2009 – Week 3

April 30, 2009, Thursday:
Without having a cup of coffee, we were at the Rocky Mountain RV and Marine store at 8:05am, but we managed to sneak in a shower. It was 9:00am before they were able to start the repair, and 11:00am when we left. The solenoid that switched the current (flow of electricity) from the car battery to the house battery had corroded and while there was a temporary fix possible, we opted for a new part. Susie worked on her blog, and I was able to do some computer stuff and identify grocery stores, vets (buy Daisy more altitude food) and gas station. We left Albuquerque at 2:00pm. We took the Turquoise Trail (NM14), the scenic route, and headed north towards Santa Fe and Bandelier National Monument. The color of the earth was a light tan and whatever rocks were poking through were the same color. The only vegetation were green juniper trees that didn’t look fit for any animal. We traveled through the town of Golden, and it sure seemed like a ghost town to us. We then came to Madrid, and I though this was going to be a minimal town. The first few structures we saw were railroad boxcars that had been turned into homes. Next we came upon a very active arts colony. There were metal sculptors, painters, fabric weavers and potters plus restaurants. Susie had pulled off to the side of the road to let some motorcyclists pass us by, and we saw them again as they were preparing to enter one of the three restaurants we saw. The railroad cars were part of the ambiance. We didn’t stop due to time and continued north, passing by Santa Fe, leaving it to starboard. As we had noted on our earlier trips, the highway departments have a great tendency to make many highway bridges and retaining walls interesting through use of paint and textured relief, unlike the dull and stogy structures in the east. We passed just south of Los Alamos, the home of the atomic bomb, and as we continued on NM4 saw numerous buildings and high capacity power lines crossing the lands. All these buildings were identified as LANL (Los Alamos National Laboratory) followed by a number. Goodness knows what goes on in these buildings, but if the sky glows tonight we’ll be sure to tell you. We finally entered Bandelier NM and pulled into a typical, but appropriate, National Park Service Campground. There is potable water, running water for toilets and a dump station. This is the first place in the last 2 weeks where we have not had electricity and showers. I mentioned to Susie that I finally felt like we were doing what we should be doing. We’re not really roughing it as the tenters are, but it feels comfortable. There is not much of a moon, so we should be able to get a good look at the sky, unless Santa Fe throws too much light. We are camped at 6,600 feet tonight, and tomorrow we’ll tour some of the Ancestral Pueblo structures in this site. The odometer of the RV read exactly 85,000 miles when we turned off the engine.

May 1, 2009 Friday:
I’ll skip all the usual stuff and cut to the chase. We had a terrific day in Bandelier National Monument and the Frijoles Canyon. We rode our bikes down to the Visitor Center and coasted most of the way. Bandelier NM has 33,750 acres of land but only 3 miles of paved roads. Bandelier is in the Pajarito Plateau that was created more than 1,000,000 years ago when the Jemez Volcano located 14 miles to the northwest erupted twice and ejected enough material to cover 400 square miles with volcanic ash up to a depth of 1,000 feet. The power of both of these eruptions was 600 times greater than Mt St Helens. We were pretty impressed with Mt St Helens last year, but 600 times greater? Overwhelming! Over the years the volcanic ash consolidated, but it is still softer than sandstone and has its own name “tuff”. Tuff erodes easily and the walls of the Frijoles Canyon have the appearance of Swiss cheese. There are indications that people have lived here for more than 11,000 years. The Ancestral Pueblo group in this area existed from 600AD to 1600AD and then disappeared. These people originally lived in cliff dwellings in the Swiss cheese walls of the canyon. As the Ancestral Pueblo became more sophisticated, they learned how to build 2 and 3 story additions against the cliff walls and finally to independent pueblos in bottom of Frijoles Canyon. There are also kivas, rooms built below grade that acted as ceremonial rooms and teaching centers. We saw the remnants of the Tyuonyi pueblo that had 400 hundred rooms and housed about 100 people. There are several large pueblos in Bandelier NM but are in the backcountry. The high point of the hike was Alcove House. As we were walking there we heard rumors of a bear in the area. Many of the children on a school trip had a chance to see it. A bit further on, we saw a US Park Ranger carrying a rifle that shot rubber bullets. Evidently this was a young bear and did not understand that wandering in the Frijoles Canyon was not acceptable behavior. Alcove House is a large room in the cliff face with a kiva meeting room. It is 140 feet about the canyon floor and reached by climbing 4 wooden ladders. We returned to the Visitor Center and visited the small museum and the gift shop. I tried to by ice cream but the store didn’t have any. We had delayed enough and started to return to the campground. Since we had coasted most of the way down, we paid going back. It was a 3-mile trip and the first 3/4-mile climbed 600 feet. We arrived at the campsite and had to wake Daisy. She probably slept all day. We took sponge baths and washed our hair to get rid of the dust. Did I say it blew out here, and there was always dust in the air? Susie made dinner, and we went to bed. I’m sure we’ll sleep well. There is some concern about the weather tomorrow, but we’ll adapt as needed.

