Life is a Highway

Now THOSE are hockey fans!

Busy, busy day today! Once again we got up crack o' dawn - you call this a vacation? - to drive to Santa Fe for the Farmers Market. What's the rush? Well, the Capitals were playing game 4 of their playoff series with the New York Rangers. And since we're in New Mexico rather than Maryland, the game started at 10:30. 10:30!!!! What kind of time is that for a hockey game? Anyway, we buzzed down to Santa Fe, grabbed some of our favorite raspberry red chile jam (sweet heat), green chile sausage, garlic and tomatoes and ate a breakfast of peach empanada and pumpkin spice muffin. They always have some form of informal entertainment, and today a group of kids seemed to materialize out of thin air and started playing.

In previous blogs I've shown you the outside vendor area - yes, the earthworm man was there - but there's also a large indoor vendor area.

Marie pointed out that the hallways had interesting quotes stencilled on the walls.

By 9:30 we were back in the car on our way to Medanales, and arrived at the house just in time to see the beginning of the game. Hockey is an important part of our family. I used to watch it on TV as a kid, then played recreational hockey for 13 years beginning at age 40. Marie became a fan out of self defense and now loves the game, as do Erin, Connor and Meghan. After 2 1/2 tense hours, the Caps had prevailed and there was joy in Medanales (and at the Verizon Center).

After a quick lunch, we headed down the road a few miles to hike to Poshuouinge. a large ancestral Pueblo ruin. Poshuouinge means "village above the muddy water" in Tewa. Its builders were ancestors of the Tewa Pueblos, who now live mostly in the Santa Clara and San Juan Pueblos. The city was established high above the Chama River around 1375 and occupied for around 125 years. At its largest, it consisted of 700 rooms.

Initially, we hiked the steep trail to the top of the mesa, which afforded amazing views all the way to Plaza Blanca (Georgia O'Keeffe's "white place").

When we got to the top, we found an area which had been cleared, either as a ceremonial site or lithic site, used for tool and weapon making. My vote would be for the latter, as we saw numerous pieces of flintknapped chert and broken arrowheads and tools.

The wind started to howl, so while I did my usual poking around, Marie found some shelter and sketched and painted.

After awhile, we made our way back down to the actual pueblo ruins, which consist entirely of foundations and perimeter stones.

Every so often you'd see a series of wooden posts protruding along the perimeter. It always amazes me to see wood at these ruins, especially considering it has to be at least 600 years old. The desert dryness may dessicate skin but it certainly preserves history. (The nails in the photo are obviously modern.)

When we got home, we showered and prepared for the arrival of the "supermoon", the combination of a full moon at closest approach to Earth. We'd noticed that the moon was exceptionally bright out here, but attributed it to the high altitude. The full moon always looks large right at moonrise, but this moonrise was supposed to top them all. So Marie made fish tacos (delicious), the sangria flowed and we waited outside on the east portale. And waited. And waited. There was cloud cover low on the horizon, but eventually the moon rose over Mt. Wheeler, aka Taos Mountain, in the distance. And it was ... fine. No super big deal. Thank goodness the tacos were great.

We're in for big weather changes here over the next few days. It's been in the mid to upper 80's and typically dry. A series of weather fronts are set to blow in here this week, bringing high winds, cooler temperatures and - brace yourself - rain. The high on Tuesday is expected to be 55. Stay tuned.

The Calm Before the ... Move

Sunday was kind of a lazy day, with Marie and I (and Janet) each doing our own thing. I ran out to the "other" Santa Fe flea market at The Downs, an old racetrack on the outskirts. Since some of my favorite vendors at the Tesuque Flea had disappeared, I hoped that they'd resurfaced here. Nope. Although there were a few interesting stalls, it was pretty much as Marie and I found it last year - a dump. (Go ahead, ask me how I really feel.) We wrapped up the day in fine style as we converged on Janet's to grill hamburgers and sausage, along with a great potato and chile dish that Marie made in the afternoon and salad. Janet's casita really has a nice patio, which made the evening even better.

Our visit also allowed us to admire the fruits of Janet's encaustic art class. Encaustic art uses hot wax instead of paint (though pigments and various objects are often incorporated). Janet did 4 small panels and 3 large panels in four days!

