Month: September 2023

As the Balcony House advertised many ladders and small tight spaces to crawl through we left it for last to allow my back to heal up. It is not the only dwelling with many balconies but they are the most preserved for our viewing pleasure. Balconies are thought to have been used as a “catwalk” of sorts allowing residents to walk between and among the many rooms in the dwelling.

Balcony House is a bit more secluded, hiding away under a large stone canopy. We wondered here, more than other dwellings here, how the residents managed to enter and exit the property? We made it through climbing many tall ladders built with modern tools and technology.

Laurie made it up the ladders and now it is time to explore!

The size of the average human inhabitant was about 5 foot 4 inches. This doorway seems awfully small for even that size. We were constantly reminded to not hold onto anything as we walked through the house. Look at the right picture at the blackened stones where many folks, including myself had to steady themselves on the wall with their hands.

Crazy the tight spaces we were supposed to follow on the tour.

This is a what is called a “seep”. A watering hole of sorts. The rain seeps through the porous sandstone and then hits the layer of shale which “pushes” it out of the rock into a puddle as above. This was not enough water for all the daily chores but certainly a nice drinking fountain to gather round and tell stories of all the tourists that will someday be trapesing around their home.

Above is a picture of one of the balconies at Balcony House. It blew us away to see the almost 1000 year old timbers used as well as the mossy bark of the juniper tree as a kind of rebar to sturdy up the ledge.

Check out the smoke stains on the wall and roof of this secluded room in the house.

After climbing the ladder on the left we had to creep through that little opening in the back to get to the next room. The picture on the right is of one of the many kivas in the property. A sacred space most likely used for important and/or religious functions.

The guide made it crystal clear that if you have a fear of heights or any physical disability that might keep you from climbing these ladders to head for the exit before the tour started. The pic on the right is looking down one of the ladders and series of steps carved out of the rock.

After our tour we figured it was time for some exercise. There were many trails to hike in the park so we chose 2 of them that form the figure 8 up on a mesa looking down on the campground the park offers. We opted to walk the south and north loops on separate days as they were each a good 5 miles of walking. Loving the dry air out here as even when temps hit the 90s I do not sweat nearly as much as usual.

The trails in the park are not very well marked but for veterans like us, we used the map, compass and gps to keep us on the straight and narrow. Sometimes straighter than narrower but usually more narrow than straight.

Check out the fabulous blue sky with the park’s buttes and mesas surrounding the campground. The pic on the right interested us as it appears the road simply ends. Turns out there is a nice tunnel drivers must enter there.

Got to love nature as it finds a spot for this lonely tree to help with the erosion process the sandstone will go through.

It seems like wherever you go for a hike in Mesa Verde there is evidence of a past civilization to gawk at. The tower with the 3 windows is the tallest man made structure in the park. We are still awed at the preservation that has gone on here.

The short walk up the path to the high point of the park reminded us that although we are in decent hiking shape, the parks altitude does play havoc on your uphill breathing. We were also told that the thinner atmosphere also allows for more of the suns UV light to help burn our skin and give us a higher chance of melanoma.

Every corner we wound around on our hikes provided either fabulous views or a glance back in time.

Such peaceful places we came across. Perfect for a picnic lunch and a good book or a siesta?

As I stare out across the canyon at what seemed to be more dwellings I stopped to think about what life must have been like for the indigenous folks many centuries ago.

This park is so vast and fabulously interesting that we will split it into two posts. This post will focus on the Cliff Palace dwelling and the next will focus on the Balcony House dwelling.

This cliff dwelling makes one think what life was like as the nomadic peoples tried to settle down a bit and farm the land on top of the mesas. The staff here says that all we look at here is about 80% original and only 20% repair work on the mortar etc to stabilize some of the structures.

Could not resist the urge to wonder what it would have been like to call this place home. The tribes that inhabited the dwelling knew this would not be a forever home as their lore says they were meant to travel south for some reason. This Cliff Palace was only inhabited for a few centuries. It was also always being added onto over time. Many spots could be found where an obvious addition to the original structure was evident.

The happy couple getting ready for the Ranger led tour of Cliff Palace. I am sporting my fashionable back brace to help remind me not to make any sudden twists or turn. We chose Cliff Palace first as there are no places to crawl on hands and knees.

Cannot believe the quality of the engineering involved. The blocks were cut from local stone from river areas more than 2 miles away. The natives did not have horses or pack animals and they did not yet know about the wheel so this was quite the chore. We wondered which lucky members of their society were chosen to do all the hauling?

The views from the Knife Edge hike we took were spectacular. Almost unlimited visibility near the 4 corners area of the country. This is where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah meet. Not sure which state is in the distance here? This is about a 3 mile round trip hike. Very worthwhile.

