind of confusing, because the church itself is above you. All we saw at first was a garden area with lots of statues and an open area with an altar and benches where they celebrate Mass outside sometimes.

This side of the garden area runs along a stream, which is always very exciting to see here in dry New Mexico.

Also in this part, there was a giant old tree that died. Instead of cutting it all the way down, though, they cut it so maybe twenty feet of it is still standing. This is being carved into a depiction of Jesus' Ascencion, according to the artist, who was working while we were there.

That's the tree in the background there, with scaffolding around it. The artist was using a chainsaw when we saw him, but I must assume he will use more-delicate tools as his work progresses.

To get to the church itself, we walked up a sort of ramp.

The ramp is to the left of this magnificent door. I'm not sure what was behind this door. There was a notable lack of informational materials at this site.

Up we go . . .

The church is quite small and not particularly architecturally appealing from the outside. This is true of most adobe churches. They look like mud-covered mounds, mostly. There was a very nice archway leading into the church courtyard, with a rose climbing over it.

No photos are permitted in the sanctuary, which is as it should be, in my opinion. The style of the church was very much like other old adobe churches I've been in. They're all narrow and long, with wood vaulting at the ceiling. Most are painted in a folk art style, with bright colors, especially on the altar. This one was, as well.

 

This style of decoration is not my favorite. However, I do always appreciate the sacrifice of these people, most of them desperately poor, who spent so much time and probably some of their scarce money to build these churches.

Chimayo is known for its holy dirt, which sounds like a joke, but I assure you it is not. There is a small room off the main sanctuary that has a dirt floor. There is a hole in the floor, with trowels in it, and people go there to dig up the dirt and rub it on whatever it is they need healed. This room used to be accessed through the sanctuary, but now there's an outside door to it, no doubt to mitigate the traffic in the sanctuary.

The room leading into the dirt room is lined with photos of people who have requested prayers for healing, as well as walls of crutches left by those who have been healed. In fact, there are photos all over the site, with signs asking for prayers for everyone in those photos. Although I did say a general prayer for everyone in the photos, I must admit that I couldn't study them in any detail. Too heavy to dwell on for too long.

All of the children said they wished we could have been there for Mass--daily Masses are at 11 a.m.--and I had originally thought we would do that. It didn't work out on this trip, but we'll probably go back for that. Maybe in the summer. You may have noticed the trees all over. I would like to see the site when there are leaves on all the trees.

We ate a very late lunch at the Mexican restaurant right across from the church, and then got back in the van. This time we went back mostly on freeways, through Santa Fe. This brought us through the town of Santa Cruz. There was a sign pointing to the old plaza and church, which of course we had to go see. 

Unsurprisingly, it was an adobe church. A very large adobe church by the name of Santa Cruz de la Canada. We couldn't go in, which was a shame, because I looked up photos of the interior later, and it is spectacular. Construction of this church began in 1733, although it was extensively restored in the late 1800s.

There were men working in the front of it, so this is the only photo I took of it.

We were pretty maxed out on stops at this point, and it was getting kind of late, so we just went home after this. Everyone was very glad to get out of the car when we did get home around 7:30 p.m., but they all agree we should go back, so I guess it was worth the drive for them.

* Several of you are dealing with some very heavy things, and I am very sorry to hear that.