[To view the entire Flickr photoset from this trip, go here.]

I spent Friday afternoon at happy hour with Matt, who dropped a very-tipsy me off at the airport; I proceeded to board the plane and partake in Northwest Airline’s free booze, because I consider it my duty to exploit them as they exploit me. I’d been upgraded to first class on three out of my last four flights. How awesome is that?

I arrived in Albuquerque after 11, and walked over to the car rental place. They handed me keys and I sleepily rolled my suitcase out to the lot. I was confronted with a giant white minivan, so I sleepily rolled my suitcase back inside. I asked the guy behind the counter, “Do you have anything smaller? I drive a MINI!” He said no, that was all they had left.

I named my minivan ‘Cracker’.

I got up very early and headed up to Taos Pueblo. It’s not very far, but it’s a small two-lane highway through the mountains. You go through the town of Taos, and the pueblo is a few miles up on the right.

san geronimo chapel

The pueblo is amazing, and still very active. I went into several shops and all the shopkeepers wanted to talk about where I was from, and what I thought of the pueblo.

taos pueblo

cemetery with ruins of old st geronimo church

making fry bread

I bought fry-bread from a table in the center square and wandered around getting crumbs all over myself. After a while, I decided to head west to the bridge that crosses the Rio Grande, because the gorge there is spectacular.

rio grande gorge, looking south

cracker

From there, I headed back towards Taos to see the town. It’s very cute, and is full of art galleries. I wandered in and out of shops, then decided to check out the Kit Carson museum. I was the only one in the place, and felt bad for the ladies working there. They were very enthusiastic.

kit carson

Just south of Taos, in Ranchos de Taos, is the Mission San Francisco de Asis. It was one of Georgia O’Keefe’s favorite subjects.

mission san francisco de asis

I took the high road back toward Santa Fe. The northern portion of it goes through Carson National Forest, and it’s beautiful. I came upon the town of Las Trampas and found the Mission San Jose de Gracia. It’s under renovation, and all the workers there were really friendly.

adobe

A giant storm hit just as I was leaving Las Trampas, and I thought the hail was going to shatter the windshield. I’m not sure I’d have minded too much in Cracker, except for my stuff getting soaked.

I came upon Truchas, a tiny artist village in the mountains. I thought I was going to drive off the edge of a cliff, the roads are so narrow. Most of the shops were closed at that point, but the scenery was amazing.

Nearing Santa Fe, I found myself in Chimayo. I may never be the same.

mini chapel at el santuario de chimayo

The Santuario de Chimayo is one of those places that fascinates and terrifies me at the same time. According to legend, it is the home of healing dirt; those who take it with them will be cured. It’s chock-full of creepy artifacts.

the canes of the healed

holy dirt

el santuario de chimayo

Out back, the yard down near the river is full of prayers, testimonials, photos, makeshift crosses, and rosaries. People leave mementos of their family and friends, asking for them to be cured. The result is a collage of desperation.

I did not try the holy chile.

I headed back into Santa Fe and stopped for a very late dinner at Cafe Pasqual’s. I sat on the second-story balcony with a margarita, overlooking the Plaza. After an awesome dinner, I headed back to the hotel.

On Sunday, I decided to drive up to Mesa Verde. While I tend to visit Colorado fairly often, it’s in a part of the state that’s hard to get to. Of course, it was hard to get to from Santa Fe, too. I didn’t find that out til later.

i’m a nerd who gets excited about things like this.

It took me at least 5 hours to reach the park, though it’s only 280 miles. There are a lot of narrow, winding roads involved, but it’s worth it because it’s very picturesque. I stopped in Durango and then rushed as fast as I could to the park entrance.

