Thursday, December 17, 2020

our lady of light


It felt as though we'd gone on vacation, today!  After our morning walk, we actually went on a drive, to Lamy (which is the nearest Amtrak station - one train in each direction a day, on the Chicago-Los Angeles line).  The Mission Chapel of Our Lady of Light was built in Mission Revival style in 1926 - and it's opposite the station (the current incarnation was built, also in MR style, in 1909) and would have been opposite the El Ortiz Hotel - an early Mary Colter building (1910), like La Posada in Winslow, where we stay so often, and that alas closed in 1942.  The building is no more.  The church remains - but it was deconsecrated in 1994: by that time there were many fewer worshipers there: the little town had declined in numbers as the railway became less and less used, and the building was - is?, though the roof has been replaced - unsafe.  It nearly had a reincarnation in the TV show The Preacher - they filmed the pilot show here, and then reconstructed it on a sound stage down in Albuquerque.

As I said, after all this self-isolation, it felt as though this was an extraordinary adventure.

Lamy is five miles away.

 

No comments:

Post a Comment