May 2, 2009 Saturday:
The weather was OK, and we decided to visit a separate section of Bandelier NM, Tsankawi. There is another pueblo there, but it has not been excavated. The pueblo sits on the Parajito Plateau, a higher elevation than where farming took place. Once again this material below is tuff and not very durable, as shown by the deep ruts in the path. While the Ancestral Pueblo People had worn some of the tracks, the later inhabitants with hard boots have certainly done much more. Some of the trails were deep enough to cover half my calves. The pueblo had one or two stories and 275 ground-floor rooms. There was no water at the level of the pueblo, but there was in a stream that has become intermittent now that the town of Los Alamos exists. In the area of the pueblo, we found numerous potshards and left them where they were. We saw the remnants of a rock structure that is believed to have been a reservoir for runoff capture from roof drainage. As we went to the lower level of the south and west sides, we found many caves that had been lived in. When it started to rain, we were prepared to use them as shelter also. Luckily for us, but not for the locals, it never rained hard. The area receives an average of 15” per year. It is hard to explain the wonder of this place, and it was great that we visited the main section of the monument and learned about the area before coming here.

From here we went to the Bradbury Museum in Los Alamos. This museum relates the history of the LANL and the development of nuclear science since before the start of WWII. Recently, the LANL has taken on other non-defense projects, but the focus is still nuclear weaponry and defense. As we tried to return to the campground, we found that NM502 went directly through the LANL main campus and was secured by a number of gates with armed guards. We thought we had made a mistake, turned around and tried again only to return to the same gates. We were supposed to go through them, but since we were a large vehicle that could have carried a bomb, we were stopped and searched. Daisy didn’t like the guard in his camo’s and wanted to eat him. The guard was fully armed and wore bulletproof vest (if there really is such a thing). We eventually were released and returned to the campground. Dark clouds have come and gone, leaving some moisture, but nothing like we get at home. However, the winds continue to blow, and we are full of dust again. We have prepared the RV to move on tomorrow and will visit the Apache Ruins National Monument over the next few days.

