ROAD TRIP! Part 6

Part 6:  Monday: Going Home.  
The final installment.  Scroll down for earlier posts.


We hit the road bright 'n' early Monday morning at 8:00!  As we were driving past Bandelier on Highway 4, we noticed these gentlemen grazing.  We stopped to say hello.

Mule Deer bucks.  Photo by Kevin

 Right across the road--I just happened to look out the other window--these ladies were grazing.  We got to see two species of cervidae without moving an inch!

Elk cows

We drove through the Jemez to enjoy the beautiful geology.  We stopped and got out a couple times to root around for fossils.  Kevin found some petrified sticks.

Gosh!  Beautiful!

Kevin really wanted to explore some deposits of the Chinle formation, where he was sure he'd find an intact dinosaur skeleton.  We turned off the road to the White Mesa Bike Trail.  How beautiful were the hills!  We stopped to poke around.  I found an interesting rock right away.  It didn't look like all the other rocks around.  I decided it might be a dinosaur bone!  I'll send it to school with Kevin to ask his professors.  Emily found a piece of petrified wood.  It was fun.

The resident bovines wondered who the visitors were.

Though no-one spotted a millions-year-old femur sticking out, we enjoyed looking around.  We hit the road again and stopped for lunch in Albuquerque.

After lunch, we stopped at Petroglyphs National Monument.  Another National Park to add to my list!  It was windy and cool, so we spent a little while and then hit the road again.

When we left Albuquerque, it was about 2pm!  Six hours after we had left White Rock!

We were behind schedule, but I really, really wanted to make it to El Morro National Monument.  I drove like a mad-woman toward the park as the sun sank lower in the sky.  We finally arrived at 3:50pm. The sign read, "Trails close at 4pm."  Aaaack!

We jogged into the Visitors' Center and were told that we were just in time to hit the trail along Inscription Rock, but too late for the Headland trail, but it was closed due to snow an ice anyway.  We learned a little about the history of New Mexico while reading about the people who carved their names here!

The beautitful sandstone cliffs of El Morro

Why they came: the water hole

What a cute couple!

Petroglyphs were among the inscriptions.

We wondered how long it took Mr. Long to carve his signature so beautifully!

We left just as the moon was rising.

It was 5:00 pm by the time we left, with about 425 miles to go before our destination:  Needles, CA.  We wanted to spend as little time and money as possible in Arizona.  What else was there to do Monday night, anyway?  We hit the road and never looked back.

The next day, it was time to go home. We made it in a few hours and I was sooooo tired by the end.  Ready to be out. of. the. car.

It was a wonderful road trip, the whole way!  W00t!

ROAD TRIP! Part 5

Part 5: Sunday

Sunday we did the Rancho de Chimayo thing.  It was a lovely day for a drive!  Lunch was delightful!

Here are my super cool sisters.

And the nearly rest of my super cool family (we missed you Chuckbert and JerBear!).  One way...

...and another!

Twins separated at birth?  Maybe!

Eeee!  Then I got to ride in a Boss Machine!  What a thrill!  That car is beautiful!  And loud!  Thanks, BobBIE!

 Eee, Esa, I like your car!

Thanks for taking me on a ride, BobBIE!

ROAD TRIP! Part 4

 Part 4a: Friday

Friday was a kick-back day and there are no photos to show.  That doesn't mean we didn't have a fabulous time, though!

A bunch of us went to DeColores for lunch, where I had cheese enchiladas (Christmas) with an egg on top, which I LOVE--it is my favey. After that, Kevin, P, and I walked the new Canyon Rim Trail.  It is a nice trail, wide and paved, with a fancy bridge over one part where there wasn't enough dirt for a trail.

From the trail, you can see parts of the lab and the particle accelerator facility and a little railroad (who knew Los Alamos had railroad tracks??....you just never know what goes on in this town!).

It is a nice path for a stroll.  We made a hopscotch with chalk rock.

After that, Kevin built a skateboard for Mei and the kiddos hit the skate park.  Fun stuff.

Part 4b: Saturday

On Saturday, Kevin and I decided to hike one of our favorite trails, the Red Dot Trail, into White Rock Canyon to the Rio Grande.  Since we had never hiked the Blue Dot, we thought it would be fun to go down one and up the other, so BobBIE was kind enough to shuttle us so that we could leave a car at one end.

What a fantastic day for a hike!  It was a clear, crisp winter day, probably close to 50º, warm enough to hike in shirt sleeves. Jack went with us, and we were so glad to have him.  He has eagle eyes--he sees everything and can interpret it all!  It was a really nice hike.

We started at the Red Dot trailhead. The trail descends about 900 feet into the canyon in about a mile's distance.  It is quite rocky and scramble-y, but really worth it.  The views are like none other, and there is interesting geology and archeology.  Check out some of the petroglyphs. Not sure if all of these are authentic..... but most of them are, I'm sure.

The views were amazing!

Looking up from where we came.

Jack, the Naturalist!

The bottom of the canyon shows evidence of old farming lands.  I have read that both the ancient Indians farmed here, as well as that the Spanish grazed cattle in the area.  Now, it looks like great cactus fields.

Evidence of an old corral (Thanks, Jack, for pointing it out!)

Pajarito Springs was really running well!

Some places on the trail were icy and snowy, some were muddy, and some were perfectly dry and dusty!

Remember the millipedes I told you about last time I hiked this trail?  They die.

The Rio Grande was running swiftly, and it was so clear!

After about 3 miles along the canyon bottom, we started our ascent on the Blue Dot trail.  What goes down must come up! The trail is a little easier than Red Dot, with less rock scrambling and more of a switch-back type trail. I recommend hiking the loop this way--leaving a car at one end--and of course picking a cool day or early morning in the summer.  There ain't much shade!  It took us almost exactly four hours, including poking around and stopping for a snack along the river.

This has become one of my favorite hikes.  It is an excellent work-out, and simply breathtakingly beautiful.  Go climb a rock!

Road Trip! Part 3

Part 3: Thursday  (See part 1 here and part 2 here)


Touching the past is really moving for me. Visiting the ancient Indian cliff dwellings and fossil-hunting the day before was exciting. We decided to continue the adventure, and so we drove to Bandelier with BobBIE.

We had no sooner entered the park when we found some deer grazing. This young lady was posing so pretty, but we startled her and she bounded away.

We walked the main loop trail.

View from a cave.

Have you ever seen a bluer sky?

Enlarge and look closely for petroglyphs.  They are above the top row of holes.

Ms. Robin, in January!

After lunch in  Jemez Springs, we stopped along the road side and scoured the hillside for fossils.  Here, marine invertebrate fossils are plentiful, and it doesn't take much "hunting" to find 'em.  Just look on the ground.  There they are. Some of them look like they were carefully placed upon the ground, waiting to be picked up.  It is a thrill to touch the past!

Emily was the first to find one:  a big honkin' piece of crinoid stem.  We enjoyed picking up many bivalves, and Kevin even found a couple ammonites, the holy grail of fossil hunting!

Here's my haul.  The rock on the lower left isn't a fossil, but it is a piece of sandstone with what looks like ripple marks.  Cool!

As we left the Jemez valley, we spotted some wild turkeys!

And, though it isn't as stunning as p-doobie's photos from Anderson Overlook, we stopped on the way up the hill to enjoy the view.

Coming to Northern New Mexico always invigorates my soul!