On the Road Again!
Hello from Albuquerque!
(I learned to spell that light-years ago, when I was in my 20’s, challenged by a 12-year-old, who said I couldn’t spell it – and she was right, I couldn’t! Learned how then, and have never forgotten! Comes in handy sometimes!)
We weren’t exactly in the best place to leave yesterday morning, but the plan was in place, so we did. Our new roof was nine days in the works, and still not finished – but boy, I REALLY did NOT mind driving away from the pounding! Supposedly the supervisor thought they “might” finish yesterday … which I seriously doubt – but hopefully today, as the HOA is going to resurface our cul-de-sac on Monday, and they won’t be able to reach us … so there! A new roof after 24 years! Yay?!
On the road by 8 am on another rather hot Tucson day, scheduled for over 100 degrees. A very easy drive through the desert, exiting the 10 Freeway at Deming and stopping at our favorite Deming restaurant, Arby’s, for a quick lunch. (We’ve tried over the past several years to find a “local” place in Deming for lunch, but have never managed to find any place that was either “open that day” or looked at all inviting, so finally gave up and went to Arby’s instead…yesterday, decided just to head straight there, which was fine, although why they kept the place around 70 degrees inside; they could hang meat, literally!)
From Deming, we went local roads cross country through Nutt to Hatch (do you think someone in NM was a birder, perhaps?) and joined up to the I-25, thereby by-passing Las Cruces, and then on to Albuquerque. We really like staying at the Homewood Suites Midtown Albuquerque, and have returned once again. Lovely two room suites, and we’re on the 6th floor, 625. Again, REALLY cold here inside; we’ve turned off the a/c entirely; too bad hotel windows won’t open! We promise we won’t jump, honest!! As R says, it is SO nice walking out of the hotel NOT into a blast furnace! It has been SO long that hasn’t happened in Tucson! It was a lovely 84 degrees; felt quite balmy!
Settled in, and then out again about an hour later to my favorite Japanese restaurant in Albuquerque, Takumi. They have various options – you can grill your own dinner at the table, or do Teppan and have someone else cook it, or you can do sushi/sashimi – lots of options, and it has all been great! This time, we went with teppan-style. Sat at a table with a family of four, plus a baby. Turns out, the four – Mom, Dad and two grown sons, one with 6-month old daughter, were celebrating Mom’s 54th birthday – the day before mine! So a joint celebration! Great food – but WAYYYYYYY too much! Seriously, neither of us finished ours, and we could have had meals for several days! Then, back to the hotel and in for the night!
Taylor Fritz defeated Francis Tiafoe in the US Open Semifinal, but we did NOT get to see it! Turns out that Dish and Disney/ESPN are fighting, so no ESPN for the moment! Do wish these children could manage to get along, as I would have loved to see the match – instead, had to watch the NFL play their first game in Sao Paolo, Brazil … Packers vs. Phillies on Peacock – but something happened to the broadcast, and the words and the picture were WAY out of sync! It was stunning! The pictures were fine – but the commentary was at least 15 minutes behind! Don’t know what happened, but wow! For Peacock’s first NFL production, it was an amazing mistake! So … off to bed about 9.
On to Cortez, Colorado today and the Trail of the Ancients!
Much love,
m
xxx
Hello, from Cortez, Colorado!
We left Albuquerque about 8 am after a nice breakfast. We exited the freeway at Bernalillo and started working our way northwest, heading through Cuba, to Bloomfield and Farmington, turning north at Shiprock, and entering Colorado south of Cortez. We had made the same drive last September, with the addition of heading to Chaco Canyon National Monument – which, as R will tell you, was the bumpiest-trip-of-a-lifetime! (It was SO bumpy along the 20 miles or so of dirt (supposedly!) road that a jar of Bonne Mamman raspberry jam lost its lid inside the cooler … and when we opened it up at the end of the day, it seriously looked like a crime scene from Midsomer Murders! It was grisly!). This time, though, as we’d already been to Chaco Canyon, we didn’t need to stop again and had a nice, clean drive to Cortez!
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| Heading to Shiprock! |
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| Pointing to a VERY rocky road! |
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| Shiprock, NM |
Arrived at the hotel – lovely Hampton Inn, room 307, around 1:30 pm, and as our room was ready (yay!) we checked in and dropped the luggage. Out a few minutes later and heading north of town to Dolores and the Canyons of the Ancients Museum and Visitor Center, about 10 miles away. Thanks to the National Park Service Senior Pass, no charge, which is always nice! Excellent museum, with interesting exhibits and examples of excavations from all over the various ancient pueblos in the area. Also, a fascinating recreation of a pueblo itself, which was constructed about 2½ feet underground, with the remainder sticking out of the earth. In that way, the main room of the pueblo was protected both in the summer and winter. The earth provided both warmth in the winter and kept things cool in the summer; very clever use of the available resources, using wood for the roofing material. Hopefully the photos will provide a better explanation!
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| Canyons of the Ancients Museum and Visitor Center |
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| Dominguez Pueblo - in front of Museum |
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| Stunning and huge cat ceramic in front of Museum |
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| R has an identical pot -- only much younger! |
This entire area is very interesting, in that it was originally inhabited by Pueblo peoples who built large, all-inclusive pueblos, such as Mesa Verde, that encompassed entire communities, hundreds of people, and lived there for hundreds of years. However, because of many factors, not all of which are understood, but included climate change as well as food security issues (i.e. continually re-using the same soil caused the soil to basically “wear out” and not produce the amount of food needed for large communities.) These issues resulted in the large pueblos breaking up into much smaller “family units” who went off into other areas, spreading out and building small pueblos of 4-8 rooms, and farming much smaller plots of land. Because these pueblos were so small (obviously in comparison to those originally investigated) it was originally thought that the pueblo people had “abandoned” the entire area. Turns out, this wasn’t true at all, and recent and current on-going excavations are unearthing these smaller pueblos, all within “smoke signal” range of each other. It’s really a fascinating story, and one that is still being discovered!
There were also two really interesting movies about the geology and geography of the sites in the area, with input from both archaeologists who had excavated, as well as the descendants of the Pueblo peoples who had originally inhabited the area. Very sensitively and well done!
By this time, it was about 4:30 pm and, after a quick walk-through the gift shop, we decided to head back to the hotel. As neither of us was particularly hungry (must be as a result of the MOUNTAIN of food we had last night!) we decided to “eat in” tonight rather than head out to a restaurant. Before we left, R made his wonderful “Rotolo de pizza” – something we originally had from Bristol Farms in Southern California, but for some reason they stopped making years ago! Robert, however, not to be daunted in the least, has recreated it brilliantly, and we found that it makes a wonderful picnic food – travels well, and always tastes great! It’s basically a rolled dish inside puff pastry – including roasted peppers, salami, prosciutto, spinach and a few other things (provolone) – and it’s fabulous! So, now we’re definitely in for the night!
Tomorrow we’re going to do a bit of hiking to some of the pueblo sites in the area, and then move on to Durango, from where we will catch the steam train to Silverton on Monday morning!
Much love, and more later!
m
xxx
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