A tour of the American Southwest 5

Holbrook is a dinosaur-happy place.

But I digress.

It was a cold morning as we checked out of the hotel. Petrified Forest National Park was our day's destination so we headed up I-40 to the visitor center. Big strategic mistake. We should have taken Hwy 180 SE to the southern entrance and worked our way north. That way we would have had time to see the whole thing without doubling back. Oh well, next time...

We came for the petrified logs but what impressed us the most, in the end was the petroglyphs. Not because of the paltry number we were able to sorta see from afar – because of the ones you're not allowed to visit but can see in the book Tapamveni. HOLY CRUD there are a lot of petroglyphs there. This was a major Native American settlement and cultural hub!

see that big block in the lower middle? that's the photo below

just one of the massive petroglyph panels you can't actually walk up to (or even get close)

Down into the badlands...

Petrified logs are much harder than the clay they're in, so they often end up on the very top of ridges...and then they roll down into the gullies.

We had to hurry back so's to not get caught by a closed highway. Snow was falling back home again.

A tour of the American Southwest 1

Our quest was to camp in the presence of Saguaro cactus...

...so we went here:

But, sadly, to get there we had to stay in Santa Fe and have breakfast at Pasqual's. Shucks.

And outside Santa Fe is...La Cieneguilla Petroglyphs! I don't know how to pronounce that name either. But, look, petroglyphs:YAY!

hmm that's two kokopellis already. Is this going to be a G-rated family trip, or what? nice flying squirrel 

frogs and spirals and snakes, oh my!

no touching

thunderbird

hand, rabbit, spiral with "dagger". spirals were often placed so that shadows or rays of light would cross the center of the spiral exactly on the solstice. this one can't do that so it's representational of the real ones.

6 more kokopellis including that one on the left that looks like it was defaced on purpose

lower right sure looks like a kangaroo..but it can't be. top: stacked birds?

this place just doesn't let up

 And then off to camp 220 miles away (as the crow flies). A little dispersed camp near Mimbres.

this is spacecraft mode, of course. with controls like those, what else could it be?