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Colorado to New Mexico

Great Sand Dunes National Park

June 11 to June 16

Our second day on the dunes we were lucky, as locals said the wind had been unseasonably strong (evidently it blows a lot in the spring, but usually not so much in the summer); it calmed down substantially and we had a pleasant stroll through the water of Mather creek over to the sand dunes, put our shoes back on (to protect against hot sand), and began our climb up.

Climbing a mountain of sand is tricky when it is steep. We walked across some ridges, but at a certain point we were going to be faced with a steep slope of loose sand no matter where we headed. You scramble up as fast as you can, because you are losing ground and the sand is slipping out from under you (as well as pouring into your shoes) as you climb. When I got to the top of a dune about 2/3 of the way up to the top, I decided I had made my personal summit. Miles and I hung out while Rollie and Max decided to continue on. At that point a woman who had scrambled up the hill behind me asked if we were going to the top and if so, could we reach her 6 yr old and tell him to come back. I said there was no way I was getting to the top, but Max could and probably could catch her son. Max tore off, not distressed that I had volunteered him for the mission, and indeed, eventually caught up with the little guy who had zoomed on ahead of his parents without so much as a backward glance.

Going down actual mountains can sometimes be as hard as going up - or harder, but coming down the dunes was a bit like walking on air. You put your foot on the slope and let the sliding sand carry you down as if on a moving sidewalk….that was fun! Later that night Rollie and I took a hike called “dunes overlook” that wound up into the mountains above the campground and up to a ridge with fabulous views of the dunes, and the San Juan mountains on one side of the horizon and the snow-crusted Sangre de Christos on the other. We had planned on 3 nights here, but decided 2 was enough, so the next day we packed up and headed out. On an impulse we turned up to the drive for Zapata Falls, which hike Rollie and Max took while Miles waited in the car with me - I was feeling queasy - a touch of altitude sickness (Rollie’s sister Peggy, who lives in Denver, said it can take a week to adjust and that proved to be about right for me). After the hike we touched base by cell phone with Peggy and her husband Grant, who were driving down from Denver to meet us, as they had a wedding in Santa Fe to attend. We met at the visitor center and made our way to the river, where we sat and chatted for an hour or so while the boys swam, played soccer, collected rocks and made sand drawings & sculptures. Grant had been to the park before, but Peggy hadn’t, so they set off to hike the dunes (after giving the boys some spending $$ - which they appreciated a lot!!) and we turned to head down to New Mexico - to see Taos Pueblo and then take the “Enchanted Circle” drive through the mountains.

Enchanted Circle

As we had an extra day before our reservations in Santa Fe, we decided to aim for a National Forest Service campground somewhere along the line. It was very hot and as we began the drive around the so-called “Enchanted Circle,” we were grateful to be climbing higher into the mountains.

On our way we stopped at a Vietnam Veterans memorial that is now a state park. It was privately constructed by the father of a local boy who died in Vietnam, and the memorial eventually gained state support. The shape of the memorial - a mainly sculptural sweep of wall that echoed the sweep of the mountains behind, widened out into a chapel at one end - was lovely. The building next door housed some interesting displays and a moving HBO documentary with a lot of quotations from letters soldiers sent home. (We later looked up and rented this film, called "Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam," an HBO documentary that is very well done). A lot of motorcycle groups, almost certainly comprised of veterans, were visiting, so that was interesting for the boys. I was able to tell them a little bit about their father’s Conscientious Objector application, their Uncle Keith serving on a base in Fla., their Uncle Dennis going to Vietnam as an intelligence officer; Rollie talked about how his lottery # didn’t come up before the war ended. It wasn’t a stop we had planned - but it proved interesting, if less dramatic than the DC memorial. We headed on around the circle (pretty scenery to be sure, but not necessarily something I’d recommend doing rather than visiting pueblos), and spent the night at a National Forest Service campground along the Red River. Because we pulled in at dark and set up our tent, we ate out in the excessively touristy town called Red River.

A Side Note on Eating Out

This was the first in a series of only moderately successful (so far) efforts to explain to the boys that they have not got a God-given right to order anything on a menu, that it is usually not a good idea to order seafood in the middle of the country, and that the most expensive thing on any given menu is probably not going to suit our budget. They seem to disbelieve us that eating out is comparatively expensive and say things like “It’s only $25” about the desired entrée! The fact that our eating out is often unplanned and brought about by exigencies like “it’s 6 PM now and by the time we pull into camp and set up, there’s no way I will have the energy to cook,” doesn’t play to a sympathetic audience.

We have now developed a system to give a dollar limit for the entree and other limits as necessary (once the adults have perused the menu). They may order beyond that limit, but then the additional money comes out of their trip money (so they have their Nana, grandfather and other relatives to thank for the king crab legs they ate in Moab).