Gorgeous mesas and buttes all throughout the park.

The video below does the scenery a bit more justice than a still shot:

Laurie caught me hose handed as I spent part of our “day off of touring” washing the vehicle and the camper. Most parks do not allow this obsessive behavior but for a mere $15 we were able to use the precious desert water. They also leant me a hose, brush and ladder and soap. My kind of hospitality.

Santa Fe was not on our minds when we left on our trip almost 2 months ago but we have heard many good things about the area. Kind of cool to be on the original route 66. We also needed a fairly large town or city to take care of a few errands. One of our kayak racks had been compromised a few years ago in Kentucky and has started to give us worry. REI has an outlet in Santa Fe so, after our wonderful experience with them in the Houston area we figured we would give them our business. We also needed a Chevy dealer to fix the cover to our gas tank as it is falling off. Both items were indeed taken care of hear during our 4 night stay.

We opted to take a walking tour of the city given by the staff at the local history museum. Their fees and our subsequent tips all went to help fund the museum. This tour used ear pieces connected by blue tooth to the guides. Wonderful as the city noises did not interfere with our learning of historical knowledge. The building above is supposedly the nations longest standing and continuously running government building dating back to 1610. It is called the “Governor’s Palace”. The folks sitting outside are local indigenous artists that show up early to get one of these coveted free “spots” to sell their wares.

Many shopping areas in the city center are located inside a courtyard like the one above. There are many of these, but it’s deceiving because you can’t see these courtyard markets from the street. Hidden treasures everywhere. Very cool artwork by natives and non-natives alike. A good selection of local foods, too. Back in the day each courtyard was a hub of activity for the many families surrounding that courtyard. Imagine the scuttlebutt with everyone overlooking your comings and goings.

This old city is home to many famous churches like the one above named The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assis. Fabulous architecture to go along with the statue of its namesake.

One of the many irrigation ditches we found throughout the city. If you were on the good side of the water superintendent back in the day, the gates would be opened to your field to drain water off the main channel above. If you were not in good graces your crops would go un-watered.

The river above is actually the Santa Fe River. Not much too it right here but there is yet another irrigation ditch to its left.

In one of their downtown parks there is this bronze statue representing the livestock that the Spaniards introduced to the area in the sixteenth century. Horses, sheep, cattle, donkey and pigs. We were not aware that the horse is a relatively new animal to the Americas. All the pictures we conjure up of Indians riding horses are only accurate as of 4 or 5 hundred years ago. We also didn’t realize the Indians in North America had no concept called the wheel.

The city does a great job keeping up their public spaces. Still a bit hot for us around here in the summer but we did enjoy some people watching from under the shade trees.

The adobe style buildings throughout the city give Santa Fe a great vibe.

The Upper Crust pizza company provided lunch on our day of tourism in the area. Not as good as the name states and not as good as our homemade Ooni pizzas but not bad. Not sure why we keep trying to find good New York style pizza outside of the northeast?

The city has has created a unique artsy and historical culture that they are very proud to call Santa Fe! We will be back for some R&R in future for sure.

Both of these treasures are located in northern New Mexico. Bandelier is actually located in Los Alamos while the Aztec Ruins are located an hour south of Mesa Verde, Colorado. We would have loved to get a tour of the military base where the atomic bomb was first created but they only open the Manhattan Project area twice a year for tours. Maybe next time.

This is a picture of the Long House at Bandelier. No tours here but what a view of the spaces that the natives lived.

This is very unfortunate in this day and age. We did find many more holes in the wall to crawl into.

With my aching back protesting I did crawl up into this fabulous space with a view to kill.

Cannot believe we are going to climb 140 feet of ladders to check out this space. Some of the ladders are visible in this shot center left.

Don’t look up and don’t look down!

This is the first exposure we had to a room called a “Kiva”. This should have a teepee style roof on it where you enter in through the same hole in the ceiling that the smoke from the ceremonial fires escapes. We found many, many of these sacred rooms at each different ruins sights.

We did not see the birds that call the nest in the hole home but the spot seems like a fabulous choice on the birds part. This squirrel on the right was very friendly but….no food for you. Many signs alluded to the fact that many visitors have been bitten by seemingly friendly but evidently aggressive squirrels.

The park service employees did what we might call the best job building a bridge with materials found at the job site we have ever seen. They actually did 3 of these bridges this year. We could even see the pencil marks tracing the curves that would need to be cut.

Not sure who the art teacher was that assigned this class project. Anteater?

We cannot believe these are still the same timbers that were used in the construction over 700 years ago.

We opted to be dropped off by the shuttle bus at the top of the campground to hike the 4 mile trail down into the visitor center and ruins area. Good choice!

