b did stop before we left the de-na-zin to get another picture of the top of this chili. the shadow was better in the morning.
it took a few hours and a pit-stop around farmington to get some more food supplies to get to chaco. but it was exciting to enter. the one campground in the park had two spots available. (this is always an anxious time for me as i hate to not get a camp spot where i want to have a camp spot. and chaco is pretty far out with no back-country camping in the nearby vicinity. so i was very happy for us to get a spot.) we set up our tent and proceeded into the park.
we went to the visitors center to pay the entrance fee and pick up some park materials.
b liked this vulture capitalism romney bumper sticker. we had never seen one like this before.
on our way to our first hike, we saw lots of soaring, swirling ravens in this canyon off the side of the road. the interesting thing to us was that as they looped around this little canyon they gave the illusion of being more than the 7-10 ravens they were--because their shadows would hit the rock walls and multiply the number of birds. at times it looked like a huge swarm of ravens, then the illusion would disappear, and you'd be back to how many birds there actually were. it was a neat optical illusion.
chaco is a beautiful place. although i think it would be a difficult place to visit in the summer heat. there is not much shade or cover--i can only imagine how hot it would be.
we decided to go on the pueblo alto trail, which starts at kin kletso. so we got to look around kin kletso first.
it was a wonderful structure. 
i think kin kletso is a great one to start with. it's not too big, and it's fun to look around. if you started with pueblo bonito--or one of the other bigger sites--you might feel disappointed by viewing a smaller site like this one. i'd say, start small and then get bigger.
a lizard!
i like this one. that's a pretty intense stare.
we started up the pueblo alto trail.
it's a pretty steep hike up from kin kletso--but so fun. 
who doesn't want to walk through that? if i were in chaco in the summer, i might just stake out a claim right here. the shade and wind here was truly an anging enak (delicious wind)!
we made it to the top of the rock wall and used the kairns to help guide us.
we found some beautiful claret cup cactuses. they have a fun barrel shape. and, of course, wonderful blossoms.
we enjoyed seeing the pecked basins in the sandstone.
so circular. my freshman geometry teacher would have been so proud of the ancestral pueblan's symetry.
here, a stone circle. we aren't exactly sure what that means. but it was marked so we took a picture.
more blooming cacti. we sure love succulents. 
shrimp burrows! this area used to be covered in ocean water. how cool is that to think of?
looking down at pueblo bonito--the crown jewel of chaco. this is the biggest structural site that's been excavated within the park.
we would walk through pueblo bonito the following day, but this bird's eye view did give you a sense for how massive the site is.
some human-made steps. it's always neat to see remnants of the past like this.
we got to the point where we could choose to go left or right. we opted to go left first--and then to go right.
a fossil we found!
a closer-up look of the site on the left.
a different masonry style than we saw at kin kletso.
some old, some new etchings in these bricks.
i liked the pattern built into this rock wall.
we headed over to the less built-up/preserved site on the right. this view shows you an old chacoan road. it's hard to see now, but the rangers told us that from an aerial view it's really easy to see these ancient roads.
we saw a cotton-tailed rabbit up there.
it seems a bit nervous of us.
another view of the road.
a huge mass of blooming claret cactus. definitely the biggest one we saw on our trip.
look at those carved stones. it's hard to imagine building all of these structures about 1000 years ago.
and then we saw it! 
a huge, beautiful, lazy collared lizard. 
oh it was lovely.
i can't even imagine a more beautiful creature. or maybe i can, but it was so striking. the colors; it's size (probably 14 inches long). what a sight!
an old potsherd.
another collared lizard. although, this was not as impressive. sorry, lizard.
an interesting location for a cairn.
the narrows we would hike down through.
we spotted another collared lizard on our descent.
i liked how proud this one seemed.
truly a vestige of the past. holes where the ancestral pueblans would probably sharpen implements.
some views down at kin kletso.
and then this! i was standing by a rock near kin kletso and noticed all of these interesting white lines in it. looking closer, i realized these were clam shells!
look at that big clam shell! i couldn't get enough of this. it was amazing. 
and that one. they look just like the shells you find all of the beaches now. wah! so cool.
we really enjoyed the pueblo alto trail and would highly recommend it to anyone heading to chaco. i'm not sure who of our possibly 10 friends and family members who read this will actually go to chaco. but this hike definitely receives a big thumbs up!
once done at kin kletso, we went to pueblo del arroyo. we liked the misspelling on this dumpster.
honestly, every place we looked at was really cool. 
look how tall those walls are. it truly is amazing what the ancient chacoans could accomplish and in such a dry area. the rangers explained to us that so much water was needed to make the mortar that cemented the rock bricks together to form the walls. in chaco there are many mysteries--but that is truly one of them. how did they get so much water?
a t-shaped door.
it's cool seeing the wood beams.
b's shadow.
we then headed over to chetro ketl to go on a ranger-guided walk through the site. this was definitely a highlight of our visit to chaco and certainly one of the best ranger experiences i've ever had in a park. our ranger was so knowledgeable. 
he showed up down into this closed off area to show us how ceilings/floorings looked back when the chacoans were here.
there is painting on these walls. original painting.
a great kiva. we spent a lot of time talking about this kiva.
a substantially restored section of this site. obviously, the cement walls on the left and right aren't original. but it gives you a good look down into one of the structures.
round holes where beams would have been originally.
wood dating hole removed from the original wood beams.
once we were done at chetro ketl, we did some of our own exploring. we saw a deer sitting in the grass.
we saw a group of deer.
we stopped at the chacoan stairway pullout.
if i remember correctly, i think the stairs are near the top of the left side. but it was hard to see them from the road.
we went back to our campground to have a quick dinner. 
we admired the big rock mesa near'ish to the campground. it reminds me one a very similar rock mesa my grandmother painted in an oil painting she made for my parents when they got married.
at the campground, we went on the little hike there to look at a structure right against the rock wall.
from there, we could see lots and lots of cliff swallows.
a nest.
lots of nests. they were darting all around us. 
we went to an 8pm moonlight ranger hike. we thought it would be a tour of pueblo bonito, but it turned out to be of chetro ketl (which we had done the 4pm tour of earlier that day). i was pretty disappointed by this at first, but i got over it. and we enjoyed this ranger-guided tour.
our ranger told us that it was a blue moon that night. apparently blue moons only happen about once every 7 or 8 years. it's an extra full moon in a year. 
it was a big, full moon. and we enjoyed learning about that and other features of the site (that we hadn't learned before). it was also cool to learn about the importance of lunar patterns and cycles to the ancestral pueblans who lived here long ago.
we were also able to see mars and jupiter in the night sky. 
the sky was all lit up with the big moon. and once it got darker, we were able to see the other stars better too. it was a beautiful night. after the ranger program, we got in our car and drove back to the campground (along with everyone else who attended the night walk). 
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