as our 15th wedding anniversary was approaching, i said to b that i thought it would be fun if we went away to celebrate in a big way. in my sometimes over-the-top fashion, i thought of oaxaca, peru, morocco, and hawaii. b came up with the perfect idea though: new mexico! we have wanted to go to new mexico for a long time (since 2001 actually). i wrote a paper my junior year of college about how american indians in the new mexico region practiced a type of folk catholicism in the 1600-1800s. i illustrated my point by talking about santos, the kachina cult, and curanderismo. that was a significant paper for me--in large part because it helped me develop an interest in new mexico. so celebrating our 15th anniversary in the place we had wanted to go to for the past 15 years was perfect! (and it meant we didn't have to spend lots and lots of money or spent a long time traveling to get to our destination--less than 2 hours flying is great!)
we arrived in albuquerque late, which meant that there was only one person working at the car rental kiosk. we had to wait awhile to get our car, but we finally settled in to our hotel around 1am. 
we love beautiful tiles. seeing a table like this makes me want to make my own beautiful inlaid tile table. 
the next morning, we had our complimentary breakfast and hit the road. we drove from albuquerque to the acoma pueblo. i first heard about the acoma pueblo a few years ago when i read "death comes for the arch bishop" by willa cather. it is such a great book. and in typical cather fashion, she describes the location so wonderfully. i always love it when someone loves the desert--and she describes it so well. if you haven't read this book yet--read it!
we saw this big butte-type rock sticking up and wondered if the pueblo would be on top of this mesa.
as we got closer, though, we could see that it wasn't.
finally, we were able to see the mesa with the pueblo on top. it blends in remarkably well. 
just outside the mesa-top pueblo is a really nice visitors center. you have to go there to get tickets to join a tour group--that's your only way to get up to the pueblo. i was disappointed to hear this at first, but it was good. it's nice to have an insider tell you about a place. 
a really nice oil painting in the visitors center. wouldn't i love to paint something like that--in watercolor, of course.
here we are about to get on the tour bus--to ride up to the top of the mesa. 
the mesa top pueblo was really cool. i won't talk about each picture--but a few general thoughts in no particular order are listed below. we enjoyed seeing the adobe. you could see the hay embedded in the mud. you could also see it crumbling. no wonder adobe walls have to be replastered on a regular basis. 
it was pretty cool on the mesa top and it threatened to rain the whole time we were up there, but it never rained. that made it a lot easier for us to enjoy the tour and our time up there (although i know the acoma would have loved some rain). 
the old catholic church was really cool looking. there was a cemetary in front of the church (we couldn't take pictures of that). one of the neat things about the cemetery was that it was layer after layer (after layer after layer) of cemetery. the oldest layer was three layers down below the top level--so there was a total of four levels to the cemetery. our tour guide said that they would haul dirt up to the mesa top to add each new layer. wah! that's so much dirt. they also hauled up all of the other materials used for the church (and everywhere else in the community). the timbers used in the construction of the church were from several dozen miles away (my memory says it was 50 miles away, but that might not be exactly right). nonetheless though--they were from really, really far away. and the acoma men carried all of the wood. 
there were lots of acoma artisans selling their wares--mostly ceramics and jewelry. 
some of the homes on the mesa top are several hundred years old--i think about 400 years old. of course, they get re-plastered on a regular basis and most of them don't have the old mica windows any more. but the original structures are there.
the mesa top has two cisterns--their water supply. it's always remarkable to see water in the desert. 
where i bought whitney and matt's quail piece.
these ladders are awesome. they go up to a kiva--a traditional ceremonial space.
this ladder's cross beam represents a cloud.
this is where i bought a pretty little ceramic plate.
our guide talking to us about hornos.
there are some bathrooms on the mesa top. 
the view from the top is gorgeous.
a little tableau we enjoyed inside a home's window.
the other cistern.
some of the homes are in ruins. i often think of the south with all of its kudsu and other plants that grow and grow and destroy and erase structures over time as being one of the most unforgiving landscapes to maintain a home. but the southwest has its own challenges--one of them being adobe. keeping up with adobe would be really challenging. an, interestingly, we learned that adobe isn't native to the southwest. the spanish brought it with them to the new world. 
me underneath the "norma jean" sign. 
i love this ladder.
these were some of the oldest structures on the mesa top.
i loved the little dashes of turquoise you'd see throughout the pueblo.
a great look at the adobe.
a ladder to another kiva.
this is a window made out of mica rock. our guide told us that all of the old windows were pretty small like this and made out of mica that the acoma would find in the area. It made for pretty dark interiors--but the mica lets in some light. 
we liked the decorative corn motif on this balcony. 
wah! pemandangan! what a view. 
and the sky. so intense.
a potsherd we saw on the ground.
so there were two options for getting down from the mesa top--first, you could take the bus down. second, you could walk/climb the trail down. the latter including some of the original path that the acoma (and old-timey spaniards) would take to get up and down the mesa top. since it wasn't raining, we--and only the two of us from our group--opted to take the second route down.
it was easy but so much fun. 
more recently carved stairs. apparently, the spanish didn't like having to climb up/down using only small hand and foot holds. 
look at the divets on the left--you can see hand and foot holds. where my hands are may have even been a place to craft/sharpen rocks.
a really nice hand hold. oftentimes they are so shallow i wonder how anyone could use one. this one, though, is substantial. 
you can see that it was windy. my hair is blowing.
this part got a bit steeper--but still great hand holds. 
then, for some reason, there was a rock wall that had tons and tons of gum on it. in it's way, it looked pretty.
what a beautiful area.
we looked at some old fences/structures on our way back to the visitors center.
i liked these cascading windows. 
that rock formation looks a bit like a snake sticking its tongue out to me.
another potsherd we found. of course we only picked it up, looked at it, and then put it back down.
look at that pattern though. so nice.
cool find placed outside someone's old home.
a shop that wasn't open.
we wished there had been some turkeys for sale the day we were there.
we are always suckers for yucca.
we liked their garden.
now, we're back at the visitors center.
potsherds outside of the visitors center.
we ate lunch at the visitors center's restaurant. it was reasonably priced and one of the best meals of our trip. we had blue tortilla enchiladas and something else that i can't remember now, but it was delicious. and it was our first introduction to the lovely, lovely world of red and green chili sauces. new mexicans know how to make good chili sauces.
a bit about the garden in front of the visitors center.
once we left the pueblo, it started to rain. perfect timing.
we drove from the pueblo to gallup. we got into the main drag and tried to find shops to go in, but we discovered that most of the stores close before 5.
we did find a few we could look in. these navajo rugs were beautiful but so expensive. 
navajo pottery.
what a painting with cool ceramics, turquoise, a bolo tie, and two kushari figures! how did we not buy it?
it didn't rain constantly that evening. we were able to walk the main drag and enjoy things like this cool planter.
some history about gallup, which you may or may not know is on route 66 (historic route 66). and it was also the home base for the filming of many old westerns.
we stopped at an indian art/jewlery/fro-yo place. as you can tell, the kachinas are guiding you the right flavor of fro-yo.
b really liked the sign for this place.
we spent the night in gallup at the red lion, which as fate would have it was the place we stayed in in oregon the day after our wedding. what irony.
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