From the Los Alamos area we traveled a bit west to see the Aztec Ruins National Monument in the town of Aztec, New Mexico.

Seems like each national park or monument, as Aztec Ruins is, has a nicely done metallic overview of what the park looks like from above. We were informed that the natives who lived here were not actually Aztecs. The Spanish explorers lumped them together with the natives living in Northern Mexico. Nice way to start a visit.

This is a reconstructed Kiva. Cool windows and pits for ceremonial fires etc.

This Kiva was left without a roof. Not as large as the reconstructed one but cool to see the original stone and mortar.

Many of the structures had water collectors built in to their walls to catch the rain that falls very infrequently around here. A bit confusing as at Bandelier some “chutes” that look just like this were for allowing cool air to come in to push the smoke and hot air out the hole in the top. Maybe it was dual purpose?

We had a fun time imagining what the village would look like when it was hustling and bustling.

The literature here claims that there are a number of these ancient gems of a city still buried in the area. Maybe someday they too will be excavated. The people that occupied them did not just disappear. They simply migrated to nearby spots with better water and food sources. We noticed that the terminology is changing a bit, they now refer to these as ancient spiritual places instead of ruins.

It is exciting to think that we are only a few days drive from the “mother” of all ancient dwellings in the southwest…Mesa Verde, Colorado.

Our travels have taught us that trying to drive more than 4 hours in a day makes the trip more like work and less like play. Between Dalhart, TX and Mesa Verde in Colorado we located two national monuments on our route. The Capulin Volcano National Monument is located in the town of Capulin, New Mexico. Figured it would be fun to walk inside the crater of a volcano. The town had a gift shop, a few houses and an RV Park. The RV park was owned by a couple that decided to retire 5 years ago and start a new RV park business. Fabulously interesting couple

The view of the cinder cone Capulin Volcano as seen on the approach road. Notice the road cut at an angle. It is a 2 mile hill with an average grade of 6%. Hills and their grades are fascinating. 6% is fairly steep but it means you will rise in elevation 6 fee for every 100 feet of road (a bit of an estimate as the road is the hypotenuse of the triangle formed using the road and the horizontal. Also, could be bicycle worthy?

Laurie is wondering “what ahhhh kept cha’?” as we start out on a nice hike through the lava fields at the base of the volcano.

Check out some of the views of the surrounding landscape:

The photo below is of a collapsed lave tube from an eruption some 60 thousand years ago

If only houses could speak. We found this abandoned farm house on the approach road to the volcano. Memories of the old dust bowl era.

This poor little baby mockingbird tried to adopt us one morning. It still had fluffy tufts of hair on its head. After a very windy night we figured it got blown out of the nest.

When our friendly mockingbird finally flapped its wings it made it to the window of our truck. Look at the image it sees when it looks at the reflection in the window.

We took a short bike ride down one of the few dirt roads leading off into the distance. After being chased by 3 almost friendly dogs we were impressed with the lunar like views of our surroundings.

The nearby town of Folsum, NM piqued our interests regarding the local history. We figured if this sign is any indication that the place might grab our attention, then we should check it out.

We hear about how abusive the settlers were toward the buffalo herds in the area but this seems a bit absurd. Crazy pile of buffalo skulls!

Here is a story worth telling. George McJunkin was born into slavery in Texas around 1856. After the Civil War he took on many jobs in the Texas, Colorado and New Mexico area. He learned to read and write as well as speak Spanish. He became the foreman of a large ranch near Folsum. After the flood of 1908 killed 18 people in the town he went about trying to mend the ranch fences and came across the bones of an old mastadon. The bones had many pointed arrow heads among them. As he also had become an amateur archaeologist through his readings he recognized the significance of the find. It took him over 10 years to convince an archaeologist at the Denver Museum of Natural History to come and look at what he found. It was only shortly after his death that the site was excavated to find evidence that humans lived in the area more than 7000 years prior to what was believed. When learning about the early indigenous people in North America the “Folsum Point” that McJunkin found is considered the key piece of evidence showing humans lived here at least as early as 9000BC. We visited his grave at the cemetery in Folsum.

Upon leaving the museum we found this in the middle of the road. Easy enough to tell it is a rattlesnake but how did it get in the box and why was it in the middle of the road? Note the holes that appear to be bullet holes in the box. Upon further inspection, the snake was indeed dead. The flies were enjoying their meal of the day.

We took the scenic route to the town of Ratan, NM and ran into a few ranches loaded with happy cows and this 126 year old non-denominational church in the middle of nowhere. Love the hitching post outside the front door.

It was not Sunday but I can now say “I made it to church” during this long trip of ours. Not sure whether the privies outside were shot up on purpose or not. Maybe it was to provide ventilation to for the “customers”?