The next day, after striking camp, we drove on into Taos and looked for Taos Pueblo on the outskirts of town.

Taos Pueblo

Taos Pueblo was very interesting and beautiful. Nestled at the foot of a mountain, and with a river running through the plaza, the golden-brown adobe buildings are the epitome of an architecture that seems to grow out of the landscape. We got a tour of the older section, in which tribal members still live in the old way, without electricity or other modern amenities. Apparently people cycle through living in the older part, by choice and as a service to the community. An old mission church and the traditional kiva (which non-tribal people are not allowed to see) are both present. After the tour we shopped for jewelry and pottery in the plaza and bought fry bread, and snow cones. It was incredibly hot. Our tour guide carried an umbrella to give herself some shade when forced to stand in a sunny spot. I took a page out of her book when we were going around Mesa Verde later in the trip.

After the pueblo, we drove down the highway to Santa Fe, where we located our rental casita. It was fairly close to the plaza area. We walked to the plaza that first evening just to check things out, and found a place the list in the casita noted as a good place for traditional New Mexican food. I’m sure there are more authentic places, but this one was within walking distance, open late, and had a pretty good chicken adovada (not as fiery as some places Larry’s brother had sent me and Karl to when we were in Albuquerque, but still satisfyingly hot and flavorful.)

It was hard to rouse the boys and hard to pull them away from the TV the next AM. This was one of those instances in which I was glad I forced them to come along. The O’Keefe Museum is something you can see in just an hour or so, and it had a very good introductory film about O’Keefe and Ansel Adams, so Miles was able to go through quickly and see what there was to see - and he enjoyed it. Max, predictably, was fascinated - and though he also moved through rapidly, he took it all in and had his favorite paintings and photos that he wanted to point out and discuss. Miles was less thrilled by the historical displays in the Palace of the Governors, but was a trooper and looked through it anyhow, again choosing things that looked interesting to examine, and moving through quickly. Max again got very interested in certain sections. It was interesting to learn how Bent (of Bent’s Old Fort back in Colorado) became governor of New Mexico, and later was assassinated in the pueblo revolt, and also how much Archbishop Lamy (as in Willa Cather’s “Death Comes for the Archbishop”) was disliked for his rigid views by the local catholic priests who were more willing to mix elements of native pueblo traditions into their rituals. I got sucked in to the print shop, which has old letterpress machines (with drawers of font names I recognized!), and still produces materials on handmade paper using the old lead type, and in limited editions. They had wonderful posters of poems by the famous (Jane Hirschfeld) and less-known (Arthur Sze, state laureate of New Mexico). I liked a few of his works so well I bought a (non-limited-edition, ordinary paperback) book of his poems, called Quipu.

Part of the Santa Fe experience is shopping under the porch of the Palace. The Native American artisans who sell there are part of a rigorous program in which they must be inspected making their goods (the sales people must sell their own work or the hand works of someone in their family), and must sign the works (mostly jewelry and pottery), and also the materials must be real (no plastic turquoise here). So I felt good about buying gifts for people here, and picking up a necklace and a silver bracelet for myself. They boys were not so interested in shopping, so they biked home to watch TV while Rollie and I biked on to Museum Hill (a very hot 5 mile ride uphill, which nearly did me in) to take in the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian (mainly focused on trading, early traders and their trading posts like Hubbell and Harvey, the development of a market for Native American goods and the eventual programs to separate authentic handmade goods from machine-produced goods). We also had a bit of time before closing to take in the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture - which had many interesting displays of both historical and contemporary arts and culture. At the start there is a recording in a couple of Indian languages, plus English and Spanish, warning those of Native American heritage that the contents of the museum, especially when they showcase ancestral material, might be contrary to native teachings that say you should leave the dead alone and that do not approve of archaeological digs, etc. From this point forward in our trip, Santa Fe to Chaco to Mesa Verde, it was interesting to note the careful attention paid to respecting these traditions, and also that Native American consultants contributed much of the narrative material in this museum, and participate in preservation efforts at Chaco and other ancestral puebloan sites.

Next blog: Chaco - if your teeth stay in your head during the drive you will enjoy what you see. Also Mesa Verde, Canyon de Chelly, Painted Desert, Petrified Forest and Meteor Crater.

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Photos

Cactus flowers near Zapata Falls
photo by Max

Max at Zapata Falls
Near Grt Sand Dunes - Rollie and max took this hike. Not certain how Max came out glowing like that!

Spray from the Falls
Artsy photo by Rollie - nice!

Taos artisans
These jewelers made a turquoise necklace I bought for myself, and some gifts I got for folks from home.

Fry bread pizza
Max and Miles examine the fry bread "pizza" before digging in.

Sunset - over Santa Fe
We drove out to the hills to watch the sun set.