I had contracted a killer cold on the flight out, and the vast quantity of medication I was consuming did NOT help with the hiking at that altitude. I felt out of breath very quickly. (I have a flask and shotglass from Denali with the geological survey marker for Mt. McKinley. These things excite me a lot.)

looking south toward Shiprock

I went to the visitors’ center to get tickets to tour the cliff dwellings. I picked Balcony House, because it was described as most difficult (for altitude and climbing through narrow passages). They had a little demo tunnel you could crawl through to see if you’d fit. Awesome.

ladder to balcony house

The ladder-climbing wouldn’t have been scary if it weren’t for the fact that we were already far up on a cliff wall. The altitude makes you dizzy.

The park ranger gave us a tour of the cliff dwelling. It’s kind of amazing to think that people could scramble all over the side of the cliffs like that, and live in such tiny compartments.

kiva

leaving balcony house; adults have to turn their shoulders at the end or they get stuck!

I drove around the rest of the loop and stopped at the overlooks to see the other cliff dwellings.

cliff palace

Leaving the park, I decided to drive through Durango to see the town. It’s super-cute, and was overrun with motorcycles. Also, there was a very brief snowstorm on the way there. My first snow of the season wasn’t even in Minnesota!

The drive back to Santa Fe seemed to not take as long, despite getting stuck in long lines behind bikers. I wasn’t in a huge hurry, anyway.

sunset near ghost ranch

I got up very early again, in order to get to Bandelier National Monument right as it opened. So early, I saw the sunrise.

You have to drive through Los Alamos to get there, and you can see the lab at several points along the way, but can’t really get close to it at all.

satellite dish at los alamos national laboratory

I got to the visitor center an hour before it opened, but the park grounds were open for hiking. There was one other car in the lot, but I didn’t see another human being for at least two more hours. I felt like I had the place to myself. And as we all know, hiking alone in the middle of nowhere is SMART.

anasazi village ruins in frijoles canyon

This is tuff, a stone made of volcanic ash. It’s fairly easy to break down, which is why the native people here built cities into the sides of the canyons.

inside a cliff dwelling. the hole may have been some kind of clock.

I like any national park where they cater to my need to climb on things.

petroglyph (the rows of holes were for support beams)

former cliff dwellings

original cliff wall painting

I decided to take the Frijoles Canyon Trail back to see the ceremonial cave. It was only a mile or so more. I was a little concerned about being the only person in the park, but it wasn’t like I was going to skip it.

not a huge deal except for the fact that you’re already 7,000 feet above sea level.

I have pretty bad vertigo. I also have a serious case of determination (others call it ‘stubbornness’), and that always wins. I climbed up the many ladders to the ceremonial cave, and was there totally alone. It was an amazing feeling, except for the nagging guilt over what my mom would do if I disappeared.

ceremonial kiva

The kiva had a ladder, which obviously meant I was supposed to climb inside. The top was covered except for a small hole. I stood there and stared at it for a very long time before finally deciding I had to descend in the darkness. It was scary, but there was nothing in there but me.

from inside the kiva

I climbed safely back down and hiked back toward the visitors’ center. Once I got back near the main portion of the park, I started to see other people. I had survived!

I got back on the highway and headed south to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument. It’s between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, and the entrance to the park is a ways off the interstate. The last portion of the drive is a 5-mile gravel road. The park is very new, and obviously not yet equipped with the usual facilities. The gravel was very rough and ridged, which meant I could go about 10mph at the most. I thought Cracker was going to rattle apart. It was jarring, to say the least.

There were a ton of cars in the parking lot, which surprised me, because it was so remote. There was a parking pay station and pit-toilet restrooms with no running water. It was then that I realized I had about 2 ounces of water left in my bottle, it was well over 90 degrees in the desert, and I was half an hour away from the interstate. And I thought hiking alone at Bandelier was stupid. Since the trail was only a mile long, I decided to run as much of it as I could, and hurry the hell back out of there.

i love the wildflowers in the desert.

formed when the ‘cap rock’ is of harder material than the volcanic rock underneath,
and they erode into peaks. they have these in cappadocia, too.

