San Jose de los Jemez

FYI - "Red or Green" is the color of the chili sauce. Green chilies ripen into red chilies but you can make spicy sauce from either one. You can't assume that red or green is hotter because it depends on the way it is prepared...so you have to ask. Little Anita's green is milder than the red.

I spent the morning with the contractor's assistant and looked at a model home they have. I have compiled a loose leaf binder of things I like and some questions so we went over that for a couple hours. Everything I've seen is way beyond my price range but they assure me that they can do as much or as little as I want and the small size I want isn't a problem if we can find the right lot. I really like their finished product even though it is a 21st century rendition of a prehistoric mud hut.

This afternoon I went up to Jemez which is about a 45 mile drive. It is a pretty drive but the Jemez Mountains are jaw-dropping beautiful. Each turn reveals an amazing view. The Jemez Creek is a trout stream (Yes!) and there is a lot of stream access. The road goes through the Zia and Jemez pueblos which are interesting. Some of the families live in a more traditional manner and others are more modern. They don't look prosperous by our standards but I'm not sure how they would judge that sort of thing. The high school and some of the other service buildings are modern and look comparable to any other town.


Finally you get to Jemez Monument which is the site of a Spanish mission church (San Jose de los Jemez) located in the old pueblo of Giusewa. The friars got to the Jemez area in 1598 and the original church was built in 1601 and a second larger church was built in 1621. The ruins of the second church are very impressive. There were 3,000 Indians living at the mission at one time. The pueblo revolt of 1680 drove the Spanish out and some of the buildings were converted to kivas when the population returned, briefly, to the old pueblo religion.


Eventually the population moved twelve miles down the valley to the present site of Jemez Pueblo.


That's it for today...there are more pictures posted below.