I've been fascinated with this little chapel since I first discovered it back in the day, that day being sometime around 2008. It's well hidden and most regular visitors to Old Town don't even know it's there. I feel like it exists in a slanty dimension and will reveal itself on a need to know basis.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Chapel was built in 1976 for the students of Sagrada Art Studios, giving them a place to pray as a group. The project was headed up by Sister Giotto Moots, making this a chapel built by nuns that is not a church.

That's right.
Not a church. 
Which is why I like it.

For me, the biggest attraction is the large round window depicting the phases of the moon. In case you were wondering, the window also has a name. It's official title is Feast Days Of The Virgin and Phases Of The Moon. FYI, nowadays the window is barely attached so don't lean on it, touch it, breathe on it, or look at it funny. Be respectful.

Over the years, I have shot more portrait sessions in and around this chapel than I can count but I never noticed, until viewing these images that I shot with my phone, that there are spots in the wall on either side of the big window that have been closed up. Once upon a time there were two other windows in that wall. According to the chapel website, these windows are now in storage but it doesn't say when they were removed. It may have been after the dumpster fire in 2010 that spread to the roof of the chapel and caused a good deal of smoke damage, but the website doesn't specify.

In other news, the chapel is also haunted and is a featured location on the Old Town Ghost Tour. It has also been visited by paranormal investigators from across the country. I'm not usually there at night but visitors have claimed to see the apparition of a "woman in black" who sits on the built-in benches in the main room either meditating or praying. I don't think anyone has died in this chapel but the now quaint tourist-trap that is Old Town has a violent history. Long before the art galleries and Kokopelli incense burners, this area was very much The Wild West so it doesn't seem far fetched to think that an Old Town ghost would make itself at home in this friendly chapel.

Our Lady Of Guadalupe Chapel is open to the public. Anyone may go there to oogle the round window, look for ghosts, or to pray. The chapel website bills the location as a wedding venue and I suppose that could work so long as the wedding does not require guests or chairs.

For more information about Our Lady Of Guadalupe, visit their website by clicking here.

​All photos shot with Motorola MotoX4 and edited with Snapseed.

If there were one question to sum up the area known as Meadow Lake, it would be, "What happened here?"  You could look in any direction and ask this question dozens of times.  For starters, there is a man-made lake that was built who knows when or why and was closed for reasons that remain mysterious. Aside from that, run down, abandoned, gutted and often burned mobile homes are strewn across the desert like forgotten dominoes, but right next door could be a beautiful and well maintained home.

And then there's this house.

By any standard of measure, this house would've been considerably nicer than most anything else in the area. For one thing, it's actually a spacious site-built home but then there's also the enclosed courtyard and the in-ground pool. No one up here has an in-ground pool.

And then one day, the whole thing went to hell. From the looks of things, I would guess ruination day was around ten years ago.

As I approach the entrance to the courtyard, the ground is absolutely covered with every manner of thing from the house. There are clothes and shoes and toys and trash..., soo much trash. Aside from this small stuff, furniture is cast about all over the place. There are several couches sitting in the yard.

I tried to find a news story that could explain what happened but came up empty handed. It looks to me like the residents of the house did not salvage any of their belongings after the fire. As you can see in the photos, the house was completely destroyed, and these people just walked away.

Or did they?  

It's possible, likely even, that they didn't survive the fire. It's also possible that the fire was not an accident, making whatever happened here a crime as opposed to just an unfortunate event.

Why was nothing cleaned up? Why was nothing rebuilt? If they survived, I would assume they had home-owners insurance but you know what they say about assuming. Where did they go and who owns the land now? 

So many questions...

What happened here?

All photos shot with Motorola MotoX4 and edited with Snapseed.

An easily overlooked stop on the Turquoise Trail road trip, Cerrillos is literally a living ghost town. At least six or seven people still live here and they even put up historical markers providing interesting information on the town's ancient buildings. 

Most tourists will want to visit Madrid, which is just a few miles to the south. Madrid has fun things like restaurants, art galleries, and coffee shops and is welcoming to visitors so long as they spend money don't stray off the main road. Should one decide to venture off the road with pavement, the hills suddenly have eyes and you could easily be cursed by a stray dog, disappearing through a portal to the nether world, never to be seen or heard from again. 

And then there's Cerrillos.

There's nothing for tourists to do here so the whole town has eyes. Everywhere you go, someone is watching, possibly living and possibly not, but they'll let you know if step out of line.

