More fun in New Mexico

After failing to drive the Rialta up a dry, sandy wash to a BLM site, we wisely and carefully turned around and went back, again being taught the same lesson about washboarded gravel roads and sand. We do not like!! I was sweating bullets and begging Thayer to turn around at the first opportunity. Getting stuck in the soft sandy riverbed would lead to a more serious problem if it rained! The only casualty was the muffler to the generator which rattled loose and was damaged as we maneuvered our retreat. All else was well as we pulled into a nice boondocking site near Belen, NM. 

Fortunately our nice host, Rex, had a shop with the extra tools and grinder Thayer needed to fix the parts up so that they could be welded back together again. Finding a welder to do the job was trickier than we expected, Rex drove us around to some places near his place but no one dared to try welding the lightweight stainless steel parts. Ultimately, we ended up in Albuquerque, chasing around all day until we finally found a custom welder dude who had the skills. Thayer reinstalled the muffler and we were back in business. (He's so handy, I'm glad I brought him along!)

We spent a short time at Petroglyphs NM, just outside of Albuquerque, but these petroglyphs were not quite as awesome as the ones in Three Rivers so we moved on. We overnighted at the Sky City Casino, our jumping off place to visit Sky City, the Acoma Tribe pueblo. The next morning we drove the short distance to the visitor center where we bought our tickets for the tour, which is the only way to see the pueblo up on the mesa. They also have a very nice museum, a fantastic pottery exhibit, and several videos demonstrating pottery techniques and the culture of the Acoma. 

We rode a bus up to the mesa, 375 ft above the surrounding area for our 1.5 hour guided tour. Sky City is off the grid and the only full-time inhabitants are the spiritual elders of the tribe. Tribal members can drive their cars up the road to deliver food but no one else is allowed to drive to the city. Porta-potties ring the edges of the town but they are slowly replacing them with modern communal composting toilets. The city comes alive with activity during their festivals and celebrations several times per year. Sky City dates way back, possibly being one of the oldest continuously lived in cities in North America – dating back to around 1100 AD. Along our tour were tribal members selling pottery, jewelry, crafts and food. 

They have a heart-breaking history, as have all Native American tribes, but the Acoma Massacre involved some particularly hideous treatment from the Spanish. After being attacked and provoked, the rebellious Indians were punished by cutting off one foot of every man over the age of 25 and enslaving the women and children. Today they are a very organized and successful tribe, using their casino profits to improve their community and keep their traditions alive. I was surprised to see that alcohol was not allowed in their casino, I thought that was a staple in the casino world. It was a very educational experience and we enjoyed our knowledgable and gracious tour guide sharing her culture with us.

Thayer and I decided to descend from the mesa by following the ancient foot path that is cut into the rock. Note the hand-holds to keep from falling. This is the means that the Acoma used to bring all their food, daily water and other materials up to the top!

Continuing down the road and heading south we turned toward El Malpais National Monument. Well, if I thought the lava flows at River of Fires was impressive this flow was staggering! The ranger station was closed so I wasn't able to get the brochure so I'll do the best I can with the facts. The flows came from the south, filling the valley; the mountain range to the west is a chain of 100,000+ years old volcanoes and cinder cones; while the mountains to the east are sandstone formations dating back millions of years. Mt. Taylor, to the north, is an old composite volcano like our NW volcanoes, dating back about 3.5 million years. We found a good BLM campground, did a few short hikes, taking in the lava flow itself, a sandstone arch and beautiful sandstone cliffs. This state is just full of interesting and surprising landscapes!

Next up was the VLA Radio Telescope located on the vast Plain of Augustin, west of the town of Socorro. VLA stands for Very Large Array and when they named it thusly they spoke the truth. This telescope doesn't capture the visible spectrum of light, it captures radio waves from planets, stars and galaxies. They needed a broad, flat, quiet, plain to set up 27 large telescopes in a Y shape, away from terrestrial radio interference. Using a dedicated rail system and lifter, the telescopes are portable, even though they weigh in at 200 tons each! Each telescope is 25 meters across and really tall. Because they can adjust the spacing between each dish, they can configure arrays from <1 mile across to 22 miles across. Four times a year they change the size of the array using the railroad tracks and specially designed hoists to lift and move the telescopes. The farther they are apart the more detailed the pictures they can produce. It can see 26,000 light-ye

ars into the universe! 

Where's Thayer?

