Hovenweep

Little Ruin Canyon, Hovenweep

Today, we’re headed to Hovenweep in the 4 corners region. The last time we were here over 15 years ago, we had to travel 20 miles of dirt road, which shook the screws loose on our trailer. Now you can get there on paved road, though the pavement wasn’t always 2 lanes wide. Here there is a collection of towers in about 6 communities from about 1200 AD. Most of the towers are oval or D-shaped and their purpose isn’t exactly clear – were they for worship, storage, or protection? The name Hovenweep means deserted valley named by the first explorers.
We spent the night in Durango and had to revisit the Cypress Cafe, where we had such a fantastic meal last year. Mary was disappointed they didn’t have the Pork Chops with apricots, but we both had delicious meals. The next day we make it back to Fort Collins after 9 hours of driving.

Twin Towers, Hovenweep

Canyon de Chelly

Our guide, David explains the ruins in the Canyon

We’re certainly glad that we took the half day tour with the Navajo, it was a great combination with the rim road. On the tour, we saw quite a few petroglyphs and pictographs from different ages. The earliest were about 2000 years old (symbols, hands, dancing men, snakes), the latest from the 1800’s (running antelope) and in between from the 1600’s, we had figures of men and horses hunting deer and antelope. There were also quite a few cliff house ruins, the most spectacular being white house, with its 2 white towers among all the rust color. We also heard of the Navajo story, particularly the hard times in the 1800s when Kit Carson (as head of the Indian agency) drove all of them out of this area to a Fort in the middle of New Mexico. Many held out on Navajo Fortress, a large rock platform in the canyon, where they could hide from the soldiers. But eventually, they were starved out. On the road to New Mexico and over the next 4 years, half of them died, until they finally were allowed to return to their traditional lands.
In the afternoon, we took the rim road, where you can see more ruins, but at a distance. More interesting was the canyon itself with its steep cliffs, dune shaped rocks, and occasional stone pillars, like Spider rock. The area reminded us of Colorado National Monument, but the valley was much more fertile, a lot of corn and fruit trees dot the bottom of the canyon.

Canyon de Chelly from the rim

Aztec Ruins National Monument

Original Ceiling (900 years old) at Aztec Ruin

After leaving Chaco, we headed north to visit Aztec Ruins National Monument. Our timing was excellent; we got there just in time for the first ranger talk of the summer. In ancient times, a major road connected Chaco with this complex. The monument was completely misnamed, this is an ancient Puebloan habitation and has nothing to do with the Aztecs, but it got that name, because the original discoverers knew no better. The architecture was very similar to what we had seen at Chaco, though this complex was occupied a little later and longer than Chaco. What made the visit worthwhile was the recreated Great Kiva. Great care was taken to recreate it – the colors match the plaster that was found, the roof was duplicated, as well as the major features. What probably was not done faithfully was the height of the ceiling. Reconstructed Great Kiva
We continued on our way through Farmington to Canyon de Chelly in Arizona. Highway 191 here was very scenic with large red bluffs on either side of the road, cliff like in the east and rounded in the west. By the time we reached the Canyon, it was almost 5 PM, so we’ll do most of our touring tomorrow. We met a couple next to us, with St. Marten license plates, so we had to ask: did you float it across the Caribbean? They’re actually from Florida and on a 6 month tour of the U.S. and Canada. They should be with us during our tour tomorrow.