May 3, 2009 Sunday:
It was a beautiful morning, and we took the opportunity to catch up on stuff while sitting outside in the beautiful weather. We left the NM Juniper Campground at Bandelier at 11:00am and headed southwest on NM4. We noticed all the damage from the three major forest fires over the last 15 years, including the ‘2000 controlled burn’ started in Bandelier NM and spread to Los Alamos destroying 253 homes. There is still a partially burned road sign on NM4 pointing to the town of Los Alamos. We continued on NM4 and were able to view the 15+-mile diameter caldera of the volcano that spread ash over the entire area (previously described). A more detailed history of the area is as follows. 13 million years ago the Jemez Mountains were formed and a sluggish lava flow covered the area; 1.6 million years ago, the Toledo eruption blew the top off the top of the mountain; 1.2 million years ago the Valles eruption occurred removing 50 million cubic miles of material (the ash has been found as far away as Lubbock TX). The caldera today has a bottom consisting of 5,000 feet of ash and debris. These numbers seem overwhelming to me, but they came from information boards on the rim of the caldera. The numbers also differ from others we have seen, and I have talked about so I need to do some more research. The Valles Caldera National Preserve was established in 2000 and is run by Valles Caldera Trust with seven members appointed by the President of the US, five of whom must be residents of New Mexico. It seems a bit convoluted, but the owner of the 89,000-acre Baca Ranch in the caldera wanted to preserve the land but was unwilling to let the government operate it as a typical National Park. Today the area is still a ranch and a place with limited public access to keep it as natural as possible. We saw a herd of elk, but surely there are more species out there. The caldera is at elevation 9,000 feet, and the aspen trees have not yet started to leaf, whereas we saw aspen trees fully leafed out at 7,000 feet. We continued on NM4 through the Jemez Mountains and came upon a very different rock structure that had been named Battleship Rock. It caught us by surprise, and we had to make a u-turn and approach it from the southwest to really appreciate its mass and difference. This part of the trip was through the Santa Fe National Forest Recreation Area where there are numerous pull-offs for hiking trailheads and river access for fishing. Everyone seems to love fishing here. Next we stopped at the Hemez State Monument in the town of Jemez Springs. This small town is the location of the ruins of a Catholic Church complex created by the Franciscans in 1621. It is also the site of an operating monastery. As we toured the ruins, we noticed a sign that said ‘Please respect the privacy of the rattlesnakes, stay on the path’. That said it all! We continue through ????Pueblo, and then turned right (northwest) on US550, a 4 lane undivided highway that continues to Durango CO and beyond. This highway was beautiful and gave us the opportunity to see the colors of the rocks and soil change from brown to red to tan to black and often all of the above at one time. Continuing northwest to Bloomfield NM, we by-passed Chaco National Historic Park (previously visited 2003). We passed a NM State Trooper who had pulled over a car. If this car was speeding, it must have been almost flying, as the limit was 70mph. We had hoped to stop at Angels Peak NRA to camp, but discovered that it would require driving 15 miles on a dirt road in and then 15 miles on the same road out. No thanks, been there and done that in previous years. The area around Bloomfield is active with oil field and natural gas exploration and production and all the associated suppliers. We found a RV Park in Bloomfield. Susie cut my hair, and we washed clothes while we had the opportunity. It seems easier to wash 3 loads than wait and wash 6 at a time.

May 4, 2009 Monday:
We had good wifi at the RV Park if we walked up near the office. Susie finished her blog and posted the results. I washed some of Daisy’s sheets and pads, and now all the laundry is done for the time. We left the RV Park at 11:00am and drove 8 miles to the Aztec Ruins National Monument. After these ruins took this name, it was discovered that the Aztec people had nothing to do with the construction. Current thinking is that the Ancestral Pueblo People from Chaco Canyon, 55 miles south, were instrumental in the construction of this pueblo in the late 11th century. The stone masonry patterns are definitely from Chaco Canyon.
This pueblo was abandoned late in the 13th century with the people moving towards the Rio Grande River for a more sustainable source of water. After a while more Ancestral Pueblo people came south from Mesa Verde, and repaired and expanded the construction with their distinctive masonry pattern. The large kiva has been restored so that for the first time we have seen actual construction, not just drawings. The Aztec Ruin National Monument is a World Heritage Site.

We had lunch and then headed south to the Salmon Ruins, so named for the family who lived here for many years, starting in the 1890’s. This family protected the Ancestral Pueblo site known as the Salmon Ruins. People from Chaco Canyon, beginning in the late 11th century, constructed this site. The site was abandoned in the late 13th central for the final time. This facility is a great source of information, and we finally have come to believe that the people from Chaco Canyon had the greatest influence on the Ancestral Pueblo People in what is now called ‘The Four Corners’. By the way, we read in the newspaper about a week ago that the monument marking the intersection of AZ, NM, CO and UT is off by about 1,800 feet. We left Salmon Ruins and headed east to Navaho Lake SP.
Unfortunately, there appeared to be some sort of confusion with both the NM State Road Map and the Garmin GPS. We crossed the dam creating the lake and found a campground. We were able to talk to some other campers, and so I feel reasonably confident that we’ll be able to get back on track towards Arroyo Seco NM. The views from the campsite were wonderful, but the sun went down over the hills too quickly.


