Volcanoes, Arches & Immigrants

Today was a day to visit several widely spaced attractions. My plan three weeks ago was to come through this area and visit Acoma Pueblo, El Malpais National Monument and El Morro National Monument. At the time I thought that I would camp at either of the two National Monuments which both have campgrounds. With the snow that has graced the highland areas that plan would have been a bust and as it turns out that I really lucked out with staying here at the Acoma/Sky City Casino. Not only are the accommodations pretty nice but it is a central location that makes seeing the other things pretty easy.

This morning at about 8am, I started for the El Malpais Conservation Area....It gets a little confusing here. There is an El Malpais National Monument and an El Malpais Conservation Area. The Conservation Area is administered by the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and the National Monument area is administered by the National Parks. The areas are adjacent but in some places you can't easily get from one area to the other.

Anyway, I started with the closest, the BLM managed area which is on the eastern edge of the whole complex. This area is much less known and travelled of the two but to me that's a plus. The area includes a huge lava flow, New Mexico's second largest natural arch and a very little known pueblo excavation. I spent about three hours in this area and I don't think I saw more than 10 cars in the whole time.

The lava flow comes from numerous extinct volcanoes that spewed their stuff over 100,000 years ago. I'm guessing that there are several hundred square miles of this stuff and it's all fascinating. It is clearly a lava flow. The curled and misshapen rock is still black with the consistency of cake frosting pushed through a pastry bag. Vegetation still struggles to gain a foothold even after 100,000 years!

La Ventana Arch is classified as New Mexico's second largest natural arch. It was beautiful but it was also a bit of a disappointment to me...not because it wasn't beautiful but because it was deep in a shady canyon that only saw a brief bit of winter sunlight and the snow was so deep that it was not possible to climb up to it. I was really hoping to climb up into the arch and take some pictures from the cave behind the arch. If I've learned anything this trip however, is't to make the best of what you've got so I enjoyed the view from a shadowy distance.

This eastern side of El Malpais also has a minor pueblo excavation known as the Dittert Site. It's not well know or publicized. If you want to visit, you have to go to the BLM visitors center and ask for directions...which I did. The volunteer manning the center was a local Native American who had a lot of archeological experience in the area and we had a great conversation. He gave me directions and said that I should have no problem reaching the site in my truck. It was really isolated (way out in the sticks) down a primitive road (translate=mostly 4 wheel dive road).

When I got to the last turn off before the "primitive road" I started thinking that if I had a problem with the truck I could be in big trouble. The closest human was at an isolated ranch about 3 miles away. I got within about a mile of the side when the road got pretty muddy and boggy. It didn't take me to long to remember a guiding principal of backcountry travel..."Discretion is the better part of valor". That principal has kept me out of deep do-do on quite a number of occasions so I yielded to it and turned around short of my goal. My consolation was the utter isolation of the surrounding area. I'd bet that there were not 100 humans living in a one hundred mile radius of where I turned around. I enjoyed that as I drove back out, twenty five miles to I-40.

That completed the eastern part of my day's adventure. Next was El Malpais National Monument and El Morro National Monument which was about 60 miles from the morning's start. El Malpais National Monument features not only a great area of lava flow but a unique chance to walk into a lava tube. A lava tube is a tunnel in a lava flow. Check here for the scientific description of how they form.

Unfortunately, the sixty mile drive to the west side of El Malpais also brought me up another 1000 feet in elevation. High enough that I was back into the snow zone. Two feet of snow on the ground meant that I would have to miss the lava tube experience so I headed farther west to El Morro.

The snow there was just as deep and I was disappointed that the trail to the ancient pueblo was closed. The trail around Inscription Rock was open however and it proved to be the highlight of the day. It's not too often that you can see personal evidence of living human beings that stretched over a several thousand year time period, side by side but that's what you get at Inscription Rock. Ancient people left pictographs on this massive rock. The Spaniards left their marks too, starting in 1605, and then the American pioneers followed leaving their marks as well.