Pueblo Bonito

Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon

Today, we took a ranger hike through the largest complex in the park, Pueblo Bonito. This complex had over 600 rooms and 16 kivas, including 3 great kivas. At first, archeologists thought this was a large habitation, but after examining the rubble, there were far too few hearths for cooking. It appears that this complex had only 50-100 permanent residents, but given the large complex, many people most have come here for religious ceremonies or major rendezvous. This area was initially excavated by Weatherill, the same person who discovered Mesa Verde. He is a controversial figure, since he was a self-taught archeologist. He preserved a lot of artifacts giving them to a New York Museum (which has kept most of the items in storage for decades), yet he also did things like burning some of the roofing materials for heat and cooking. The oldest part of the complex has two unique rooms. In one room, Weatherill found over 100 cylindrical jars. This is amazing because only 200 have ever been found in the entire southwest. Two years ago, 3 of these jars were tested to see what they might have contained. It turns out that they held cocoa beans (chocolate). The nearest cocoa trees are over 1000 miles away, but it obviously was considered a sacred substance, just like the Mayans considered it. In another room, they found 6 bodies, buried one on top of each other. These men were over 6 feet tall, in an age where most men were 5’4”. Last year, they carbon dated the man on the bottom; he died about 850, when this complex was first built. These 6 men must have been special because they were buried with all sorts of Turquoise jewelry.
In the afternoon, we visited three other sites in the canyon. Two were great house areas in other parts of the canyon and the last was a residential area. This last pueblo was only one story tall and relatively small. But nearby, was another giant kiva. This kiva has several astronomical setups. First, it is perfectly aligned north and south, as evidenced by a night time picture we saw where it is perfectly aligned with Polaris with the stars rotating around due north (in a time when Polaris wasn’t due North). There also is a window which lights up a nitch in the kiva at summer solstice. Finally the east-west windows are perfectly aligned for the solar equinox. Chaco Canyon is a must-visit on my list.

Chaco Culture National Historical Park

Example of wall construction, Chaco Canyon

We headed up from Albuquerque about 140 miles to Chaco Culture National Historical Park. I was worried about the last 13 miles on a dirt road, but it actually wasn’t too bad – lots of dust and the occasional washboards. We were amazed at how different the construction of building is here than the typical cliff dwellings we were expecting. The best way to explain it is these were the large government or temple buildings built and occupied during a 300 year period which must have been relatively prosperous and peaceful. Roads about 30 feet wide left this area to other pueblo regions of the Southwest. People from at least 4 different language groups would come to this area for ceremonies. These buildings were enormous, 5 stories tall in places.Our first major stop was Chetro Ketl and unfortunately we didn’t find the guide book until the end, so we retraced our steps because the great houses here were like nothing we’ve ever seen. Here we also discovered our first great kiva, about 4-5 times larger than the kivas we’ve seen at other southwestern locations. This complex had about 500 rooms and 16 kivas. There are at least 4 different styles of masonry on the walls. Many of the first floor walls are two feet thick with large rocks with a mud mortar holding them together, but then faced with smaller rocks on the outside in pleasing patterns. Many look as fine as the Inca walls we’ve seen, constructed 700 years later.That night, the campfire talk was about astronomy and the Chacoan people. Almost all their building aligned north-south and many spots in the area are marked for the winter or summer solstice. The sun dagger was a rock formation with a dagger of light appearing at the summer and winter solistace on the spiral petroglyphs. Other spots were marked to watch the sun rise on the winter solstice along notches in the mesas. The talk also pointed out the dirt ramp that angles 45 degrees to the top of Fajada Butte where there is not only the sun dagger, but 40 rooms on each side of the Butte. We finished the night watching the stars. The telescopes were set up to watch Saturn and a couple galaxies.

Great Kiva of Chetro Ketl

Albuquerque

Petroglyphs

We woke up to temperatures in the low 40s and a stiff wind. Our trip from Sante Fe to Albuquerque was on the Turquoise Byway, New Mexico 14. This was definitely more picturesque than the interstate. It began snowing as we approached the city, so our plan to take the Tram up the mountain definitely didn’t make sense.
We did go to the
Turquoise Museum, next to Old Town. This proved quite interesting with a large collection of turquoise from all over the U.S. and many parts of the world. We learned that there is white turquoise and that quite often turquoise is processed with oil in order to bring out its colors. Did you know that most of our turquoise today comes from China, and that the original name meant “Turkish”, since in ancient Europe, Turkey was the importer of the stone from Persia.
Instead of going to the Tram, we noticed that Petroglyph National Monument was just outside town. Just outside town, the suburbs were almost up against the fence for the monument. With about an hour’s walk we saw several hundred petroglyphs, most created from 1200 BC to 1700 AD. Being this close to the suburbs, I’m not very hopeful that these will survive. We went to the Range Café in Bernalillo, just a little ways from the KOA. I highly recommend their North of the Border New Mexican dishes. Both our dinners were great!