It was time to see if our legs were still in shape. The 2 mile ride up a 6% grade told us that we do indeed “still have it”. We were allowed to ride up even though cars could not Mon.-Thurs. as we waited until after quitting time for the construction workers and then ducked the gate at the bottom of the hill. By the way, the Rangers said that would be okay.

We timed our ride to be just before sunset. Fabulous otherworldly views from the completely empty parking area on the summit. Not quite a sunset shot, but, pretty nonetheless.

On Friday when they opened up the road for vehicular traffic we decided to pack a picnic lunch and our books to hike the rim of the volcano and have a relaxing afternoon. Boy was that light a long one! Guess it is better safe than sorry as there were no guard rails to avoid catastrophe if two vehicles met going in opposite directions.

The trail around the rim was about a mile long and was paved for our pleasure. Not sure why they paved it. Laurie, with hands on hips, is a bit impatient to show me the bench she found. We wondered what the divot in it was until we found the information placard that explained the oddity. It was a lightning strike that gauged it out! As we were spending the afternoon on one of these benches made sure to keep an eye on the clouds in the sky.

A reading room with a fabulous view. A modern e-reader shows off the reflection behind us and the old style paper book is catching the shadow from that same tree.

Not sure if the video above does justice to the vast beauty this northeast corner of New Mexico.

A strange plant indeed. When the wispy part of the plant comes detached it blows around the area looking much like one of those stick bugs we occasionally see.

Our last night in the area we were treated to a ranger led viewing of the night sky. As the park is considered to be in an international dark sky zone the visitors center puts on an hour long show with their 24 inch telescopes every Saturday night at 8:30. We saw Saturn, the Moon, some far away stars and some galaxy clusters. Above was the moon rise and sunset all at once.

We were treated to our host Mark playing the drums along with some of his favorite tunes on his porch. A really cool way to wrap up a wonderful stay in a spot we had never heard of before seeing a brown spot on our atlas.

This hardy pioneer built this sod house, or as locals call it, a soddy, back in 1894. Marshal McCully built the house using a half an acre of sod cut into 18 inch wide strips and stacked like bricks to make the 12 by 24 foot building. The roof was made from some of the few local small trees cut into rafters with 12 inches of sod on top. The floor was originally dirt but he surprised his wife by putting in a wood floor after a year or so. The ceiling had sheets hung from them to prevent rain, dirt, debris, snakes and insects from raining down on the residents. Most sod houses were meant to be lived in for no more than 5 years while the pioneer built a stick framed house. Marshal lived in it for 15 years until he finished his stick house. The building is now housed inside the museum to protect it from the elements so it can last another 129 years.

Most soddy houses had their walls covered with local newspapers but Marshal outdid himself by buying some wallpaper. This is the only little original piece left today. We like the idea of newsprint as it tells a story forever.

I wonder if Laurie is checking out the root cellar to see what would be stored there or if she is seeing if it would double as a tornado shelter.

Thought this placard regarding root cellars was very interesting.

Very frugal it appears. With inflation taken into account the $6.20 would be worth $222 today. Still pretty frugal.

Most folks know about 12 inches to a foot and 3 feet to a yard but…..I have heard the terms Rod, chain and furlong but had no idea of their relative sizes.

I certainly did not know what an acre was beyond 1 acre = 43,560 square feet, just about the size of a football field. Described as the amount of land one man and one oxen can plow in a day.

Very cool to see the actual deed given to homesteader Marshal McCully along with the provisions for a successful land grant after 5 years.

TAT Museum

With some time to kill folks in town said we should visit the TAT Museum downtown.

TAT stands for Transcontinental Air Transport. This later morphed into now defunct major airline TWA.

As Waynoka was the hub of activity for this new company they got visits from the likes of Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart. Way back in the day planes could not fly at night with no lighting so to get across the country they would land in Waynoka then many would take the train the rest of the way. This train portion of the journey gave birth to many cities along the route with hotels and restaurants run by the Harvey Corporation. This is akin to the Howard Johnson restaurant/motels along Route 66.

As we are from Upstate NY we will give a nod to the Syracuse China used in these exclusive restaurants. Each whistle stop restaurant served elegant food in finely decorated dining rooms. The term “Harvey Girls” emanates from the fact that women (all must be pretty and white) were hired on 6 month contracts to do all the service work at these restaurants/hotels. The contract laid out behavioral rules as well as the caveat that during this time they were not to get married.

We got a kick out of this advertisement poster for the Santa Fe Railroad. These were placed on billboards in the East trying to entice folks to vacation out in the Midwest.

We would say that if you are ever near the panhandle of Oklahoma, stop by these two fine institutions. No crowds and all the volunteers working there for their respective historical societies were incredibly friendly and knowledgeable.