Our next stop took us to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We stayed at the first of our casino resorts, the Route 66 Casino and RV Resort. This was a beautiful resort with lots of amenities, gorgeous views, and of course the casino.
While there, we took a ride up to Santa Fe to check out the town and see some of the beautiful cathedrals. We visited the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi it was as gorgeous inside as it is outside.
We also visited the Loretto Chapel. This is an amazing place with a story that is full of mystery. When it was completed in 1878, there was no access to the choir loft 22 feet above the floor. Local carpenters explained to the Sisters of the chapel that there was no way to put in a staircase without impacting the already small seating area in chapel. They would have to use a ladder. The Sisters didn’t like that answer, but they didn’t know what else to do, so they prayed to St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters for help. Help arrived in the form of a man with a nothing more than a donkey and some tools. After a few months, he had built a beautiful spiral staircase. The staircase has been named the ‘Miraculous Staircase’. It has ‘two 360 degree turns with no visible means of support’. To this day, the design and construction methods have the experts scratching their heads. You can read more about Loretto Chapel and the staircase here. https://www.lorettochapel.com/
Here is a look at some of the spectacular sights we saw as we traveled across New Mexico.
Before you ask, yes, it was hot. But hey, it was summer time. Death Valley was more than I expected, the most interesting part was the diversity of the park. I thought that it was just a big, hot valley, but not so much. There is actually a lot of diversity to the terrain.
We checked out several different areas including; Zabriskie Point, that reminded us of the Badlands, the Mesquite Flat...
After beautiful Bryce Canyon, we headed to the last of the 'mighty five' National Parks in Utah, Zion National Park. This park is a little different from many of the ones that we have been to so far. Most of the parks have a scenic route with various pullouts and...
So we thought we had seen the best that Utah National Parks had to offer, and then we went to Bryce Canyon. I can not even begin to describe the beauty in this National Park. The park has an 18 mile scenic drive, with the first 3 miles of the drive called the Bryce...
We continued our journey through southern Utah over to Capital Reef NP. Looking at the map below, our travels took us north of Arches and Canyonlands up to Interstate 70. We headed south and traveled along the western side of Canyonlands NP.
On our way ov...
Very interesting sites. Lots of great memories for the future.
What a great journey!
Looks like Cole likes the cathedrals, too!