The ghosts of Cerrillos are surely unimpressed by flashy jewelry and pretentious enlightenment so, if that's your bag, just drive on to Santa Fe.

​All images shot with a Motorola MotoX4 and edited with Snapseed.

The historic marker was on around on the back end of this house but I didn't go back there due to the extremely shady looking fellow who was crawling around on the train tracks. I wanted to know, but I didn't want to know that bad.

The last time I photographed this abandoned house in Golden, NM was about ten years ago. In fact, my profile picture for this blog (the one with the guitar) is from that trip and was shot right there on the front porch.

The house was abandoned then too but didn't look nearly as dangerous as it does now. As you can see, there are cinder blocks piled up on the bottom step and the entrance to the porch is blocked to deter looky-loos like myself from getting too close. The house looks like it could fall down at any moment.

Anyway, while photographing the house the first time, a man named Leroy suddenly materialized. I don't remember if he said that he owned the house but he did say that he was the (likely self proclaimed) Mayor of Golden. He bent my ear for a long time, going on about all kinds of wacky shit - but he never said "You're trespassing" or "get off my porch" so I waited him out and he did eventually leave so I could get my photos.

It didn't occur to me at the time but I guess it's possible that Leroy may have been an apparition and, of course, my apologies if I've offended anyone who knows Leroy, (now the former?) Mayor of Golden. He sure is chatty though, isn't he?

This church was built in 1839 and has been through a few renovations. I have found photos on the internet showing the church in all white and with slightly different exterior styling. That being said, it is once again in dire need of some maintenance. I didn't photograph it, but there is a sizable hole opening up in the exterior adobe wall on the west side of the building.

Unfortunately for me, I arrived about 20 minutes before mass was to begin. So, while I'm trying to go exploring, the parking lot is filling with cars and a steady stream of people are walking through the yard to enter the church. It probably would've been better to show up on a weekday.

All images shot with a Motorola MotoX4 and edited with Snapseed.

The Loretto Chapel looks distinctly out of place as Santa Fe's only miniature Gothic cathedral. A curious study in the allocation of resources, The Loretto Chapel is very tall, very ornate, was very expensive to build (except the staircase, that was free) and seats a sparse 129 people. 

Everyone comes here to see the "Miraculous Staircase" which is, in fact, miraculous but the rest of the chapel is pretty neat too. The staircase proves to be difficult to photograph due to the crowd of looky-loos gathered around it at all times. So, while they do that, I cruise around and see the other stuff.

Construction of the Chapel began in 1873 and was completed in 1878. The construction was wrought with various setbacks including, but not limited to, the premature death of the architect and at some point near the end of the project it began to dawn on people that there was no way to reach the choir loft. 

The nuns were not hip to the idea of a fire station pole or a rock climbing wall so they set about looking for a solution. After praying for ten straight days a scraggly fellow showed up leading a donkey and carrying nothing but a t-square, saw, and hammer. He said he had come to build the staircase. It took him six months to complete and what he created was both awesome and terrifying. 

A spiral staircase rising 20 feet with no nails, no center column, and no handrail, that makes two complete 360 degree turns and resembles strand of DNA.  Did I mention no handrail? Obviously, the the staircase was far too scary to climb with no handrail so the braver nuns scooted to and from the choir loft on their hands and knees while others "miraculously" developed laryngitis and opted for janitorial duty.

The handrail was added later.

For more information about the history of the Loretto Chapel, visit their website here.

All of these photos are shot with my Motorola Moto X4 and edited with Snapseed.

The stained glass windows in the Loretto Chapel are incredible! They were purchased in 1876 from the DuBois Studio in Paris. Upon completion, the glass was sent from Paris to New Orleans by ship and then transported to St. Louis, MO by paddle boat. From there, the windows completed their journey via covered wagon on the Old Santa Trail to the chapel. With bubble wrap yet to be invented, I can't help but wonder how much glass may have been damaged in transit and I think the chapel is lucky to have received any windows at all. And now, 142 years later, they are still amazing!

Try as I might to get the obvious wide-angle photo of the chapel interior featuring the staircase, the number of looky-loos on this day were making it impossible. Gathered around it like pigeons waiting for french fries at the door of McDonald's, they were clearly unconcerned about ruining my shot.

​After several impatient moments, I noticed that no one was standing behind the stairs by the confessional booth. Well eureka, lucky break for me!