Taos - Tuesday, 6/20/06

i decided when i got up early in the morning to go and visit yet another mission. this one was called san francisco de asis. pam stayed behind to make herself beautiful.

it was such a nice morning. the church was almost within walking distance of the b & b, and it was surrounded by lots of small adobe homes. it was like a little village built around this old mission.

there were a lot of people beginning work around the church, and much to my chagrin, the door was locked. one of the workers came over and told me that the priest had gone to albuquerque and he seemed surprised that the church was closed. however, he offered to find someone to open it up so i could go in, and eventually a woman did come. while waiting for her, i took a number of pictures, and helped an older mexican man, mr. martinez, drag a big hose around to the front of the building. by the looks of things, they were doing a lot of landscaping and repairing. most of the people were either indians or mexicans. i didn't realize at the time that what they were doing was mudding the church. apparently, this church is one of the last ones in the u.s. that still has actual adobe on the outside of the building. the rest, according to louis, have stucco on them. once a year the parishioners "mud" the church, and apparently the priest takes a powder to albuquerque. i did get to go inside and it was very quiet. the walls are apparently 4 feet thick. because no one was there, i was able to take some pictures of the inside. i also took a number of pictures of the grottoes with saints in them, including st. francis and st. claire.

by the time i got back to the b & b, pam had made her way to the gourmet breakfast. louis had cooked up blueberry/banana/pecan pancakes. there were also muffins and fruit. louis and catherine came around and talked to us and that was where we learned about the mudding as well as the history of the hacienda and their backgrounds. they had been at martha's vineyard running a place before they came to taos. after breakfast louis showed us the water sluice in the middle of the hacienda and he told us about how you have to have water rights. apparently, up the hill water will be released, and louis has to go and open a gate (which he showed us), which lets the water through his property and down to the people below who need it. some people do not have those water rights, but they tap in anyway.

we packed up, and i drove pam by the church. by the time we got there, the parishioners had mixed up the mud in wheelbarrows and were up on the side of the church applying it. we left there and we went into taos looking for the desert blend store so we could buy some of the lotion. they weren't open yet, so we walked around the shops looking for jewelry and stuff. bought some tin art in one store, and we ended up in a jewelry store where we bought a lot of stuff. pam finally found a kokipelli slide. i also bought a little medallion of navaho silver and another one for meg. we also got our introduction to white turquoise here. we bought a pair of earrings to split for our 5oth birthday piercings. it was a good thing we got them, because i never saw any other white turquoise earrings for the rest of the trip. as a matter of fact, we didn't see a whole lot of it, as we were told it sold out fast. after the desert blends place opened up, we bought bottles of the lotion, which is made from all local plants. while we were there, the owner came in with a delivery. she apparently gathers all of the plants and has the actual lotion manufactured in albuquerque.

we left taos around noon, pretty far behind schedule, as we had hoped to make it to four corners that day. we didn't. but we had fun not getting there!