Santa Fe, New Mexico

Roswell, NM. On our way to Santa Fe we stopped in Roswell. While we were in Roswell, we visited the International UFO Museum and Research Center where we learned all about the alien crash of 1947. A man named William Brazel, who was a foreman at a ranch, found some debris consisting of rubber strips and tinfoil. He told the sheriff and together they searched the area finding more of what Brazel had found earlier on. There are many reports saying that several bodies of what appeared to be aliens were found. One witness reported seeing the bodies packed on dry ice before being shipped to Wright Patterson AFB, in Dayton, Ohio.  Another witness there reported receiving a large package on dry ice. The bodies of the supposed aliens haven’t been seen since.  The government put out several statements saying that Roswell was just the crash site of a government weather balloon.    While there is no sufficient evidence on whether or not this happened, the government definitely went to some extremes to cover it all up. So we definitely know that something did happen, we just don’t know what.   Santa Fe, N.M. The house we are staying at is over 180 years old and just down the street from the Catholic Church where we went to mass on Sunday! While in Santa Fe, we drove to the Loretto chapel. The Loretto chapel is known for the legend about its spiral staircase. The story is that the chapel was built without a staircase to the choir loft. There was no easy way to build a staircase, since it would take up too much room. So the nuns who ran the chapel prayed a Novena, and on the last day, a man came to them and offered to build the staircase. After the staircase was built the man disappeared without a trace or pay. The stairs were an engineering marvel of the time and still are today. As you can see from the photo there is no center support in the spiral staircase, which is what usually holds up a spiral staircases. The nuns believe that it was St. Joseph who built their staircase.   While we were in Santa Fe we also skied at Ski Santa Fe! A great ski mountain with plenty of variety of terrain. One run my dad and I did was a black diamond called Muerte, which in Spanish means death, it was easy. (If you didn’t know greens are the easiest skiing runs, followed by blues, then blacks, then double blacks). One day we went rock climbing at the local rock climbing gym in Santa Fe. Sedona and I are both belay certified in Alaska, so it didn’t take long for us to become certified at this gym. We also did some figure skating at the Genoveva Chavez Community Center ice rink! On our last day in Santa Fe we stopped at a gluten free bakery called Revolution. They had amazing raspberry scones and cinnamon rolls! Los Alamos, N.M. We then drove to Los Alamos which is about a 45 minute long drive. We stopped at Bandalier National Monument and saw the pueblo ruins and cliff dwellings there.