Today, Janet and I went to look at one last property - Marie had already seen it. We brought sandwiches back from Downtown Subscription for lunch, then headed out to Museum Hill, which houses four museums of Native American, Spanish and International art and culture. First we visited the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, which had a new exhibition, Thunderbird Jewelry of the Santo Domingo Pueblo. The Santo Domingo Pueblo has always been known for their fine jewelry featuring hand-cut and drilled beads. During the depression, the pueblo was cut off from its usual raw materials, so the jewelry makers started using automobile battery casings, old phonograph records and colored plastics from combs, toothbrushes and anything else they could get their hands on. The results were rather course compared to their traditional work, but they were able to continue selling to tourists to make a living. There were over a hundred of these thunderbird necklaces at the Wheelwright, and they were really amazing. I just went on eBay and these necklaces are fetching $300-$400. At the time, they sold for around 50 cents.

Next, we paid a visit to the Case Trading Post, which is the Wheelwright's museum store. It's fashioned to resemble a traditional Navajo trading post, right down to the squeaky floors. The store and its merchandise were a sight to see, and we really had a great time. Next, we drove over to the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. The grounds of this museum were really beautiful.

Marie was particularly attracted to the huge warrior sculpture in front of the museum.

We didn't have time to tour the museum, but stopped into the museum store, which was great. We picked up a reasonably priced parfleche bag and a heishi and turquoise necklace. Then we hightailed it over to the theater to see "The Cave of Forgotten Dreams". This film gives you a tour of Chauvet Cave in France, which was discovered in 1994 and found to contain hundreds of pristine cave drawings over 30,000 years old. The quality of these drawings was amazing, and to see them essentially as they were drawn was quite an experience. It's also the only way to see them, as the cave is closed to the public to preserve the paintings. While the movie could have been shorter - it was only 89 minutes as it was - I'd still recommend it

Wednesday we move from Casa Adobe Escondido to Casa Holly, which is a townhouse away from the Plaza. After settling in here for a month, we have a bit of picking and packing up to do. We started tonight, and tomorrow should be busy, to say the least!

Finally, a Day in MY Southwest

As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, Southwest cabin fever really hit me. Not in the usual sense, where you're cooped up in the house (or cabin). No, for me, the Southwest is big spaces and big skies and hiking and exploring. And as beautiful as Santa Fe is, it's still civilization. So I did some quick research and off we headed for the Ojito Wilderness, north of Bernalillo, which is between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. And, as it turned out, a wrong turn got me just what I needed. (What is it the Rolling Stones said? "You can't always get what you want. But if you try real hard, you'll get what you need.")

The directions said to go south to Bernalillo, then take Rt. 550 north about 20 miles to Cabezon Road. Now keep in mind that the view going up 550 is endless mesas and ancient volcanic flows and cliffs and grassland. So it wasn't surprising that we ended up turning onto the road to Cabezon Peak rather than Cabezon Road, and found my big spaces and big skies. Cabezon Peak is a volcanic plug, formed when the magma hardened in the neck of the volcano. Over time, the softer sediment around the volcano erodes, leaving the basalt plug. Cabezon means "big head" in Spanish, and the Navajo's believe it is the head of a giant killed by the gods.

Cabezon is visible from Rt. 550, yet it was quite a drive before we came upon the parking area for the hiking trail. The sun was pretty intense, so we lathered on lotion for the hike. The good news was that our solar bead bracelets, which activate with sunlight, were in full color.

Marie's knee has been bothering her, and the trail was steep and rocky, so we only hiked a short distance. Our reward, however, was immense vistas. I instantly relaxed and felt transported. Gosh, how I love this country!

Marie settled onto a rock to draw, and I continued up the trail. I soon pooped out and, looking back, got another sense of the immensity of the landscape. I took the next photo with 10x zoom lens from up the trail. If you look really carefully in the middle of the picture, you can find Marie.

This next photo is one of my favorites - this one will go on our wall!

Before we left, we encountered several of the brightly colored lizards we enjoy so much.

Next, we decided to try to find the Ojito Wilderness. We headed south on 500, then turned right on Cabezon Road. Like the road to Cabezon Peak, this road was dirt but not as well maintained. The washboarding of the road was really jarring to us - and the Element - but eventually we reached a "parking area" and decided to check things out.

While Ojito is rumored to have some stunningly beautiful rock formations, this area was less notable for its beauty than for what we discovered. In these remote areas, we're always looking for signs of Ancestral Puebloan presence. While we didn't find any dwellings, we did find a few pottery sherds, as well as a well-preserved lithic site. These sites are where the Ancestral Puebloans flintknapped their weapons and tools from chert and obsidian. Evidence sometimes presents itself in the form of non-native rocks and rocks that have obviously been worked. In addition to those signs, this site had the classic look of a lithic site with the circle of stones and the location on the edge of an arroyo.

We were excited to explore more, but by that time the exertion and sun had taken a bite out of us, so we headed back to the car for the drive home. Needless to say, this was my type of day in the Southwest, and I was a happy camper.