Ancient faces

We left Flagstaff this morning just as the morning rush was ending and made good time on I-40. Truck traffic going east has been heavy so far. The trucks were sort of obnoxious at times, a couple of drivers running side-by-side, their speed dropping slowly but steadily over the miles, trapping traffic behind them. There was nothing to do about it, but try not to be irritated (yeah, right) and try even harder not to make any mistakes as the situation grew dicier.

For most part, though, it was a pretty day. I must say, too, that the train traffic more than made up for odious truckers. Since catching myself actually counting the cars of mile-and-a-half long trains and making myself stop it on the trip out, I contented myself with simply counting the trains themselves. Today's total? A whopping 16! Each of them very long with multiple engines at each end.

We arrived in Albuquerque late enough to check in to our hotel immediately. We have a room with a view of the Sandia Mountains. So very lovely.  The hotel is also close to the Petroglyph National Monument, our reason for the stop in Albuquerque, although a couple days earlier than planned. 

It was too late in the day to go to the visitor center and also to have time to take in any of the three major petroglyph sites, so we opted to walk in Rinconada Canyon, a 2.5 mile circuit along the base of the West Mesa escarpment of basalt boulders.  The petroglyphs were fascinating, maybe not as old as those at Capital Reef, but closer and easier to see.  And, these petroglyphs illustrate a continuity of culture which I found very interesting, as they were made not only by the ancestors of today's Native Americans, but by Hispanic clergy and sheep herders of the 1600s, as well as explorers moving through during the 1800s, and even modern-day graffiti artists.  This locale has been well-travelled over the centuries.

This is the view from the trail in Rinconada Canyon, looking east toward the parking lot and Albuquerque in the distance.  The petroglyphs are on the escarpment to the left.



Sadly, there are some who cannot leave
well-enough alone, bearing arms without
anything better to do than blow the surface
of the basalt and the art on it to bits.

We had an early -- and delicious -- supper across the street from the hotel at the Pueblo Harvest Cafe, part of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center.  The dining space was breath-taking and the service superb.  Tal had blue corn encrusted chicken and it was my last chance for one more Navajo taco.  Oh, yum!

We're planning to head for home in a serious way in the morning.  Today has been a sweet and fulfilling culmination of a season of memorable travels. 

On our own again

Bringing order out of the luggage chaos, having a last breakfast with the remainder of our Road Scholar group in the comfortable lobby of the College Inn, running a load of laundry, communicating via email with the friends we are planning to meet in Arizona, plotting our course to Flagstaff ... that was the order of the morning.  By 11:00 we had set out to reverse yesterday's travel, comfortably familiar:  ascending the Colorado Plateau at Hurricane; pausing again at LeFevre Overlook with its all-encompassing view of the Grand Staircase; leaving out the side trips to Kanab and the Grand Canyon North Rim and not stopping as we traversed Marble Canyon and the Navajo Bridge for the third time.

It was at the intersection of US89A and US89 that we entered new territory of stark and inexpressible beauty.  The Vermillion Cliffs gave way to the Echo Cliffs, which were noticably tilted down on their east side.  After a while it seemed odd that the road wasn't slanted, too.  Tilting my head was an option I had to resist!

Further south past Cameron (the turn off the the Grand Canyon South Rim), the terrain changed to mounded Chinle (low rock formations that look like mashed potatoes).  Then, basalt cropped up, seemingly emerging from (and randomly scattered across) the rather flat ground.

As the basalt became more plentiful, I noticed on our Four Corners/Southwest USA map a national monument north of Flagstaff -- Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument.  Tal seemed game to take a look.  At the entrance I even managed to find in our over-stuffed travel folder his park/monument pass. Whew!  After touring the visitor center (where staff members wore black arm bands or had a black stripe across their badges for the Glen Canyon rangers killed earlier in the week) we drove about nine miles into the park getting a good look at the Sunset Crater (photo above left), the lava flows, fissures in the valley below the cinder cone, a long view of the Painted Desert in the late afternoon sun and colorful fall wildflowers. 



The Painted Desert in the late afternoon from the Painted Desert Vista
in the Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument



Apache plume (Fallugia paradoxa)
These are the plumed seeds, not the flowers
 -- which are rose-shaped and white and bloom earlier in the year.

We couldn't have asked for a more interesting place for brief exploration before entering the fray of late afternoon I-40 traffic around Flagstaff to find our hotel for the night.