I rationed my water, rushed back to the car with the empty bottle, and drove out of there as fast as I could, feeling like I was going to dehydrate to death. Cracker miraculously stayed intact, and I made it back to the freeway. After ten long, painful miles, I found a rest area. I discovered that the drinking fountains and pop machine were broken, so I took my bottle into the bathroom and filled it. It was the worst-tasting water I’ve ever had, and I was pretty sure I was going to get some kind of bacterial disease. I didn’t really care.

At that point, it was still only lunchtime, so I headed back to explore Santa Fe. I’d been there once before, and loved it a lot. I stopped for lunch at a little outdoor restaurant called the Atomic Grill. After that, I wandered.

palace of the governors

st francis cathedral

the loreto, home of the ‘miraculous staircase’

san miguel mission

“ring the bell of san miguel, and you’ll be called back to santa fe.”

purported to be the oldest house in america. next to san miguel mission.

hotel la fonda, traditionally marking the end of the santa fe trail.

I did a lot of shopping on the way, necessitating more than one stop at Cracker. Man, they have a lot of great shopping in Santa Fe. In the late afternoon, I decided to head down and see more of the sights I had passed on the way through a few years back, along the turquoise trail.

chapel near golden, new mexico

I stopped to see several sights, then shopped at several cute little galleries in Madrid. I’d have stayed longer, but they were starting to shut down. On the way back northward, I pulled in to witness something that looked kind of terrifying from the road, and turned out to be even moreso than I’d imagined: TINY TOWN.

Everything in the place was broken, rusty, dangerous, creepy, or all of the above. I could’ve stayed all day being horrified, but I was convinced I was being watched. There was an old trailer parked on the site, and I could hear noises inside it. I kind of wanted to know who was the crazy genius behind Tiny Town, but mostly I did not. I was too scared to even take a photo of the trailer, lest I get a shot of the owner running out with a knife.

no kidding.

i had to leave a note, of course.

I hightailed it out of Tiny Town and drove a few miles up to Cerillos. It’s a very small town, and the main street has been used as an old west movie set more than once, most notably in Young Guns. There are signs all over the mostly-boarded-up downtown about it.

log jesus in cerillos

I drove back up to Santa Fe in time to climb up the hill to the Cross of the Martyrs to watch the sunset. It was beautiful.

On the way down the hill, there were a couple homeless guys sitting on the wall, asking people if they could have ten bucks to go get drunk. I reached in my pocket and pulled out a $10 bill and handed it to him, thinking, ‘what the hell, at least he’s honest.’ He said thanks, then looked at it and yelled, “DUDE, she actually gave us ten bucks! Let’s go!” The other guy said, “Lady, will you marry me?” I politely declined and laughed my way back to the car. They passed me a minute later, headed to the bar.

I checked out of my hotel in Santa Fe and headed back toward Albuquerque. On the way to Petroglyph National Monument, I saw many, many hot air balloons taking to the skies.

I was the first person to reach the park, and the gates to the trails was still closed. I swung by the visitor center and talked to the very friendly park ranger for a while before heading back to see petroglyphs.

cracker, alone in the parking lot.

giant creepy millipede!
Note to self: hiking in flipflops is dumb. Why do you do it when you have good hiking shoes?

I headed towards Albuquerque’s Old Town, to the National Atomic Museum, because I have a huge fascination with everything atomic-age and cold-war related. I was greeted and checked-in by the cutest old man ever, who stopped just short of giving me a personal tour.

the flag that flew at the trinity site

formed by the first atomic blast, it’s caused by the sand melting and fusing.

fat man

brick from ground zero at hiroshima

I left the museum and went to wander around Old Town until my flight. I picked up a bunch of tacky joke-souvenirs for the folks back home, and then found the greatest store on earth; it was full of Dia de los Muertos decor. Upon leaving, I had to completely repack my bag to fit it all in there.

I hopped on my plane at 2:30 that afternoon, and was happy to say goodbye to Cracker and join my homies for happy hour back home.