While I love the ancient evidence of people I must admit that I am equally fascinated by more historical items. I can relate more personally to the carvings on a rock that someone from Baltimore, Md. passed this place 150 years ago or a railroad man looking for a route for to California. Fascinating stuff!

Check out the picture to the left with the black arrow pointing to the date of 1636 and directly below that date are pictographs of bighorn sheep recorded at least 1000 years ago!

After Inscription Rock it was back to Bivouac and making plans for tomorrow. Another weather system is making it's way into New Mexico and Colorado so I just might have to bring this trip to a close and head home....stay tuned.

Thanks for visiting

Cimmaron Canyon PIT

I’m finally back from the archaeological survey project in the Comanche National Grasslands. It was a good time but the weather really did a number on us for a couple of days. I arrived at the Carrizo Creek picnic area on Sunday afternoon and it was hot…in the 80’s with little wind. I slept that night with all the windows in the RV open and even took blankets off the bed.

On Monday all the windows were closed and blankets were back on the bed! Temps dropped into the 40’s with rain and strong winds. We actually tried to do some surveying in the rain but conditions were miserable. We located one site and flagged 10 or 15 artifacts. We finally gave up and went back to camp. It was so windy and cold that by the time our cook, Tina, put the hot food out, it was cold. We ate under a picnic shelter but the wind blew rain everywhere. It was just miserable.

Tuesday, the rain became sporadic but it was still windy and cold. We went back to the site we tried to record on Monday and ended up flagging 50 or more artifacts. It wasn’t surprising to me that we could find more stuff when it wasn’t raining. Wednesday was a little better and we actually got to see the sun some of the time.

By Thursday the temperature warmed up,  the winds died down and it was perfect weather for hiking and discovering.

Discover we did. On Thursday we found 4 rock shelters that had stone flakes and tools in them. We also discovered 6 panels of rock art on a couple of boulders at the base of a cliff. This was somewhat unusual because most of the time rock art is found higher up on the canyon walls. I also discovered an electronic wildlife tracking collar and the skull of a Bighorn Sheep.

 

 

 

 

Friday morning we surveyed close to our campground and found a large site that had over 300 artifacts. It took most of the morning to flag and record all of the items. Only a few of the items were collected and most of the stuff was left right where we found it.

 

 

 

 

 

Another “fun” thing we had to watch out for was the tarantulas. That’s right the big hairy spiders. It seems as if this is the mating season for them and they were unusually active during the day. At one spot we put our packs down and when we retrieved them later on we discovered a tarantula had crawled under one of them.

All in all it was a great week and I got to see some territory that most people will never see. I still haven’t found my “holy grail”, a complete stone point so I guess I’ll just have to sign up for more of these next summer. This was the last of the PITs for this year so I need to get busy and find some other activity to pursue this winter.

Thanks for visiting.

Blogger to Blogger

I began blogging over a year and a half ago. I have really enjoyed the creative aspect of writing posts about what has been going on in my live and having a way that family and friends can keep up with me. Another part of the blogging experience for me, is reading blogs written by others. I have quite a few that I read regularly and a number of these are written by folks that do full time RV-ing. That is they live in their RVs and travel around the country full time. I like to live vicariously through their blogs.

After I posted my last story about possibly getting another RV, I received an email from Lloyd of Wanderin’ Blog fame. I have been reading his blog and following his travels since I started writing my own blog. It just so happened that Lloyd was in the Denver area and he offered to meet with me to discuss fifth wheel trailers or anything else that was of interest to me.

Wow, this was a great opportunity! I jumped at the chance and yesterday afternoon we met at a Starbucks in between where he was staying and my home on the south side of Denver. Lloyd has been full timing for about eight years now, spending the majority of his time in the west and southwest. We spent about two hours chatting about travel, blogging, other bloggers that we both followed and genealogy. I had a great time getting to know Lloyd and hope to cross paths with him again in the future.

