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 4

After camping amongst the Ironwoods it was time to go to our next destination about 40mi north of Phoenix: Agua Fria National Monument. We could hardly wait. Wikipedia says this:

"Over 450 distinct Native American structures have been recorded in the monument, some of large pueblos containing more than 100 rooms each. " 

hmmm, must be around here somewhere...maybe over the edge over there?

Pueblo La Plata

unexcavated

lots of pot shards

as we surveyed this rustic Pueblo, what should appear but a swarm of bees! it scared the bejesus out of us! having thousands of bees flying just overhead as a diffuse cloud really hits a primal nerve. T does beekeeping so it wasn't just that there were bees. there are Africanized bees in Arizona and they could have decided that they just didn't like the look of us and, well, killed us all right there -YIKES!

Oh to have known that the 450 sites were UNEXCAVATED and all but one was UNMARKED. My theory: since Phoenix is just 40 miles away, this is the place where archeology students go to find things to put in papers. Just a guess.

fun little drink holder sticks in the ground

After a very pleasant dispersed camp, we headed toward Petrified Forest national Park. Naturally, we filled our gas tank with ADVENTURE:

Saw this snake sunning itself in the road on the way out the next morning. so THAT's why snake petroglyphs are often so squiggly!

A tour of the American Southwest 2

Almost two hours of windy road from camp we came to our second target: Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. Coming from Colorado and Utah, it was actually kind of a letdown - just five caves, big caves, but seemingly only a wayside stop for Mogollon travelers. And it was in use for only a "generation" - so 40-60 years?

a very cool lizardly lizard - nice scales!

big cave inside

This plant sprayed little droplets on us as we walked by. just a few. they felt like tiny tinges of coolness hitting our arms - very strange

nice tuff! Gila river cliff towers

family photo at camp

Tomorrow: driving; then:

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?