Our Nest on Wheels

by Steve

In our last post, we highlighted two of the sites that we recently visited near to Santa Fe--Pecos National Historic Park and La Cieneguilla Petroglyphs. In this post, we'll cover two other sites that should be on your "must do" list for Santa Fe.

We heard about a fairly new National Monument, Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks, that is located about 30 miles from Santa Fe. Designated a National Monument in 2001, it is still managed by the Bureau of Land Management and not the National Park Service. As such, it's a bit primitive. While there are pit toilets and picnic tables, there's no visitor center nor running water. Access is limited to the number of available parking spaces, which keeps it relatively uncrowded, but also may mean that you wait in line in your car at the entrance gate on a busy day. When a car leaves, another one is allowed in.

The term "Tent Rocks" refers to these tepee-like formations. The area is made of many, many layers of volcanic ash, some harder than others, and some with boulders randomly mixed in. Over the years, water has eroded the softer layers, but the boulders protect the pumice under them from rain, leaving these cone-shaped formations, most of which still have their capstone. We were told that these rock formations exist only two places in the world: at Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks near Santa Fe and in Turkey. For most Americans, the ones near Santa Fe will be easier to get to.

If you read our last post, called Summer Plans, you know that we will be spending our summer in Northern Minnesota at Grand Portage National Monument. We'll be costumed interpreters in a living-history site. Most people who have heard about our plans say two things: First is something about how "you will really enjoy that" and second is "expect the mosquitoes to horrific." As for dealing with mosquitoes, we'd like to hear ways to deter them that have worked for you. We will probably use a variety of methods, including bug spray, brewer's yeast tablets, and electronic repellents. Let us know what's worked for you.

As we slowly work our way north, we decided to stop in Santa Fe again.

We had been in Santa Fe about a year and a half ago, in September 2017. We stayed a week and really liked it, although we couldn't put our finger on exactly what it was about Santa Fe that we liked so much. Perhaps it had something to do with all the local art, or the great museums, or the natural beauty that is nearby. We're not sure. We also have different recollections--Jane remembers the week as being mostly rainy, while I remember it being sunny a lot. In any event, we decided that we liked it well enough to return for another week. And as last time, we found more things to do here than we can fit into one week.

We started with a visit to Pecos National Historic Park. This is the site of an ancient pueblo and Spanish Catholic mission located at Glorieta Pass in the Sangre de Cristo mountains east of Santa Fe. Glorieta Pass serves as a natural bottleneck in the mountain range that separates the plains to the east from the mesas of the desert southwest. So the Native Americans who lived there controlled the trade between the Plains Indians and the Ancestral Puebloans. Researchers estimate that the site supported a population of around 2,000 people in a 4- to 5-story pueblo containing hundreds of rooms and many kivas. Once the Spanish arrived, a Catholic mission church was constructed. The church building was destroyed in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 (which is a pretty fascinating story itself; you can read more about it here). While the church was built outside the pueblo, the church grounds also contain a kiva. This is the only known site where a kiva exists on the same grounds as a mission church. (Although the church we attend in Tucson, which also started as a mission church, has a recently built sanctuary influenced by kiva architecture. We don't enter through the roof, though.)

Here's the kiva in the foreground with the preserved partial remains of the mission church in the background.

Inside the kiva.

Glorieta Pass was also the site of a Civil War battle. We don't often think of  the Civil War in the southwest, but the Confederacy had sent troops to capture Santa Fe, with an eye to taking California and having a port on the west coast. The Union sent forces, and the two groups met at Glorieta Pass. After a brief indecisive battle in which the Union troops retreated, the Union sent a detachment through the mountains to destroy the Confederate supply wagons. Once the Confederates saw that their supply had been destroyed, they retreated and fled back to Texas. That was the last Confederate incursion into the west, although rumor has it that their flag is still alive and well in Texas.

Our second interesting excursion near Santa Fe was to a collection of well preserved petroglyphs on BLM land. We visited the site with a friend from our Wheaton days, Suzanne Teune. 

There's just a bit of trail here to get you to the base of a small cliff. Basically it's an old volcanic lava flow that has eroded on one side, leaving a nice flat black rock face upon which the ancient people who lived here carved the images. There's no real trail, just worn areas where others have gone. And you're on your own for appropriate behavior--not touching the images, no taking rubbings, or making your own scratchings. 

This is one of the few places where you see multiple images of Kokopeli, the flute player.The photo above is a pretty good example.

This image of a Thunderbird is very recognizable. 

We're not sure what this is meant to represent, but it's very clear and distinctive.  Perhaps a bird as a "jack-in-the-box" toy?

 Here's our flute player again, this time being stalked by a snake.

And this strange image looks like a jellyfish. While the ocean is far far away, we do know that these people traded goods with people from Central America, so it's entirely possible that they knew what a jellyfish looked like.

We've visited Santa Fe a couple times now, each time for a week. And we find each time that there is more to do than we have time for. Maybe next time we'll have to stay longer!

In part 2, we visit two more nearby National Monuments: Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks and Bandelier.