I would have visited with Lloyd a lot longer than two hours but yesterday morning when I went to start the dishwasher I discovered that it had given up the ghost…passed on…died…crapped out! Naturally it was full of dirty dishes. I’m scheduled to leave on my next adventure on Saturday morning so I was in a bit of a bind to find a new dishwasher and arrange to have it installed. After leaving Lloyd I headed straight to the local Home Depot. I had instructed The Bride to visit a Home Depot on her lunch hour and pick out a dishwasher she liked. When I got to our local store I call her and got the model number of the dishwasher she wanted. The only hitch is that it will be Tuesday before the new dishwasher is installed.

On the RV front, I’m still searching for a gently used truck so that I can begin the search for a fifth wheel trailer. As I mentioned in my last post, it’s slim pickins’ for quality used diesel trucks right now. I found one in a small town about 20 miles from here that would have worked except for one thing….the former driver was a heavy smoker and the interior reeked of cigarette smoke. The dealer says he is going to have someone come to his lot and treat the inside of the cab with something that is supposed to remove the smell. I’m pretty skeptical but I’ve got nothing to lose. When I return from my trip I’ll go by the dealer’s place of business. If the smell is gone I’ll buy the truck….if not I won’t. In the meantime I’ll be on the lookout for another truck that will fit the bill and if I find one before then I have no obligation to this dealer.

As I mentioned, I’m leaving bright and early Saturday morning for two weeks of Forest Service volunteer projects. I will be out of phone and internet contact for all of that time except possibly Saturday the 19th of September. Next week I’ll be in the Gunnison National Forest, southeast of Gunnison, CO doing an archaeological survey and dig on and 1870’s stage station. Read about it here. This project ends on Friday the 18th and I will drive to the extreme southeast corner of Colorado to participate in another archaeological survey in the Cimarron Canyon area. Here’s the description of this project.

Comanche National Grasslands

Cimarron Canyons Archeological Research Survey 2009

Must commit to full session

Located in the rugged canyon country of southeastern Colorado, the tributaries of the Cimarron River shelter a wide variety of archaeological sites, including prehistoric quartzite quarries and habitation areas, rock art, and 19th and early 20th-century homesteads. PIT volunteers and Forest Service staff will thoroughly explore these canyons to record sites and features. Project tasks will include map reading, artifact identification, basic lithic analysis, photography, site mapping, and botany. Come and explore this little-known corner of Colorado!

Number of openings: 6

Special skills: Must be physically able to hike daily for long distances in rough terrain in highly variable weather conditions; previous experience with mapping, photography, lithic analysis, and/or archaeological survey helpful, but not required

Minimum age: 18 years old

Facilities: Primitive camping at no charge near project area; vault toilet, picnic shelters, no potable water; some space for small campers in camping area; volunteers responsible for own camping equipment, food, and drinking water

Nearest towns: Kim, 25 miles; Springfield, 41 miles

Thanks for visiting.

Amache, Lamar, Hicklin Springs, Vogel Canyon & Home

It was only 7:30 am when I got back to the RV so that left the whole day for more adventure. I had a number of things on my list but the first was only a couple of miles away, Amache Relocation Camp. Amache was one of the infamous Japanese American Internment Camps from World War II. Between 1942 and 1945 over 7000 citizens of the United States were kept prisoner at this place. It was a sad chapter in our history but it is our history and I wanted to visit this place.

When I left the Dorenkamp’s ranch it was overcast, drizzly and cold. Somber weather for a somber tour. Shortly after the Japanese surrendered in WW II, the people held in the camps were released and the camps were razed. As a result there is really not much to see at Amache except the foundations of the old buildings and some informational signs that were erected by the town of Granada, CO which now owns the site.

It was interesting to try to imagine that time with a multitude of buildings and 7,000 people carrying on with life in this desolate place. One thing that struck me was the trees. This is high prairie and trees are not native to the area. If you look at pictures of the camp you can see how open the terrain was…but you can also see young trees that were planted by the internees. Those same trees now are grown and many are in the process of dying, much like the former occupants of the camp. After spending about an hour looking around I headed to Lamar, CO. Enough somberness for this day. I needed to lighten things up a bit.