Petroglyph with the suburbs in the background

Sante Fe

New Mexico History Museum

It was a short drive down to Sante Fe, a town we have visited many a time. The new attraction here is the recently opened, New Mexico History Museum, just behind the Palace of the Governors. The museum did an excellent job of tracing the history of New Mexico from the first Spanish explorers until statehood. They did continue on to the present day, but we didn’t find that as interesting. As you tour the museum, it reminds us that most of what is today’s New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California used to be part of Mexico, which was twice the size of the U.S. at the time. It was President Polk who found excuses to start a war with Mexico, so that the U.S. could realize it’s “Manifest Destiny” to stretch from ocean to ocean. New Mexico history is also filled with other battles with the Indians or between the whites – a lot of violence. The museum was definitely worth the admission.
We then took a drive up into the mountains on the east side of Sante Fe, eventually reaching the ski area. It was a pleasant drive, but I was hoping for more views of the city and West. There are large patches of Aspen as you go up, and we’re visiting at a time, where the lower slopes were just starting to leaf, and the upper slopes were still barren. It made for an interesting contrast. The aspen groves came into being after a forest fire in 1880, so eventually the fir trees will take over.
Our only problem of the day was finding the campground, our AAA book and Mary’s GPS had the directions wrong. Mary had internet connectivity, found their website, and the true directions to the campground.

Bandelier National Monument

Bandelier - dwellings in the cliff

We continued on to Los Alamos, New Mexico, stopping at the Bradbury Science Museum, which is the visitor center for the labs here. This is the place where they brought the scientists together to develop the atomic bomb during World War II. The movie, “The Town that Never Was”, is interesting. The town was in an area that Dr. Oppenhiemer had visited as a sickly child. It was isolated, yet close enough to the roads and a railroad. What I found particularly fascinating was the entire town had one PO box number in Sante Fe as their address, many birth certificates also were issued with this address. Of course, the story of developing the bomb is well told in the museum, including the controversy of whether the bomb should have been used at all. They also have copies of some of the original letters around the entire project, such as the letter from Albert Einstein to President Roosevelt that an atomic bomb is possible and Germany may be developing one. The museum also has a display around much of the current work going on there in biology and the human genome project.
Just a few miles down the road is Bandelier National Monument. The highlight of the park is a 1.2 mile trail visiting the various Ancient Pueblo dwellings. The homes here are different than the ones we’re familiar with at Mesa Verde. The cliffs here are made of volcanic tuff, a soft soil that is filled with holes and easily dug. So many of the dwelling were built up against the cliff face using caves into the cliff as the backrooms. Nearer the creek bed are the remainders of a large circular pueblo with three kivas, this was built later. As against many other places we’ve seen cliff dwellings, why people built here is very obvious. The Frijoles creek runs year round, and it has a variety of plants and trees growing there. It’s a beautiful area which sharply contrasts to the desert areas on the canyon rim. If I lived in this area, this is where I would build a home. By the way, the campground here was just rebuilt, all the roads and sites were re-done last year.

Pueblo buildings below the cliffs

Angel Fire, New Mexico

This is our first day out from Fort Collins. We met Beth and Tommy for lunch in Colorado Springs. We brought down the bridesmaid dresses. Holly, one of the bridesmaids, also joined us for lunch. Then we continued down I-25 to New Mexico, turning off on US 64. It didn’t take long for the countryside to completely change from dry plains to mountain valleys. We went through a state park for about 10 miles, encountering quite a few fisherman on the river. Things have been dry here, the entire park is posted with no fires, no charcoal. Then we reached the top of the valley, opening into a wide mountain park. Our primary stop for the day was the Vietnam Memorial State Park. This is a family memorial to a son, which grew over time to a memorial to everyone who served in Vietnam. It’s primary feature is a chapel, but there is also a small museum, which was closed by the time we got there. We stayed at the Monte Verde RV camp, which had just opened for the season. Their office area was still filled with boxes as they moved in.