SWCAMBORNE

Our first week in Santa Fe Nurit and I drove up to Los Ojos with Missy the dog. We went up to see the weaving cooperative they have in Los Ojos and the countryside on the way. It was magnificent. We drove into town on the back road and had a beautiful view of the town from above and the local catholic shrine.

On the way up we stopped in an area that was having an art and crafts festival and saw a few of the vendors.

We also passed some spectacular scenery and took some great photos.

Before our trip to Santa Fe we heard an advertisement by the USPS (formerly the Post Office) about how you could go online and forward your mail. No muss no fuss. So we tried it and we have some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that everybody at the post office was really helpful. All of the staff were friendly and genuinely cared about our mail.

The bad news is that the system for forwarding mail is archaic, slow and failed miserably.

On about September 25 we put in a forwarding notice at our local post office. It turns out that it couldn’t be done online. We asked that the mail be forwarded to our address in Santa Fe for all of October. On the first of October Pete our local mail carrier stopped delivering to our house. It was more than a week before any of the mail started arriving in Santa Fe and a week after that before we started to get any of it. The second weeks delay was a result of our not having the key to the USPS mail delivery box at our rental house. After that we got some first class mail but not all of it and none of our magazines.

About mid October we decided to cancel the forwarding order and have our house sitter vet the mail and forward the important stuff. Every attempt we made failed. We failed at the Santa Fe Post Office and at the Pasadena Post Office. We filled out three forms and even got an acknowledgement. But the mail kept going into postal purgatory.
A few days after we got home we talked to Pete, our carrier. Yes he had two tubs of mail for us and he would bring it tomorrow. And he did.

My conclusion is that the people at the post office are very good at their jobs and they care a lot about the mail but the systems aren’t very good. The postal workers know this so they build alternative back door solutions to get the mail delivered.

My recommendation is that you get to know your carrier and be sure to communicate directly with them and don’t believe the ads.

We went to Tent Rocks one very windy day in October.

It was cold but very clear and we had a nice scramble up the canyon and through the very different formations in the area.

Missy the dog was a trooper and only had to be lifted up a few of the highest ledges.

If your in Santa Fe and you are interested in geology be sure to visit this unusual natural formation.

More photos on Flickr

To sojourn means to “live temporarily.” Which is what we did in Santa Fe in October. Santa Fe was a particularly nice place to sojourn but to sojourn anywhere is a particularly nice state to be in. A sojourn is longer than a vacation so there is not a sense of urgency to see and do everything. But it is not taking up permanent residence so there is no need to think about things like house maintenance or the neighbors.

Riestras at La Fonda

So our Santa Fe stay was successful at two levels. We discovered the joy of sojourning and we confirmed our love of Santa Fe.

To see an album of pictures from our trip on Flickr follow this link:

Last month I posted a picture of the Hebrew inscription above the door of the Santa Fe cathedral and promised to find out “how it got there and why.”

I asked about it at Congregation Beit Tikva in Santa Fe when we attended services there and got a bit of an answer.  Beit Tikva is the new temple in Santa Fe and it suited us the best.  Later in the SCKML at PJTC I found the book Jewish Pioneers of New Mexico by Tomas Jaehn.  According to the excellent book “Elizabeth Nordhaus remembers that …on three different occasions Grandfather loaned money to Bishop Lamy to construct the Church…In gratitude the Bishop put the Hebrew inscription above the door of the Cathedral.”

The Grandfather was Abraham Staab a merchant in Santa Fe from 1859 until his death about 1900. Among other thing he founded the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce.
Another question answered.