I saw only one major sight today. It’s deliberately located in the middle of nowhere in southwest New Mexico. For anyone thinking of visiting, this site needs to be worth planning a day around, because it requires nearly seventy five miles round trip from anywhere else. I’m enough of a science enthusiast that it was definitely worth it. I went to the Very Large Array. Camino Real The day opened with pretty much the reverse of five days ago, a drive down a long slope with big mountains in the background. The slope marks the southern end of the Rocky Mountains. I then passed through the traffic of Albuquerque, with a great view of the Sandia Mountains on the left. After that, the landscape became flat and empty. The only sign of life is a long ... read more

Santa Fe, as noted yesterday, has the image of a place from the past with all the luxury of the present. Today, I dove into the reality behind it. I started at the Institute of Native American Arts. The building, like everything else in this town, looks like an adobe castle. The institute was founded in 1962 to teach art to and by Native Americans. The work ranges from deeply traditional crafts to the most cutting edge contemporary art. The Institute has a museum with rotating temporary shows. Institute of Native American Arts Like most contemporary art museums, the quality of the work is high, but not always comprehensible. Many shows at academic museums risk being the sort of highly conceptual work that only art theorists can really appreciate (see ). I like ar... read more

People visit the pueblo ruins of the southwest for many reasons. Some want to explore the history while others seek pretty pictures, and almost everything in between. Like few other sites, Chaco Canyon divides the history seekers from everyone else. Getting there requires a difficult drive on dirt roads; to a canyon that is wide, low, and decidedly unphotogenic. Chaco would be a mere footnote in this landscape except that it contains ruins on a scale found nowhere else. They attract knowledgeable visitors like an ancient El Dorado. From the moment I planned this trip, I knew I had to make it there. The rain gods ... read more

Many areas of the southwest show artifacts from layers of history. Ancient Pueblo ruins, old Spanish buildings, Victorian houses, and much else populate the area. Northeast Arizona unusually shows multiple layers of Native American history, first of the Ancient Pueloans and then from the Navajo. The Navajo are relatively recent arrivals, having migrated from the northeast in the 1500s. Very few spots on the reservation are as crucial to both groups as Canyon De Chelly, where I’m going today. Canyon de Chelly Visitors have two main options for seeing the canyon. They can drive roads along the rim and stare down from multiple overlooks. While the views are dramatic, they are all at a distance.... read more

Ask many people to imagine the west, and they’ll respond with a vision of red buttes sticking up from a flat desert plain. This particular landscape is iconic thanks to a series of classic western movies directed by John Ford. No matter where they were set, he filmed them in just one place, Monument Valley. I never saw the films growing up, but I did see hundreds of cartoons that used the same landscape. Today I finally see the real thing. Of course, lots of other people want to see that landscape also. During summer, it leads to almost unbearable crowding. Thankfully, most visitors have left by late autumn. The popularity also leads to high prices, which I can’t do anything about. Like other things on this trip (see ), I decided I would enjoy the ... read more