Acoma Pueblo - Sunday September 20

Monday September 21

Still getting caught up here and I do have pictures.

On Sunday we traveled about 50 miles east of Albuquerque to a Pueblo Village called Acoma Pueblo.
 Acoma Pueblo offers a window in time where Native people carry on the customary traditions of their ancestors through Native American pottery making and tribal celebrations.

Acoma Pueblo is built atop a sheer-walled, 367-foot sandstone bluff in a valley studded with sacred, towering monoliths. Since 1150 A.D., Acoma Pueblo has earned the reputation as the oldest continuously inhabited community in North America. The mesa-top settlement is known worldwide for its unique art and rich culture.

A federally recognized Indian Tribe, Acoma Pueblo has a land base covering 431,664 acres and is home to 4,800 tribal members with more than 250 dwellings, none of which have electricity, sewer, or water. In 1629, construction began on the massive San Esteban del Rey Mission, a Catholic mission. Both the Mission and the Pueblo are Registered National Historical Landmarks.

Acoma Pueblo was named the 28th National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) site in 2007 and is the only Native American site in the nation.

On the way to Acoma and one of he many mesas along the way

Part of th visitors center at Acoma with the village on the mesa in the background. Originally the Pueblos lived in the area of thei visitor center. As the explorers moved into the area from Mexico and our east, the Pueblos moved to the top of the mesa as a means of safety. The only access to the top at that time was steps carved in the sandstone side of the mesa.

At one time, over 500 lived her full time. today only about 50 live there full time. However in the summer all the homes are occupied. The indians use these as second homes and come back primarily for the tribal dances and other similar activities. There is no power, no running water, and no septic and as you will note in the pictures the houses are all right on top of each other.

The only way visitors can get to the top of the mesa is with an indian guide who goes with you on a bus.  You are also told, no cameras unless you get a permit first at the visitor center which is a big tag you have to put on the camera. no pictures in the church, cemetary, and no pictures of any person without getting their permission first. During our tour some of the residents did have tables set up with pottery for sale. Most of them had signs saying no pictures.

the visitor center at the bottom of the mesa

This is the outside of the church on top of the mesa. Most of the indians practice both Catholism and their

native indian religion.  The church is still in use today and is 120'long, 40' wide, and a remarkable 70' to the ceiling.  There were no building materials on the mesa so everything had to be carried up by hand.  Like all the buildings there, the roof has large logs across the top as roof rafters.  From my viewpoint, these logs appeared to be about 18" in  diameter and 40+ foot long.  The guide told us that these logs came from a mountain about 40 miles away as the land around the mesa is pretty barren.  She also told us that for the church it was bad luck if the logs ever touched the ground so they had to be carried by 15 men for the 40 miles and if the log ever touched the ground they had to leave it and go back for another.

Ther is a cemetary that adjoins the church and the indians buried there are in 4 layers deep.  Since the mesa is all sandstone all the dirt for the cemetary had to be brought up from the ground below. This was all done by the women as this was thier work. The men were the hunters, etc.

  

We had a rainstorm at the start of our tour and it made things prety muddy.  The roadways were not in good shape.

An addition being added on. Note the logs used for the roof rafters. These are similar to those in the church except that these are much smaller.

Our guide isajust to the right of me. The cars in the picture belong to the indians. One had a Hummer 3

Thw white ladders are at the Kivas which are ceremonial rooms that only the men can go into. The entrance is from the roof.  Theere is a small hole in the sidewall and if a woman needs to contact a man inside she calls into this hole.

an oven primarily for bread making

A view from the mesa/ The two buildings are outhouses which are all over the mesa.

View from thre mesa

trying to find a place to walk with the least mud

This is one of the older buildings that has been rebuilt on the  upper 2 floors and is the only 3 story building I saw.  We were told that in the winter the cooking was done on the lower level, the middle floor was the living area above the cooking heat, and the top level was storage. In the summer the cooking area was moved to the top floor.

The raised knob in the background is the mountain the logs for the church were carried from.

The mesa from below.

Along the road from Acoma

Part of I-40 that is very straight for a loonnnnggg ways.  You can see it in this picture for a long ways. The speed limit is 75.

Well that is it for now. Next I will work on Monday's adventures.

Tom

Alberque State Fair - Saturday 19th

Monday September 21

Well back to getting the blog up to date. Saturday we went to the New Mexico State Fair.  Once we got in, it was a real nice fair. It took us 1 hr and 10 minutes to drive the last couple of miles to the fairground.  The traffic was real bad.  Thank goodness we had planned to walk around the fair prior to the concert and thus left for the fair quite a bit before showtime.

The fair covers quite an area and the streets within the grounds are  real wide and thus even though there was a large crowd there you can easily move around. There were many speciality areas including an indian village that was in its own complex with a latrge area for their pow wows, vendors with Navajo food, and many booths with native jewelry.  There was also a similar complex of Mexican Culture.  While there were some of the typical games of chance, they were more spread out and were more low key. The same with the rides. Overall, walking around the grounds was a pleasureable expereince. A very family oriented experience.

The show we attended started at 7 with a PRCA Rodeo.  All the contestants are pros and travel the rodeo circuit for their jobs. There was some very high level competitors there. Some current and former world champions in thier respective events.

