Land of Enchantment

New Mexico's official ballad is titled "Land of enchantment" and it really has strange and wonderful terrain that is hard to describe even in pictures.  

 Ansel Adams

Ghost Ranch Hill, Chama Valley, Northern New Mexico

1937

 Ansel Adams

Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico

1941

"Sometimes I get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter" - Ansel Adams

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From Tucumcari we traveled west enjoying the wonder of nature and God's creation.  In Albuquerque we explored part of the Petroglyph National Monument where Native American's drawings on the volcanic rock are still visible after 300-700 years.

(we enjoyed the volcanic tubes and the first sand of the trip :)

Leaving Albuquerque and again heading west on I-40 found ourselves entering El Malpais which means the "badlands" in Spanish.  On either side of the road, lava covers the earth.  You can imagine the boiling molten cauldron that this area of the country must have been sometime in history.  At the visitors center a panoramic window allowed almost 180 degree views of the lava field and although there were hiking trails across it, the park rangers cautioned us against trying to explore outside in the heat.  The black rock simply absorbs too much and the hiking is apparently tricky and somewhat treacherous even when temperatures are cooler.  

Bryce Chackerian

View of El Malpais Lava Fields

2005

Instead of exploring the lava, we decided to head back a few miles to a place that Terry, Laura, and Allen had been before.  A place called "Sky City" where people have inhabited the land continuously since somewhere around 1100AD.  

The Acoma people inhabit "Sky City" and it is truly a city in the sky.  It sits on top of a 367 foot mesa and houses approximately 13 families year round.  The rest of the Acoma people now live in the lower area surrounding the mesa.  The tribe is separated into clans and works on a matriarchal system where the youngest female always inherits the families estate.

We admired the pottery and jewelry at the visitors center and then ascended in a bus the 367 feet to the top of the pueblo.  There are no building codes here and the resulting architecture was fascinatingly odd. Bricks, clay, wood, and rock mixed brand new and centuries old.  The streets are dirt and sand and there is no electricity or running water.  However, modern cars and trucks line the streets.  It is a place where ancient history meets the 21st century.  

Legends and stories mix with modern business as the tribal people take advantage of modern curiosity and peddle their goods on every corner.  We drank our water, closed our eyes when the high wind picked up the sand and threw it into our eyes and hair, and wished we had remembered our sunscreen. 

On the way down, Allen and I wanted to experience history a little more thoroughly and decided to climb down the historic stone stair case rather than ride the bus.  This staircase is so well hidden in the rock that legend says a Spanish conquistador circled the mesa for days looking for the route that would take him to the top, with no avail.  It is quite steep and the wind whips at what must be at least 40 miles an hour.  Allen and I helped each other down and became more thankful for modern conveniences and building codes. ;)

 The wind

 Road below

Waiting our turn

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After leaving the Acoma, guess where we went?????????

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WALMART!!!

;)

We had to go there for food and baby wipes.

We were COVERED in sand.  It was in our teeth, our eyes, our ears....everywhere.

We ate our chicken and potatoes from the deli in silence remembering the Acoma as we again turned West.  The goal was Gallup.  We would stay the night and then journey into Arizona the next morning.

Unfortunately, or fortunately.........the Gallup KOA was full.  We were not terribly distraught over this because the night was still young, and the Gallup KOA was rather strange.

We ended up at the Holbrook/Petrified Forest KOA in Arizona.  It was nice, actually the nicest KOA we stopped at.  However, while enjoying the pool, I laid down my sunglasses and forgot to pick them back up. :<  Sad, sad... Such is life....

More adventures to come!!!  Up next GRAND CANYON!!!