Butte

After breakfast, we checked out of the hotel, loaded on the bus and headed out north and west toward Chaco Canyon, and then on up to Farmington NM. Along the route Rich described the geological features and the flora and fauna. For example, in decreasing size there are plateaus, mesas, buttes, and pinnacles. We saw lots of sandstone, shale and volcanic rock. At numerous places along the highway, we passed 7000 foot elevation signs, and at one point we crossed the Continental Divide. The dominant trees along most of the route were junipers, with some cotton wood trees in the river bottoms and later there were ponderosa and some firs and spruce. Lots of gas and oil drilling, including fracking, although lower crude oil prices have had a significant economic impact.

Park Entrance

When we reached the vicinity of Chaco Canyon, we switched to a small school bus to travel twenty-something miles into the national park. Most of the road was okay, but there is one stretch of several miles just outside the park that was very rough with some serious bouncing around. We crossed one wash with a fairly good stream flowing over the road. Our driver just gunned it and we got across with no problem. I asked him later if this was the most water flowing and he said that he had never seen any water at all.

We had box lunches at the Park visitor’s center and then drove on into the canyon.

We began our exploration of the canyon ruins at Chetro Ketl.

Typical wall

Kiva

Masonry variations

We then walked along the face of the rock amphitheater with several petroglyphs and interesting rock formations.

Petroglyph

Petroglyph

Petroglyph

Excavated Chamber

Little Threatening Rock

We then walked on the major site Pueblo Bonito, partially destroyed when Threatening Rock fell in the 1040’s. This was the major ceremonial site and center of the Chaco Culture.

Rich explaining things to group

Pueblo Bonito Plaza

Great Kiva

Hampton Inn

We finished our exploration of the canyon with a quick walk around the ruins of Casa Rinconada, which are thought to be residential structures as opposed to the ceremonial structures of Pueblo Bonito and Chetro Ketl. We then headed on up to Farmington NM (located at the confluence of three rivers: the San Juan, the Animas, and the Plata) and checked in to the Hampton Inn.

Elizabeth and Rich

We began our formal program with a morning lecture by Rich: “Introduction to the Archaeology of the Four Corners Region”. In about three hours Rich gave us a wonderful overview of the archaeology of the area beginning with the Paleoindian period of 13,000 BC up to the Pueblo III period and on, ending around 1300 AD. This was a very good presentation on the Chaco Culture extending over time and space. It was excellently done, with a lot of high quality visualizations based on photographs and LIDAR data.

Indian Pueblo Cultural Center

After the morning lecture we then boarded the bus and travelled to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. Getting on to the bus we all had the opportunity to meet Fidel, our bus driver for the rest of the tour. At the Cultural Center we had a nice buffet meal, southwestern cuisine again. I expect we will see a lot more of this over the next week. After lunch many of us took a docent-guided tour of the center–which is owned and operated by the nineteen Pueblo tribes in New Mexico, (There are two other Pueblo tribes, one in Texas and one in Arizona).

As we toured the different center exhibits, a pretty good thunderstorm rolled in with very heavy rain. This appeared to be a problem since our next activity was to visit and stroll around Old Town. Elizabeth said “Not to worry. The rain won’t last long–guaranteed!”. Well, guess what–Elizabeth was wrong. But that didn’t stop us and we went to Old Town as scheduled. Unfortunately, Linda and I had consciously decided that it was not going to rain, so we left our rain gear in the hotel. This wasn’t all bad though; during a break in the rain we made it to the Church Street Cafe where we were scheduled to have dinner. Although we were far too early for the dinner, they did allow us to get margaritas. Better than standing around in the rain.

After dinner we traveled back to the hotel where we viewed a video, The Mystery of Chaco Canyon. This film showed a lot of the amazing lunar and solar phenomena that the early inhabitants were aware of. Many of the buildings were oriented with key structural alignments corresponding to the equinoxes, and most amazing were the buildings aligned with the extremes of the 18.5 year lunar cycles. For a civilization without a written language this seems a little far-fetched to me, but then what the heck do I know?

We are off again on another Road Scholar trip, this time to the Four Corners region and the ancient Pueblo Indian ruins. Linda and I were a little concerned about leaving our cats, Josh and Oscar. They usually get along okay, but Josh is sixteen years old and Oscar, who is not yet two, will occasionally get aggressive. Josh is not eating like he used to and is beginning to show his age (as we all are), and he doesn’t need the aggravation of getting picked on. We certainly hope they, especially Oscar, will behave themselves.

A light rain was falling as we left the house at a little past seven in the morning. Our flights went well, and we made it to Albuquerque in the early afternoon and our luggage arrived with us–surprise, surprise!

While waiting to catch the MGM Elegante shuttle at the airport, we met up with another couple on the Road Scholar trip, Bob and Michelle from Boston. One of the main attractions of Road Scholar trips is meeting new and interesting folks, and I believe that will be the case on this trip as well.

MGM Elegante Hotel

We checked into the hotel and got registered with the Road Scholar folks– Elizabeth, Tour Leader, and Rich, subject matter expert. Later we had a group dinner at the hotel, and we met up with our friends, Jay and Gina, who had been out in the area for a Road Scholar trip the previous week. Following dinner we had our group orientation and introduction meeting, where we met Roy and Cecelia, also from Huntsville. Thankfully, this was not a long meeting, and we were finally able to get to our rooms and turn in after a fairly long day.