Lamar, CO is home to one of 12 Madonna of the Trail statues all across the United States. An interesting bit of history and just the kind of history I like to seek out. But wait! There’s also some kitsch in Lamar, Colorado and I haven’t had a dose of kitsch in a while.

A building that claims to be the oldest on the planet? In Lamar, Colorado? Yup. This building is constructed of petrified wood and has even made the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not books. It is kitsch with a capital K. The  but now serves as an office for the car dealership next store. I also found a wonderful old art deco movie theater in Lamar….appropriately named the “Lamar”. Unlike a lot of theaters I come across, this one seems to be thriving. Not surprising I suppose when you consider that this is a small town VERY far from the next larger town.

Time to move on to my next adventure, Hicklin Springs. I was a little concerned at the directions I got while visiting Bent’s Fort. Wherever the site was it was way out in the sticks. If the directions weren’t accurate I would have blown a lot of time. While at the Dorenkamp’s ranch I asked if they knew anything about the site. They said they didn’t but they gave me the name of a gentleman who works for the Corps of Engineers at John Martin Reservoir and said that if anyone knew about it he would.

Right around lunchtime I pulled in to the COE office and asked for this gentleman. I was in luck, he was there and he was a fountain of information about the place. He even gave me a map to the site and a copy of an article he wrote about the site…..what a stroke of luck!

After about 20 minutes of great conversation I headed out with his map in hand. It was only about 10 miles from his office so I was there, well almost there in about a half hour. I was told that the road down into the site could be difficult at times and I didn’t want to chance driving down the trail in my RV. That left me with a 1.3 mile hike in each direction. No problemo, I can do that. As I walked into the site, this strange sensation came over me that the area looked familiar. If finally dawned on me that Guitar and I had driven down this trail in my Expedition about a year and a half ago, while camping at John Martin State Park! At the time we knew nothing about the petroglyphs and were just “exploring”.

The walk in was pleasant, it was overcast and cool but conditions were dry. This site was really interesting to me. I have seen a lot of ancient petroglyphs in the last few years. Most of the time you will find modern graffiti in the same area and a lot of times the ancient images are defaced by the more modern graffiti. This site contained both but the level of defacement was a lot less than other sites I have seen. Incredibly at this site I found the historic graffiti even more interesting that the petroglyphs! When I say historic graffiti I mean anything that European people left behind. In this part of the country that can be dated back to the late 1700’s or early 1800’s.

It looked to me that in historic times, ranchers or sheepherders spend considerable time in the area. There was a lot of intricate drawings on the rock that I had never seen anywhere else. Two especially intrigued me. The first was a very detailed drawing of an old sailing ship with the name Sea Queenee etched below it. The other was a drawing of a priest or friar. Next to the image was engraved the name Jesus Oglin. It took someone a very long time to complete either one of these petroglyphs.

I was glad it was cool and overcast because a lot of the area looked very “snakey” and I was told to be on the lookout for rattlesnakes if I climbed around the area. I spent over an hour looking around before heading back to the RV.

Once back at the rig I decided to head for Vogel Canyon and spend the night. This is a small picnic area maintained by the BLM. Guitar and I had been there a couple of years ago so I knew it was a good…and free place to spend the night. When I arrived there were two other cars in the parking lot and by 5pm….and for the rest of the night I was the only person around.

Friday morning it was time to head home. The weather was overcast and drizzly so I didn’t feel too bad about ending what had been a very interesting two days. I arrived back in the Denver area a little after 2pm. It was really good to get on the road again. I saw a lot of interesting sights and by Friday evening I was thinking about my next trip. Stay tuned and I’ll tell you about that.

Thanks for visiting.

Across The Wide Prairie

As much as I really wanted to get on the road Wednesday morning, I knew that if I left before 9 am I would have to fight rush hour traffic getting to the Interstate. That’s something I do not like doing anytime much less when I’m driving my RV so I restrained myself. Promptly at 9am however, I pulled out towards Granada, CO and my date with the Lesser Prairie Chickens.  It was a gorgeous day and I had that “gut grin” that I get when my mind tells me “You’ve got it good!”. Everything seemed to indicate a great trip was ahead and the light traffic on I-25 seemed to confirm that.

