The Pueblos of New Mexico

New Mexico has a hugely rich history of Indian culture.  Toward the end of our stay in Albuquerque we were feeling that we hadn’t experienced enough of the culture.  Going to an Indian-owned casino (and we did) just doesn’t count.

We again drew on our Aerial America TV show experience and took a trip out to the Acoma Pueblo.  Without the show, we probably would not have known to go out there.  We were very glad we did.  And the landscapes on the trip were amazing too.

 

When the Spanish explored north of what is today’s Mexico, they found about 20 separate Indian cultures and territories in New Mexico.  The Spanish gave these territories the name Pueblo which now largely signifies a city of adobe dwellings and the occupants became known as Pueblo people.

 

The highlight of the Acoma Pueblo is its “Sky City” or village on top of a 370 foot rock mesa.  It is reported to be longest continuously occupied village of what is now the United States, believed to have been occupied for over 1,100 straight years and maybe as many as 2,000.

 

When the Spanish arrived, they largely left the Acomas alone both as they found them to be peace loving people and that they would be extremely different to conquer on top of their rock where there was no easy way up.  Reports differ over just what happened but eventually the Spanish did conquer the Acomas after many sieges of the rock and brutally enslaved them after they did.  They forced the Acomas to build a large Mission on the mesa where the Acoma people were converted to Catholicism.

Even today, Sky City is not served by electric lines, running water, or sewers.  But there is a road that runs up to the top of rock.  Many Acomas only come to the mesa on the weekend to sell their pottery and other handicrafts to the tourists.

More Petroglyphs

We recently reported on our visit to the rock carvings of Southeastern New Mexico at the BLM’s Three Rivers Petroglyphs Area.  In Albuquerque, they also have petroglyphs designated as a National Monument.  The area we toured is a ridge of volcanic rock spewed from a line of volcanoes.  It is not far from the Rio Grande River and the Indians of New Mexico over time had moved from areas that become ever more arid to the river valley.  Again, it is not clear just why the rock carvings were made and just what they signify, but we think it is very clear that the last one of our pictures below is of a rock carving of a alien visitor.

We nearly passed on the Three Rivers site as we knew we were going to Albuquerque and that the Petroglyphs National Monument was there.  That would have been a mistake.  The carvings at Three Rivers were more concentrated and they turned out to be our favorites.  We now know that a BLM Area may be every bit as good if not better than a National Monument.

A Meteorite Museum

 

We had seen on Aerial America that the campus of the University of New Mexico had some very interesting architecture so we drove over to have a look.  The main campus is just north of old Route 66 and some of its 1940s/1950s character.

 

 

Many of the buildings of the UNM campus have an adobe look to them.  Throughout the Albuquerque area there are many adobe look buildings and homes.  It gives the city a very unique character.  While at UNM we also took in three small museums that are located on campus – a meteorite museum, a geology museum and an anthropology museum. And, the best part, all three were free.

This was our first ever meteorite museum.  We occasionally take in the show of a meteorite shower.  But the ones we see never come close to reaching the ground.  Many times they are just ice crystals out of the tailings of a meteor.  These meteorites actually hit the ground and were made of iron or rock or both.  To the right is a picture of the largest single meteorite found in the United States from a hit in Kansas.  Can you imagine how this one lit us the sky as it passed through the atmosphere.

Our next museum stop was the geology museum.  We always enjoy rock, mineral, and gemstone displays.

 

 

 

Our final stop was the museum of anthropology.  There is a lot of pre-Columbus history in what is now New Mexico.  There were many Indian Pueblos that date back at least a thousand years.  It is amazing that pottery can survive for that many years.

Take Me Out To The Ballgame

 

Yay!  We went to our first baseball game of the year.  Last winter when we were in Florida, the home of the “Grapefruit League”, we were keenly aware of the happenings in baseball.  Spring Training is a big deal in Florida and there is a lot of media coverage about it which tends to build your enthusiasm.  We went to a couple Spring Training games and were following the daily reports on our Detroit Tigers in the online versions of the Detroit newspapers.  We were ready and excited for the regular season and were closely following results and standings.  This year while wintering in Texas, there seemed to be a dearth of Spring Training coverage.  We didn’t know what was happening at all.  Spring Training is a rite of Spring and a signal that winter is passing into spring and we missed it.  We haven’t been following the regular season nearly as closely as well.   And we are looking forward to wintering in Arizona next winter where the “Cactus League” of Spring Training occurs.

But our lack of a Spring Training fix is not going to keep us from seeking out some games as we travel about this year.  This week we saw our first game of the season here in Albuquerque at the home of the Albuquerque Isotopes, the Class AAA affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers.  The home team won big and we sang a loud rendition of “Take Me Out To The Ballpark” during the seventh inning stretch.

