The first stop was the small and picturesque town of Las Vegas, NM, about 70 miles east of Santa Fe. We ate at a little pizza place just off the town square. It had great New York-style pizza AND 3 lanes of bowling! Seriously, though, it turns out that the Las Vegas area has been the home for 100s of movies over the years.
After Las Vegas, we happened upon the Pecos National Historical Park, about 17 miles east of Santa Fe in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The pueblos here were once home to an estimated 2,000 Native Americans. You can still see the remnants of the village (and the church built in the early 1600s). It was almost closing time so we didn't have much time to explore the nice museum and walk through the ruins.
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| Kiva at Pecos NHM |
Saturday, Mar 4th, we spent all day wandering around Santa Fe - visiting the plaza at the heart of old Santa Fe, going through the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, built on an old church dating to 1626, the Loretto Chapel and it's "Miraculous Staircase" (identity of builder is unknown and the staircase was built with neither side nor central supports - an engineering marvel for it's time (or any time), and, of course, Canyon Road, home to over a hundred art galleries. After a long day of walking from the plaza up through a number of the galleries on Canyon Road (and back!), we went to Mass at the Basilica before heading back to our motel on the outskirts of town. We went back into town on Monday to make a visit to the San Miguel Mission (it was closed when we got there on Saturday). Dating to 1610, it has the distinction of being the oldest known church in the US.
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| St Francis of Assisi |
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| St Francis interior |
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| Chapel dating to 1626 |
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| Loretto Chapel's Miraculous Staircase |
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| San Miguel Mission |
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| San Miguel interior |
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| Our dinner-time entertainment |
Sunday, Mar 5th, we drove to Bandelier National Monument, about an hour away, just outside Los Alamos, NM. In the main part of the park, we walked a trail through the remains of another old pueblo (village) and along the cliffs to see the cliff dwellings where the Indians once lived. At the very end of the trail was a series of several ladders leading up to a large cliff dwelling but we didn't make the climb - it would have taken at least an hour with the crowds and we had another stop we wanted to make. Note the petroglyphs on the last four pictures.
Also part of the park but several miles from the main park site is the Tsankawi trail which runs along the cliffs to the top of a mesa where the Indians used to live. Like in the canyon at Bandelier, the Indians lived in cliff dwellings here as well. Again, the remains of the pueblos are visible and you can see shards of native pottery laying around in places. In some cases the trail was pretty narrow and the footing was tough - if my feet were much bigger I probably would have gotten stuck a few times!
On Monday, Mar 6th, we drove down to the Sandia Peak Tramway near Albuquerque (about an hour south) hoping to ride the tram to the peak which is the highest point in New Mexico at 10,638 ft. Unfortunately, the winds were fierce today, well over 20 mph with gusts over 40 mph, so the tram wasn't running. But the day wasn't a loss - on the way back to Santa Fe we made a pre-planned stop at the Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rock National Monument to do some hiking. It's got some really different looking rock formations. Very scenic. But the wind was crazy! At times we were getting sandblasted but unlike at the beach some of these were good sized pebbles - ouch!
Well, looks like we're heading north tomorrow to Mesa Verde, CO. I'll try to add some more detail to the above and more pictures for sure when we get there.
That's all for now! ..... Dan
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