I got off the interstate at Pueblo, CO and headed east into the heartland of the high plains. I wasn’t in any hurry so I kept my speed at 55 mph and drove through the back streets of all the little towns along the way….Fowler, Manzanola, Rocky Ford, La Junta, Las Animas, and finally Granada.

I have been over this route a number of times and have stopped in the little towns before but it seems like every time I do I discover a little something I hadn’t seen before. This time it was a grand old theater in Rocky Ford. Rocky Ford is the melon capital of the Rocky Mountain West. It is located in the Arkansas River Valley and it sure doesn’t look like prairie here but travel north or south 5 or 10 miles and you’re back in the prairie. It’s a bustling little community and I knew there had to be some interesting signs somewhere around town. Sure enough, this trip I discovered the old but still functional theater, several blocks off the main drag. If you look closely you can see my RV parked around the corner in the lower right corner of the picture to the right. By the way, click on any picture to see a larger copy of it.

Next stop was La Junta. I mentioned in a previous post that one of my goals this trip was to find a petroglyph site in the general area called Hicklin Springs. It so happens that there is a U.S. Forest Service office in La Junta and this office has a Forest Service archaeologist stationed there…..whom I just happen to know from my volunteer work last fall. I was hoping that she might be able to give me directions to the site. Fortunately she was in the office. Unfortunately she couldn’t give me directions. She had heard about the site but didn’t know where it was…Rats!

The next stop was Bent’s Old Fort. This is a great piece of western history. An exact reproduction of the 1830’s trading post built by the Bent brothers and Ceran St. Vrain to trade with the Indians and mountain men. The fort straddles the Santa Fe Trail and was an important stop for anyone travelling to the southwest up until the 1860’s.

I had been to this landmark before but it’s always an interesting stop and I wanted to get a National Park Pin for this site. I have begun collecting these pins and display them in the RV to show the places I’ve been.  I also wanted to try some HDR photography there.

I spent an hour or two wandering around and taking pictures and then went to the little store in the back of the fort to get my pin. While there I decided to ask the attendant if she knew anything about Hicklin Springs. As it turned out she also had heard of the site but had never been there. She did however have a sticky note stuck to her computer with directions to the site! She gave me the directions with the proviso that if I got there I would call her and give her a report….Done deal.

Between Bent’s Fort and the site was John Martin Reservoir and State Park and to get to the site I’d have to take a long detour. Besides that it was now about 3pm and I decided to do this on my way back home. I needed to get to Granada.

The rest of the trip was over narrow back roads that every now and again went through a small defunct farming community. The last 6 or 8 miles was over dirt county roads until I came to my guides ranch house.

Fred and Norma Dorenkamp do what a lot of “country” folk throughout the nation do. They do what it takes to make a living and raise a family. They are proud of their local heritage and have never even considered leaving this place they call home. In raising their six sons and one daughter they have farmed, ranched, worked for the wildlife department, managed rodeos….and taken city folk like me, out to see the natural wonders of the prairie. After meeting them, Norma showed me where to park my rig. A flat spot right next to the calf corral would be my spot for the night.

Norma told me that if I wanted to walk to the field back behind the corral I might get a glimpse of some burrowing owls that had taken up residence in old prairie dog dens. That sounded like a perfect way to end the day so I did and was rewarded with the picture to the left.

Norma also said that we would leave at 4:30 am the next morning….and oh, by the way, a tornado watch was just issued by the local weather station! Let’s see, I’m in a tornado magnet, RV out in the middle of the prairie in a tornado watch. This is going to be a trip to write about, if I survive.

Seriously, looking across the plains I could see the storm they were talking about and it looked to me like it was tracking to the south and not coming my way even though the wind started blowing pretty hard. I battened down the hatches and settled in for the night.

I’ll stop the story here but stay tuned for the next chapter. Incidentally, the picture to the right is the storm we were watching to the east of my RV.

Thanks for visiting.

Not Done With The Prairie Chickens Yet

The weather this week has been wonderful and there is no sign of the snow we had only a week ago. We're in for a little rain this weekend but the temps are pretty much out of the snow zone.

