As usual, we just can't seem to leave Kelly Place, so we decided to stay one more night and drive directly to Albuquerque tomorrow morning for our late afternoon flight. This enabled us to go to the Bisti Wilderness yesterday instead of packing up, and it was quite the experience. Badlands would be another descriptor for Bisti, as it's otherwordly in its landscape and somewhat unforgiving in its lack of shade and relentless sun. On the other hand, at every turn you can see the many faces left behind by time and erosion. Here are some examples.
Marie and I had two different reactions as we entered Bisti. I took off in the general direction of the various formations and canyons. Marie stopped and asked where the trail was. There were no cairns, no trail markers, no path of footprints. There was no ranger station and no map to be had, only a place to sign in before you embarked on your hike. (Presumanbly this was so they could notify next of kin if you didn't make it out.) Marie recovered nicely, though, making friends with some of the creatures.
Our hosts at Kelly Place told us that we should really try to see the formations known as "Cracked Eggs". Since frames of reference are difficult to find, and there are fields of formations all over the place, it took us awhile to find them. Finally, by process of elimination, we walked into the middle of an alien array of rocks that, indeed, looked like cracked eggs.
A little beyond, we stumbled upon some petrified wood.
At this point, we both felt beaten down by the sun and glare and decided to head back to the parking lot. There was one more surprise in store for us - I asked Marie to take a picture of my pointing out a unique feature. Only when we looked at the result back at Kelly Place did we see - well, see for yourself.
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