It’s time to PLAY BALL!

A Trip Back To The Midwest

This year our travel plans have us moving up and down the Rocky Mountains.  The closest we will be to our former homes in the Midwest is around 1,200 miles.  It would be a huge side trip to drive the motor home or the car to the Midwest and back.  So, this year we have decided that we will each take turns flying back to visit family.  One will fly the other will stay with the motor home and the Alley cat.

Gary needed to go back on some family business related to his Mother’s death so last week he flew back turning the trip into visits with his family.  That was a big part of the reason we set up our travel plans to get to Albuquerque – so that Gary could fly from a reasonably sized airport of which there are very few in Western Texas and New Mexico.  Staying put also allowed me to get into some deep cleaning of the motor home and gave me time to bond with Alley.

Being retired for a few years, Gary hadn’t flown much.  His last couple of flights were in 2010 when he flew to buy the motor home and then to buy the tow car.  So after nearly three years of not flying what happens?  He got caught up in a 5 hour nationwide computer outage of American Airlines with all of their planes grounded.  He had dutifully arrived two hours early at the Albuquerque airport only to then wait a total of 7 hours for his plane to depart, only knowing that he was likely to get to Dallas and not knowing if he would be able to connect on from there to Indianapolis.  Fortunately he could but his checked bag didn’t arrive in Indy on the same flight with him.  But given the stack up in flights, the bag arrived on the next flight only about half an hour behind the flight he was on.  Gary arrived at the door of his sister’s house in the Indianapolis area 13 hours after he left the door of our motor home in what was then in the midst of a driving rain storm.  Maybe this fly back idea is not the greatest after all.

But from there things got a lot better.  He got to see his family in Indiana and then drove on over to Columbus, Ohio to see his son Andy and daughter-in-law Natasha.  He had the opportunity to spend a long weekend with them.  As fairly new homeowners, they always have things that need to be done around the house.  When we were last there, Gary noticed that the driveway could use a dressing so he took some clothes with him that needed to be trashed anyway and did them the job of coating it.  Looks pretty good, eh?  Maybe he can still do something productive.

But he is back at the motor home now and the kitty and I are glad to have him back.

Albuquerque

We rolled into Albuquerque over a week ago.  The city is located in the Rio Grande River valley.  Yes, the same Rio Grande River of the Texas/Mexico border.  The backdrop for this city in the valley is the Sandia Mountains.  It is a beautiful setting.  We need to stay in one place for awhile and this seems like a good place to do so.  Gary got our taxes done and took the car in for an oil change and tire rotation and balancing.  I began a very needed cleaning of the interior of the motor home.

We went to the old town area of Albuquerque, the area from the founding of the city in the 1700s.   I went to Mass at the San Felipe de Neri Church, the oldest church in Albuquerque and which has continuously served the community since 1706.  The area is filled with adobe-style buildings housing galleries, shops and restaurants.  We also toured Central Avenue which back in the day was where Route 66 traversed the city.

White Sands National Monument

 

Our final day trip in this area of New Mexico was to White Sands National Monument.  And when they say White Sands, they mean WHITE sands.  We were glad is was a somewhat cloudy day.  On a fully sunny day, these dunes would be so white they would hurt your eyes.  And why are they white?  They are the sand of gypsum, the stuff your very white drywall is made of.  And why don’t we see lots of white gypsum sand dunes in other places?  Well, gypsum is water soluble and easily washed away.  But here there is very little rainfall and there is no drainage out of the valley.

The dune fields are huge.  There are around 275 square miles of dunes in the area.

We found these dunes to be a spectacular sight.  Kids were out of school in the area and many were there sliding down the dunes in their snow saucers.  As we hiked a bit through the dunes, we found it easiest to walk barefoot – another good reason that the sun wasn’t fully beating down that day.

 

We walked a cute little nature trail presented from the view of one of the animals of this environment – the kit fox which only weigh five pounds on average, or only about a third of the weight of our fat cat (she won’t like it that we said that).  Many of the animals have adapted to this environment by turning white so as to blend in against the backdrop of the dunes.

 

We also stopped in this area at a pistachio farm.  It used to be that most pistachios sold in the US came from Iran (and they really grow the jumbo ones).  But since the mid-1980s, pistachios from Iran bound for the US have either been embargoed or subject to prohibitive anti-dumping duties, all benefiting the New Mexico and California growers.  Our stop was at the farm that also has “the world’s largest pistachio nut”.  And as we were browsing the gift shop, there came a loud boom and very definite shaking of the building.  Yes, this whole area is right on the boundary of the missile range.  We were frightened by it, but the locals seem to take it all in stride.