I've decided that I will take a solo trip to way southeast Colorado, Granada, to be exact, and do the Prairie Chicken tour on Thursday morning. I'll leave here on Wednesday morning in my RV and spend the night parked on the guide's ranch. I've been over much of this route before but there are several places I want to stop either before or afterward. I'm thinking I'll spend either two or three nights out.

Granada, CO has the unenviable distinction of being the location of the Amache Relocation Camp that housed over 7000 American citizens of Japanese descent during WW II. There's really nothing there now other than a small monument but I still want to visit.

Another stop will have to be Ft. Lyon, which is about 50 miles west of Granada. I have driven by this site several times but never really investigated the place. It's an interesting place to me because it was one of the forts on the Santa Fe Trail and because Kit Carson died here. Currently there is a National Cemetery there as well as an old Naval hospital that treated tuberculosis and is now owned by the Colorado Prison System.

There are two other sites I'd love to see but I can't get there in the RV. The first is the Sand Creek Massacre Site, another sad chapter in our history. The second is Hicklin Springs, an Indian petroglyph site. This one is just the sort of thing I seek out but it looks like with my RV I won't be able to get even close. I will ask some questions while in the area and maybe I can find a way to get close enough to do a day hike in and out.

This weekend I'm busy doing my demo job at the local big box. One day I'm doing Kraft, South Beach Living Bars and Pizza and the other day I'm doing Fiber Plus Bars and Special K. These are normally pretty popular "give-aways" so the time should pass quickly...and it's gas money for the RV!

Thanks for visiting.

Adrift In The SouthWest Again - Part II

Let's see, where was I. Oh yeah, Three Rivers Petroglyph Site. So after a very interesting and educational stop there, it was time to satisfy the weird side. We were headed for Oliver Lee State Park for the night's layover but there were a couple of things we wanted to see in Alamagordo, NM.

The first was the world's largest pistachio. I was totally unaware that this area is a very big producer of pistachios and pecans. As you approach Alamagordo from the north you can see lots of orchards and road side businesses selling both. We stopped at a store that claimed to have the world's largest pistachio...pictured above. After all the serious culture we had absorbed in the previous couple of days we needed something weird to balance it all out and this was the start.

Just down the road a bit we spotted the metal road runner statue in front of a scrap yard. A perfect counterpoint to keep us on a proper cultural keel.

It was getting late and there is just so much you can absorb in a day so we stopped in a Super WalMart in Alamagordo and picked up some hot wings for dinner and then headed to Oliver Lee State Park about 10 miles south of Alamagordo. This is a very nice facility with a great view of Alamagordo and the surrounding desert. We could also tell that after travelling 500 miles almost due south of the Denver area, it was finally starting to get warmer.

It's time to start today's (Saturday) activities so I'll stop the report here. Stay tuned for more.

Thanks for visiting.

Happy Thanksgiving

A very meaningful Happy Thanksgiving to all readers. I have an awful lot to be thankful for and I realize it this day...

Some more pics from my recent trip............











































































Thanks for visiting.

Adrift In The SouthWest

This was a trip to remember. Six nights and seven days of the great American SouthWest! North central New Mexico to be exact. I had a blast. This has to be the absolute best RV trip that I've ever taken by myself. I think the Passport in Time trip might have been better but I was not by myself on that one.

Incomparable scenery, history just dripping off of everything, perfect weather, no crowds....in fact almost no people, gas at $1.89/gal. I could stop with just that description but I know some might be disappointed so I'll fill you in on some of the details.

I left the Denver area at about 9 am on Tuesday morning with the thought of staying the night in The Great Sand Dunes National Park. I made good time and when I got that far I reasoned that since I started a day late, maybe I ought to push on some. I ended up in Aztec, NM a little after dark. It was a long driving day but it put me in position to make the most of the rest of the trip.

