Don’t worry, we’ll spend more time on each of these soon.

We left after church, the 1st of May.  The back way was faster so we passed through Hanksville.  A rainy Sunday night and the Natural Bridges National Monument campground was full.  Not a great start for our longest trip so far.  We backtracked a bit and camped just a little ways up the Deer Flats road.  Monday morning we did the trail from Sipapu Bridge to Kachina Bridge.  It started to rain as we ascended the canyon so I ran back to get the car.  We swung by the VC and then off to Yucca House National Monument.

If you haven’t heard of some of these places we talk about in this blog, don’t feel bad, we hadn’t either, that is part of why we are doing this.  To see places that we would not otherwise.  Like Yucca House.

To get there you have to trust the directions found in the Yucca House site bulletin.  The site is almost completely un-excavated and in the condition it was found in.  There is only one wall that is partially uncovered.  But you can get a sense of the scale of the place.  It was clearly a community of great size.

We stayed until dark and then wandered over to our go to campsite in the area, Mancos State park.  We have been to Mesa Verde before but we have not gone to Balcony House.  We got tickets and hit it at 11:00.  It is an amazing tour, more about it and our guide in a later post.  From Mesa Verde National Park we drove through Mancos and Hesperus pass.  Another area that is important for the Navajo and the ancient natives of the area.

Aztec National Monument is in the town of Aztec, NM.  The Most amazing part of Aztec House is the rebuilt Great Kiva they have constructed.  It is something else.  We ate dinner at the city park there and went to camp at Angel Peak Scenic site.

The next day we had to end the day near Los Alamos National Historic site and we needed to see Chaco Culture National Historic Park first.  A lot to do.  We hiked the rim trail above Pueblo Bonito and then did the ranger-led tour of the Pueblo below.  Interesting to see fossils next to petroglyphs.  But that was not the best part by a long shot.

We stayed at La Cueva Lodge and the next day saw three Sites.  Valles Caldera is a brand new preserve (since October), Los Alamos National Historic Site (also made in October) which is also a still fully functioning nuclear research facility, and Bandelier National Monument.  A different archeological site than I have ever seen.  They built but they also carved straight into the soft volcanic cliff walls.

That night we stayed in a Hotel in Santa Fe and hit Pecos early.  Many layers of History lie in this place, here is a teaser.  The Ancestral Puebloans, Coronado, Fransciscans, The Hopi Revolt, The Long Walk, and The Civil War.

Petroglyph National Monument is another urban park.  Right on the edge of Albequerque.  It must have been their sign post, or refernce library.  More rock art than you can take in.  we spent a little time and then drove for El Morro.

El Morro National Monument and El Malpais National Monument are right next to each other and have completely different focuses.  El Malpais, which we did on Saturday was lava tubes and El Morro, which we did after church in Ramah on Sunday was another old time sign post.  From ancients to early settlers they signed the wall and we have them all now.

At church we had met and been taken in by a wonderful couple.  We ate dinner with them and then stayed the night.  We left early the next morning so we could get to Petrified Forest National Park and then on to Tseyi or Tseigi as the Navajo call it, or Canyon de Chelly [pronounced shayey] National Monument as the Europeans call it, where we were staying in a Hogan for the night.

Petrified was a complete eye opener.  I have never seen anything even close to that before.  Huge, almost complete trees, brilliant colors… oh I wasn’t going to tell too much in this post.  Pickle was pretty burned out by this point so she was more excited about being a papoose in the hogan than about the Petrified forest.  I hope she remembers this in a happy way, instead of being dragged around looking at dumb rocks.

The next morning we went straight to Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, backtracking a little.  Went on a tour there and then returned to Tseigi and hiked down to White House, played in the river and returned up the hill.  Both the kids hiked the entire way.  They loved it.  The drive home was long and late but it was tough to beat the feelings we had from the trip, until we got home and found the surprise waiting for us.

But, to find out what the surprise was you’ll have to keep reading the posts.  Heh, heh, heh.