I was down in Santa Fe, New Mexico this week for meetings.

I left on Halloween and had a challenging time trying to get there. My original flight out of Toronto on American Airlines was cancelled due to mechanical problems. I was able re-book on the noon flight to Dallas and got the last seat on the connection to Santa Fe, although the connection was tight. I was traveling with three colleagues, who ended up having to go through Albuquerque. In the end I made my connection, although their system said I was still in Toronto, and even though I was standing there with a ticket, they were reluctant to let me board.

Santa Fe is the oldest and highest state capital in the USA.

I stayed at the La Fonda on the Plaza Hotel, it sits on the location of various inns since 1609. The current hotel was built in 1922. It sits at the end of the Old Santa Fe Trail.

Just down the street is the Loretto Chapel. It is a former Roman Catholic Church that is now a privately owned museum. It is known for its unusual helix shaped spiral staircase.

When the church was built there was no staircase to the choir loft and the nuns had to use a ladder. The story goes:

“The nuns prayed for St. Joseph’s intercession for nine straight days. On the day after their novena ended a shabby-looking stranger appeared at their door. He told the nuns he would build them a staircase but that he needed total privacy and locked himself in the chapel for three months. He used a small number of primitive tools including a square, a saw and some warm water and constructed a spiral staircase entirely of non-native wood. The identity of the carpenter is not known for as soon as the staircase was finally finished he was gone. Many witnesses, upon seeing the staircase, feel it was constructed by St. Joseph himself, as a miraculous occurrence.”

This was a picture of what the staircase would have looked like originally with no handrails.

Route 66 use to run by the hotel.

Down the road from the hotel was the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. It is the mother church of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.

Across the street is the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts.

A statue of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha (1656–1680) who was the first North American Indian to be beatified, and was canonized in October 2012

The church was built between 1869-86, it was elevated to basilica by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.

There is a large collection of original art in the hotel, including all the guest rooms.

The Basilica in the late afternoon sun.

A lot of the buildings and houses are Adobe style.

The oldest church structure in the US is in Santa Fe. It is the San Miguel Mission. It was built between 1610-1626. Mass is offered at the church every Sunday.

Across the street is the “Oldest house in the US”, it dates back to 1646.

The back of the San Miguel Mission.

The front of the oldest house.

The weather for the week wasn’t much warmer than Mississauga, but it was sunny every day.

The Loretto Chapel.

The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century transportation route through central North America that connected Independence, Missouri with Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was eventually replace by the Santa Fe Railroad in the 1880’s.

There are a lot of shops and art galleries. Santa Fe ranks third in art sales behind New York and LA. There is a street called Canyon Road that has over 100 art galleries.

The hotel was right on the Plaza.

This sculture is called “Not afraid to look” by Charles Rencountre.

In Santa Fe there is a car service called Bolt Ride. The cars are the Tesla Model S. It is pretty cool. We used it to get to the airport on Friday.

The car was driving it itself, and if the driver made a signal change, the car would change lanes on its own.

Our flight out of Santa Fe was delayed 40 minutes, but it was better than the flight before us. Their plane is the one in the picture, the flight out of Dallas had to turn back for a cockpit issue, then once it landed the same problem occurred, so they were trying to repair it. Our plane came in and we departed before theirs. They were close to a 3 hour delay.

The Santa Fe airport is pretty small.

The Dallas to Toronto leg was on time and only half full. Although there was an airfield lighting issue at Pearson, we didn’t experience any delays.