My first stop Wednesday morning was Aztec Ruins National Monument. I was at the front door promptly at 8 am when they opened. Aztec Ruins was not built by the Aztecs but rather by a pueblo people that were intertwined with the pueblo peoples in Mesa Verde to the north and Chaco Canyon to the south. They built and occupied this area from about 500-1300 AD and then kind of disappeared. Most historians say they moved south and intermingled with the pueblo people of the lower Rio Grande area.

Whatever the history, these people were unbelievable builders. The masonry was sophisticated enough to support four stories at some points. Walls were "arrow" straight and in later times had a very artistic veneer. They were also accomplished potters and the museum was full of pottery that was recovered during excavation.

This monument is actually quite small in size and only a portion of it has been excavated. In spite of the small size I still spend about three hours looking around. I walked out in amazement of what these ancient people accomplished. Little did I know that this was nothing compared to what lay ahead of me.




After that bit of history, next on my list was the Bisti/De-Na Zin Wilderness for a look at some incredible bad lands formations. This area, as the name implies is in the wilderness. About 34 miles south of Aztec and in the middle of one of the Navajo Indian Reservations. In simple terms, this place was so far in the sticks that they had to pipe sun light to it. 45,000 acres of only what God created. No roads, no established trails. The rules are simple. Walk anywhere you want, just don't cause any damage to the wonders you encounter.

I pulled up in the "parking lot" at about 2pm. This "parking lot" was just an area marked off with stones about three miles down a mediocre dirt road from the nearest paved road. For the next 3 hours I wandered around like a little kid. I was surprised by something new every time I turned around. Hoodos, volcanic moonscapes, petrified trees....everywhere.


























The only reason I stopped was because it was starting to get dark and I sure wanted to be back at the RV by the time it was dark. In the picture below you can see why I needed to get back. The little blue speck under the arrow is my RV. (Don't forget, click on any picture to see a larger version.)















After a very quiet night, I was ready for my next major destination, Chaco Canyon. It was only about 30 miles away from where I camped...as the crow flies. To get there on a road my RV could manage however, I had to drive about 100 miles. The last 16 miles into the park took me about an hour and a half.....that's 90 minutes to drive 16 miles! The road was so washboardy that most of the time I was driving about 6 or 7 mph.

Even if it took 5 hours to go that last 16 miles it was so, so, very worth it. This was the highlight of the trip. This place is amazing, fantastic, incredible, wonderful, overwhelming, beautiful.....take your pick of adjectives, all of them work. The picture at the top of the post is Fajada Butte which greets you as you enter the park.

First let me give you the correct name of this place. Chaco Culture National Historical Park is it's official name. This place is right on 40,000 acres in the middle of nowhere. The nearest town is 60 miles away and that 16 mile killer road keeps many people from venturing into this enchanting place. I spent two days there and saw maybe 10 other visitors. On the second day I took a 6 mile hike and didn't see another soul all day....but I'm getting ahead of myself. It will suffice to say that the Park Service staff that lives on site easily outnumbered all the guests in the park while I was there

I arrived at the visitor's center at about 1:20 pm and learned that this is not just one puebelo ruin. There are at least 12 different ruins in the area. Even better I learned that there was a ranger guided tour of the largest complex, Pueblo Bonito, at 2pm. Perfect timing on my part and what better way to get an introduction to what the park had to offer.

The Park Ranger explained that Pueblo Bonito, pictured above, is the largest pueblo that has ever been excavated. It was the center of pueblo life in what is now Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. It thrived for over 500 years until it was mysteriously abandoned like the other major pueblos to the north and west.










This was a complex civilization with unique building skills. In addition to the masonry that was sophisticated enough to build four story buildings and doorways in load bearing corners, they also built 30 foot wide roads that stretched for hundreds of miles. They carved stairs into steep cliffs and built ramps up to the cliffs to allow easy access to their cities. They had no written language but left plenty of petroglyphs in the area and they were students of the stars. Many buildings are aligned within one degree of true north and many ceremonial sites are aligned so that the sun would illuminate certain things on the walls of their kivas.


















