June 14.
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Distance for the day: 160.4 km
Cumulative distance: 5,731.0 km
Top speed: 114 kph
Moving average: 68 kph
Temperature: 18.2 - 24.6
It was a pretty amazing day. When we finally dragged our sorry posteriors out of the rack and had a latte, we were off on the bike for the first time in three days to Bandelier National Monument, 33,000 acres of land once inhabited by ancient Indigenous tribes where villas remain built of adobe houses and cliff dwellings. Back when Nan and I first conceived of this trip, (in its original form) we were each recording our top ten things to see and this made both our top ten lists. It was a fascinating visit. At least 23 tribal nations had lived in the Frijoles Valley a thousand years to 400 years ago, until they were driven away by drought to the Rio Grande. While there were none of the original adobe huts remaining, some "recreations" built on the foundations of the originals were there, constructed in the early 1900s when the valley was originally excavated. However, there were many of the original cliff homes still evident. Archeologists have found evidence of 3,000 individual "villages" which may have had as few as two families or 40. Not all were necessarily occupied at the same time.
1.25 million years ago, a "super volcano" erupted not too far from here and the result is that ash and rock was spread in its own back yard and as far away as New York. The ash eventually compressed into soft rock which was easily carved by the local rivers, including this one, forming the Frijoles Valley.
 |
| Mesa on the way to Bandelier. |
 |
| Striations from volcanic rock layers. |
 |
| Natural and man made caves. |
 |
| The foundation of a large, multi-family dwelling. |
 |
| jAdobe huts were built at the base of cliffs as high as 900 feet. |
 |
| The mulit family dwelling. |
 |
| Petrolglyphs. |
 |
The even row of holes are from where logs were
inserted to provide support for roofing. |
 |
| Nan spotted this young bear on the walk. |
 |
| This is called The Alcove House. More pictures at the bottom |
 |
| On the way back from the park, we passed through Los Alamos National Laboratory. |
 |
| We didn't know if it was a town or a science lab. I had to give identification to drive through "the lab". It is where the nuclear bomb was invented. |
https://www.nps.gov/band/learn/photosmultimedia/main-pueblo-loop-trail-stop-22.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments are moderated without prejudice. Please note that the Blogger platform prevents me from responding directly to your comment and that unless you are posting from a Gmail account, your name will appear as anonymous and I will not be able to identify you, so please include in your comment some way I can identify you!