May 5, 2009 Tuesday:
We decided last night to get an early, but not too early to talk to stop by the Visitor Center to get our route straight. We had wondered yesterday why there was a large area right in the middle of the campground surrounded by a pipe rail fence and then chain-link fence with green plastic slats to prevent people from viewing the inside. I thought I heard a railroad in the way distance last night, but when I was taking Daisy for a morning walk I notice a few signs indicating a buried natural gas pipeline and so I think there is some sort of equipment associated with the pipeline inside the fence. Another mystery solved! We left at 9:00am and verified the directions and confirmed that Gabby Garmin was wrong! Another message to Garmin is in the works. We drove over the dam on a very narrow 2-lane road without any guardrails on either side. If we One mistake and we would either drown or be crushed as the RV went down the back face of the dam. I decided that I would take my half of the road out of the middle. There was no water flowing over the spillway, but Susie thought it would make a great waterslide! Yesterday and today we noticed that all the oil service trucks carried flags on whip poles and wondered what they signified. We were told that the red flag was a warning flag because there have been numerous head-on crashes on the dirt roads servicing the fields. The grey flag was an indicator that the truck had permission to be on private land. These flags weren’t very big so we’re not sure how effective they are. The road (US64) we traveled was a good road and had very scenic views on both sides. Unfortunately there were no place to pull over to take photos of the buttes and mountains beyond (to north). The San Juan Mountains top out at about 12,500 feet and we estimate that the snow level is at 9,000 feet. It will eventually melt, but after we are gone. We are headed towards Taos and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains that top out at 12,000 feet. A few days ago, when we were in Bandelier, we had a bit a rain, but these two ranges had snow. We stopped for breakfast in the Morningstar Café, just east of Dulce and outside the Apache Indian Reservation. It was a great place, and we were treated as royalty. We guessed they don’t get too many out-of-towners. We continued east towards Chama, the terminus of a steam drive tourist train. We would have taken it, but they don’t start operating until Memorial Day. We turned south through Brazos and then into Los Ojos (probably not on your map) to visit Tierra Wools. This is a local company that makes beautiful woven blankets, but we were not buying. We finished the day by settling in at Heron Lake SP at 1:00pm after driving 104 miles. I took Daisy for two swims and then gave her a bath. Susie’s altitude sickness has kicked in again so she is a bit slow. We are at elevation 7,200 feet. She has restarted taking her med’s.

May 6, 2009 Wednesday:
Beautiful morning here on Heron Lake. Not a cloud in the sky and just a gentle breeze. We had coffee at the picnic table overlooking the lake and tried to take pictures of the waterfowl. We’ll see how that effort turns out. We took Daisy for a walk at the edge of lake without her being on a lease. She was good for a time, but soon the pull of the water was more than she could take so in she went. Since Susie was in control she had the honor of washing Daisy when we returned to the RV. We had breakfast, took showers and serviced the RV before heading west on US64 through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains on our way to Taos. There was snow on all the mountaintops. We knew we were in for an interesting trip when a road sign said ‘Chains required beyond this point’. Up we went from 7,200 feet all the way to 10,550 feet. At 10,000 feet there were still patches of snow, and by the time we reached 10,550 feet, the snow covered more than there was bare. We stopped at a wonderful overlook where we were able to read a very faded sign identifying the terrain. In front of us were the Brazos Cliffs (top elevation 10,500 feet) that form the western edge of the Tusas Mountains.
The 1.7 billion year old rock is pre-Cambrian quartz. It was at this point that Daisy aversion to altitude caused her to lose her breakfast, even though we thought we had been very careful with what she ate. We had planned to camp at Hopewell Lake at 9,800 feet, but decided that we needed to push on for Taos at 7,000 feet. As we headed down, the snow began to melt, and the rushing water flooded the fields as it headed east towards the Rio Grande. I think the earth beneath the surface was still frozen because there was much standing water in areas. We passed an area west of Taos where there are numerous houses built into the ground. None of them appeared to be connected to the electric grid, but we didn’t see any solar panels and only one small wind turbine. We then passed over the fast flowing Rio Grande River.
I read that the bridge is 650 feet above the water, and looking down, that is not hard to believe. We pulled into the RV Park and completed washing the laundry. It took Daisy a while, but she began to look better around 7:00pm, so we hope she’ll be OK. The sky is clear and the moon almost full. It should be a great night for sleeping!