On Friday morning I decided to take a 6 mile hike that went to two other unexcavated sites and looped around a canyon rim. When I got to the start of the trail I started to have doubts of my choice of hikes....and my physical ability. The pictures above shows the VERY steep beginning. The trail then went behind a huge rock and climbed up a crack between the boulder and the canyon wall.

I was determined, however, and once I got to the rim of the canyon the trail became much easier. The day had started out pretty chilly....in the 20s but as soon as the sun got up in the sky a bit, it warmed up fast and I started shedding layers. I'm going to wear this word out but it was an incredible hike. The ruins were mysterious and wonderful. The scenery was awesome. I even saw many pot shards along the way. They were literally every where once you knew what to look for. I'll just let some pictures do the talking....



























Saturday morning I reluctantly pulled out and headed back on the dreaded hour and a half/16 mile drive. There are at least 4 other trails that I really wanted to explore but time and the weather was not on my side. I needed to be back home before Thanksgiving and coincidentally the weather was supposed to start getting bad by Wednesday.

Next stop was Bandelier National Monument. Another ancient Indian site and a beautiful canyon to boot. I was leery that after Chaco everything would pale in comparison. I arrived with just enough light that I could check out the visitors center and then make my camp in the park campground. It seems I timed this right too as I was told that the campground would close for the year at the end of the next week.

Sunday morning was once again pretty chilly so I had to bundle up for the start of this short hike. Total round trip of this trail was only 2.5 miles so I figured I'd be done well before noon.

Bandelier is not nearly as spectacular in a grand scale as Chaco but it was in it's own way very worthwhile. Frijoles Canyon is the name of the actual canyon. Bandelier was an early self taught archaeologist for whom the park is named.

The geology of the area is volcanic and that is part of the reasons the Indians settled here. The soil was rich and made agriculture fairly easy. The surrounding cliffs are composed of soft volcanic tuff. This material is relatively soft and has many natural holes in it, kind of like swiss cheese. These holes became ready made shelters for the people.

There was a small free standing pueblo on the valley floor but the more interesting structures were the buildings built at the base of the cliffs and the expanded cave dwellings behind these buildings.


















The highlight of this hike was a cliff dewlling site that was 140 feet above the canyon floor. To get there you had to climb 4 different ladders. This is not a climb for "ladder adverse" people. I'm thinking that my mother in law whom I christened "Ladder Lady" a few months ago, would loose her moniker on this site. The picture above is just one of the four ladders used in the climb. None of the buildings remained in this niche but there was a reconstructed kiva which I explored.

I was back at the RV by late morning and headed to Los Alomos to explore. One bit of poor planning on my part. I forgot it was Sunday morning and just about everything was closed. Not wanting to spend another night in the area I headed for Taos where I could stay in a for real RV park with all the amenities.....I REALLY wanted a leisurely shower!

I pulled into Taos in the early afternoon and then spent a couple of hours looking at shops and galleries. I was really tempted to buy a big gaudy bolo tie but looking at the prices jolted me back to reality.

I did buy one small item that I intend to have fun with. I'm not a musical person but I thought I might give an Indian flute a try. After some searching and talking with shop owners I found one that was affordable and a good beginner's flute. These instruments like most other things can get expensive if you want to go full bore. I saw several that were in the $1000 range, decorated with turquoise etc. What I ended up with was no where near that expensive and it seems to play just fine. We'll see how long The Bride will tolerate my practicing it at home?

That evening I had my shower.......more superlative words here.....watched the Bronco's loose another football game and generally chilled and got ready for the trip home on Monday.

Monday was a long trip over roads I've travelled many times before but the miles went quickly because I kept reliving the events of the past week. The entire trip ended up being 1190 miles.

Today I'm busy with cleaning out the RV, re-winterizing the plumbing and all the mundane stuff that's required at the end of the trip.

This may be the last trip I can squeeze in this winter unless I want to go a lot further south. I'll have to pull out the maps and see what I might be able to do in a month or so. At any rate, it will take a lot to top this trip. This is definitely one for my memories.

Since I started with a sunset picture, I'll finish with one as well. This shot was taken from my campsite in Taos on Sunday evening....

Thanks for visiting.