The VLA is one of the most productive telescopes in the world, operating 24/7 and scientists can access the data via the internet. It has one of the world's most powerful computers that can combine data from the 27 telescopes into a single images, save the data in huge data banks and make it available almost instantly. It was an amazing place, once more a small visitor center just packed with astounding information. It included incomprehensible (to me anyway) videos about the minute technical aspects of the telescope components and computers. And, if the VLA wasn't enough to blow my little mind, the VLBA just about did me in. The Very Long Baseline Array is a string of 10 giant telescopes stretching from Hawaii, across the continental US and ending up in the Virgin Islands. Working together, these telescopes give even more astonishing images of black holes, quasars, and galaxies. The technology involved with these instruments is mind boggling but really fascinating!

We continued along a very scenic drive southward toward our next big destination, Gila Cliff Dwellings N.M. The drive up into the Gila NF was a harrowing, twisting, climbing, dropping, convoluted 40 miles of coiled asphalt. Even using low gear, our brakes were just smoldering by the end. Turns out that this whole area is composed of ancient volcanic calderas, now very eroded and erratic!! Our first night we spent in a NF campground but quickly realized that this was the party campground for the weekend younger crowd. We decided to walk up the road to the Hot Springs to see what it was like and ended making friends with Martin (aka Jack, Jackass) who drove us up to the springs, stayed the day with us soaking and telling stories about treasure hunting. He also drove Thayer back to the NF campground so we could retrieve the rig to stay at the Hot Springs.

We need one of these in the RV!

The owner of the springs made us promise not to tell a lot of people about his campground because he doesn't want too many people showing up. I will say that it was a wonderful spot along the Gila River and, as you can guess, had some very nice hot springs. 
We met more really great people, including Erica and Gabe in their transformed school bus. They had purchased it in North Carolina, put lots of work into the bus, and are now on their way to the NW. They are doing a great job on the bus and were lots of fun to talk to, as Thayer and I have often discussed the merits of remodeling a school bus. 

The next day we met the Polaha family from California with 3 young boys and lots of energy. Turns out that Kris, the dad, is a successful TV actor who has played in quite a few recent TV shows. Since we don't ever watch TV, we didn't recognize him or know anything about the shows. A tad embarrassing to be so out of touch but he thought it was cool that we aren't tied to TV. They had just rented an RV and were on their way to Graceland to celebrate their 7 year old's birthday. They were having quite a steep learning curve in RVing but were doing just fine. We built a fire for 'smores and the next day toured Gila Cliff Dwellings with them. 

Gila Cliff Dwellings are a series of seven caves that were built between 1268-1287'ish and probably housed two clans of the Mogollon peoples. They were only occupied for about 30 years. They are located high on side of a ravine that drains to the Gila River. They were farmers, hunters and gatherers, growing squash, corn, beans and sunflowers in the fertile lands downstream of the dwelling site. It looked like a beautiful place to live with good water, soil and resources. It is a bit of a mystery as to why they moved on after such a short time. One ranger speculated that they were searching for their place of belonging and didn't believe that they had found it yet. To see the site you follow a very pretty and shady mile loop up the stream and the cliffside.

Our last stop before leaving New Mexico was the City of Rocks State Park, located SE of Silver City. Another volcanic surprise to explore! This area is an eroded, exposed flank of an ancient volcano that sticks up out of the surrounding flatlands. The rock is glassified ash and debris from the old volcano, quite soft and easily eroded into fantastic columns, hoodoos, and shapes of all sorts. The campground is immersed into the outcroppings with camping sites snuggled into rocky enclosures. We went clambering through the site for quite a while, eventually losing each other in the maze of rocks (this is not unusual for us, we generally lose each other within 5 minutes of entering a visitor center or museum). In one section there were about 8 -10 holes that had been ground into the soft rock by Native women grinding their corn. The spots were clearly located where they had a nice view, shade in the summer, or sun in the winter and having a nice rock to lean against. It was easy to imagine them sitting there, chatting with friends, minding the children and grinding their corn. A few of the holes were very shallow and I could imagine a young girl sitting and learning from the women. 

We had a beautiful sunset and moonrise, though the moon was not as red as we expected during the several days of eclipse. 

I was sad to think that our time in New Mexico was running out, there was still so much to see! We didn't even touch the northern part of the state, though everyone we talked to said that it was fantastic. I just kept looking at the below freezing nighttime temperatures and so we decided to stay in the warmer areas. New Mexico is definitely at the top of the list for a repeat trip. Now on to Arizona and California and increasing heat (and gas prices)!