day 5 (chaco and bandelier)

we woke up saturday morning in the chaco campground and happily packed up our things and headed back into the park.

 it was a beautiful morning. we headed to pueblo bonito--although took a minor detour before we got to pueblo bonito proper. 

 we looked at this hole in the wall that our guide the night before had showed us and said that once inside, it was big enough for about four people to sit inside there.

 it's always nice to be out in the desert in the morning. i love the coolness and calmness. and even though we were in a national park--this morning was no exception to that. there was no one around for awhile.

 ancient wood beams--showing how floors/roofs were made.

 lovely shadow on the wall.

 a kiva. we learned that a lot of tumbleweeds blow into the kivas. the rangers clear those out from time-to-time. and when they do, they also often find the other things that make their way into these holes--snakes!

 we didn't see any snakes in the park though.

 this is a cool shot.

 sometimes you have to duck down to make it into some of the rooms. and then you want to get on your tippy-toes to see what's in one room over.

 pueblo bonito was really cool. it was massive--tall and wide with so many rooms. such an ambitious structural compound.

 i loved these windows in the corners. what a feat to build one of those.

 look at that t-shaped door down there.

 it's amazing how much effort the ancestral pueblans put into building these buildings, cutting out the rock, carving the bricks, etc. and the wood! there aren't big trees around chaco.

 original wood. 

 i'm so amazed at the original wood.

 or, acutally, i was just yawning.

 what a nice t-shaped door.

 another great kiva.

 a nice view of it with the rock wall in the background. it is a very striking setting.

 an artist's rendering of what it may have looked like back in its heyday. 

 an interesting sign.

 a potsherd we looked at and then put back.

 lots of ants.

 we went to the rinconada site after pueblo bonito. rinconada has the largest great kiva at chaco--so it seemed like we needed to see it. this is not a picture of the biggest kiva.

 this is it. 

 a huge kiva. one of the unique aspects of this kiva is the entrance into the kiva from below the floor-level inner circle of the room. as with nearly all things chaco, we have no idea why this entrance is there. maybe to let in water?

 steps down into the kiva.

 another potsherd we looked at and then put down.

 a stately raven. nearly every time we saw one up-close on our trip, we'd say "wah! they're so big." (or something along those lines.) they are big birds, and they do a funny kind-of waddle-like walk.

 b enjoyed this man's t-shirt. 

 we stopped by the visitors center one last time. we went to the bathroom, got water, and watched a video on the ancestral pueblans. unfortunately, this was one of those times when i was just too sleepy to stay awake in a room that's dark and i'm sitting quietly. i slept through most of the video. 

 after that, we went on the short hike from the visitors center to see a few nearby sites.

 a structure.

 then we hiked up to the base of the rock wall and enjoyed the cool pictographs.

 another human-made structure.

 the view from the top--or the base of the cliff--which is where we were.

 a turkey pictograph.

 oh, this is helpful. the last structure we saw was called una vida. maybe this site inspired u2's great song "one."

 here is a series of pictures of b. i need to take more pictures. he is such a good picture-taker that i forgot most of the time.

 i particularly like this one.

 these two shots show b's angst for the flies of chaco. he was constantly swatting at flies there.

 on the dirt road part of the drive out of the park, we saw some sheep.

 

 once we got to where the chaco-leading/-departing road met with the main highway, we found a flea market of sorts. which, of course, made us stop. we both got angus burgers on fry bread with chili sauce (and other toppings). this was b's second favorite meal of our trip--we haven't gotten to his number one favorite meal yet. the burgers were so good. the only thing i would have changed was to have slices of cheese melted on top of the burger. why do we not have more fry bread in this life?

 along the highway (in navajo land), we saw a sign for an lds church 1/4 mile off the road. we somehow managed to get lost but eventually found our way to the chapel. it was cool to see. it was not around any town or houses or anything. we wondered how many members attended church there and how far away they must travel from.

 this was our first time to use mapping apps on our new smart phones. it worked out really well--although it did take us on a partially unpaved road from chaco to bandelier national monument. the drive was beautiful--high desert trees and streams--and the road never got bad.

 we got to bandelier around 5'ish pm and immediately went into the visitors center to get going.

 although we did stop to see some cacti first. 

 at bandelier, you're in frijoles canyon. our first hike into the canyon--the most visited hike--was a nice one to start at 5pm. there weren't a lot of people and the sun was going down, which made it feel less intense.

 frijoles canyon is made out of tuff rock, rather than sandstone. it looks and feels very different.

 at bandelier, the ancestral pueblans built many little cave homes into the tuff.

 you can see the black near the ceiling. we can't remember if this was plaster or from fires, but either way it's very old.

 a cool shot.

 here's a series of pictures of b climbing no-handed into one of the cave dwellings.

 he's so talented.

 i am a bit less talented.

 i like this shot. it gives you a good feel for the texture of the wall.

 these little holes would have had wooden poles sticking out of them and would have been the ceilings/floors so that they could build multi-story dwellings.

 a pretty gnarly succulent. 

 that window-type thing in the rock wall is just that--a window into the wall. it shows you a lovely pictograph painted onto the wall.

 the sun was still hot as we walked around the cliff dwellings.

 a petroglyph.

 we continued our hike along the stream in the canyon to the final destination--a long series of ladders to get to a high cliff dwelling spot.

 along the way, we saw several male western tanagers. we were so excited! we hadn't seen any western tanagers for a long time.

 oh that tuff rock.

 so we made it to the base of the ladders. and i'll admit that i was nervous. i don't especially love heights (or, rather, heights where you can easily fall and kill yourself). but i knew i wanted to do this. so, as with all aspects of life, i just took it one step at a time.

 i'm slower than a lot of people, but i made it to the top.

 some beautiful yucca leaf fiber shots. 

 at the top, we enjoyed the view down into the canyon and looking at the carved-out caves and structure.

 there was even some cheap turquoise up there.

 i remember him doing this as we climbed the ladders down. he stopped, held on to the ladder with one hand and then took a picture of his shadow. it scared me to look at it. but he did just fine, and he wasn't nervous. it was just me who was nervous. but i made it down to the bottom of all those ladders again too.

 so relieved i made it down to the bottom.

 

we left the park and went into los alamos and dusk. we found los alamos to be a pretty strange place. the first thing that seemed strange was we had to go through a military checkpoint to even enter the city. the next thing was that there are only like 2 hotels in the whole town. the third thing is that even though we drove for miles in the town, we only saw one gas station, zero restaurants, zero grocery stores, zero store-stores. it was a strange place. we didn't want to stay in the over-priced conference hotels--so we used our guidebook to find a b and b at an affordable price. we did wake up the owner when we called at about 9pm. but she was gracious and got us into a nice place where we could shower and sleep comfortably. both of which were really nice.

From our drive into Los Alamos, here's a road sign: Bikini Atoll Rd., a name marking up the link between Los Alamos and the nuclear bombs the US detonated on this atoll in the Pacific, a sad chapter of the Cold War.