The rodeo got over about 8:45 and then a stage was lowered from the cieling and at 9 a great group called the Diamond Rio came out and did a very enjoyable 1hour & 15 minute show that was first class. A great evening. After the show we hung around a bit and when we left had no traffic problems at all.  Unfortunatley we have no pictures to share from the fair.

So that is it for the fair.

Tom

Grand Canyon day 3 and drive to Albuquerque

Friday September 18th

This posting will be a little screwed up as I had it 99% done and somehow I lost it.   So having to start all over again after about 1 1/2 hours of effort, makes me a little groggy. But here goes anyway. First will be about yesterday still at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.  We took a 25 mile drive along the canyon rim on a road called Desert View Drive. There are multiple vista points along the way and the last one is at Desert View where the above Watch Tower is. This tower was built in the early 1930's to reflect the Hopi Indian style. The architect was Mary Colter who had commisions for several building designs along the South Rim.   The views from this point are awesome and encompass about a 270 degree scope.  As I mentioned in previous posts, it is impossible for us to capture with pictures the true grandeur of what we are viewing. One would think that after many vistas, one would become somewhat blaise about the view but this is never the case. Each time you look out, even from the same point, there is something new to absorb.

The next 10 pictures were all taken from the same vantage point at the Desert View  point and were our attempt at giving you an panormaic view.

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10 can you believe all these views from on eviewing point?

another vista

The Colorado River  everytime I see it, it is always very muddy

A few hundred yards from thr canyon rim are the ruins of a Pueblo settlement from about 800 years ago. When theee ruins were discovered they were partially excavated and then left as found rather than try to reconstruct them.   Notice in the above picture and in the actual picture below that there are no openings between the rooms or to the outside.

The only opening is to teh roof. That means the only light was from this opening or from a fire inside which would also be using this same hole for the smoke to get out. It must have been interesting coming in or going out when there was a smoky fire inside.

A portion of the living quarters

Noice the Raven in the picture. left hand side on the skyline. the ravens are VERY common everywhere, especially soaring in the canyons.

Today, Friday, we left Grand Canyon Village for about a 400 mile trip to Albuquerque, NM. The trip was uneventful with no big mountains to climb or go down. We are still staying up at a pretty good altitude. We were at 7,700 ft at Grand Canyon and are now at 5,700 ft at Albuquerque. The terranin in Arizona was pretty much desert and in NM we got back into rock formations, some white and some red.  About 340 miles of our trip was on Interstate 40.

Arizona desert

New Mexico

A rest stop in New Mexico.

We are now at a campground on the outskirts of Albuquerque and will be here ffor a few days. Tomorrow we are going to the New Mexico State Fair and have tickets for tommorow  evening for a rodeo (professional circuit) and also a concert by the Diamond Reos. Sould be fun and somewhat different

 for us.

Well that is it for now. I am sure there are a lot of typos in the above, but after doing this twice, I say the heck with them!

Grand Canyon South Rim Day 2

Hi all,

Well today the weather finally caught up with us. The day started out nice and sunny with the temp in the low 70s.  We wanted to tour the Hermit Trail sectioin of the rim. This sectiion is closed to private vehicles and access is only by shuttle buses. There are 9 stops on the way up and 3 on the way back down where you can get on & off at scenic vistas.  While we were at that the furthest stop a storm moved in that we had been watching develop for some time. We went to the shuttle stop (buses run every 10-15 minutes) and the arriving bus was full and very few got off because of the threatening weather. By then it started to rain, the temperature dropped and the wind came up. I could see my own breath.  Georgie and I had on short sleeve shirts and shorts and no jackets.  It was dam uncomfortable. Finally another bus came along, few got off again, but we all piled on and filed the bus including standing room. Afterf a few minutes, the driver said all the standees had to get off. So we were back standing in the nasty weather which was now worse. The next bus no one got off and we couldn't get on. Finally we did get on the next bus. By this time we were wet and cold.  We had dry clothes in the truck and changed as soon as we got back to the parking lot.  By this time the sun was back out and it was beautiful again.

OOPS! This picure was suppose to be at the end of the text. This woodpecker was outside the window of our RV and kept landing on the window sill even though I was directly on the other side.

Tonight we went to and after dark Ranger presentation at an outdoor amphitheater where we heard a very informative talk on mountain lions. The ranger did an excellent job and gave a very enthusiastic presentaion that lasted over an hour. We had to dress warm for this and use flashlights to find our way back down the trail.

Because of the above, our picture taking was limited today. It is so hard to capture the grandeur of what you are looking at.  Late today I had to go back to a store along a portion of the rim that we have been on several times. Even though I was rushing as I left georgie in the truck in a no parking area, it was hard not to stop and keep looking again at the view.

Notice the change in the sky. bad weather coming!

The sky is not looking any better

Hmmmm, looks like rain to me

Taking a break while Georgie checks out the gift shop

It is hard to see, but the Colorado River is just visible as a brown spot in the middle of the picture.

Well that is all for tonight. We will be out looking around in the area some more tomorrow and then on Friday we will be leaving for?????   I really don't know yet where, but it will be in a generally easterly direction. Most likely towards Alberquerque, NM.

Tom