Travels Through the Southwest, Part II
The following day, Friday, I took it easy in the morning while Kathy was at the conference and went to the swimming pool. Afterwards we met up for a lunch of sandwiches made with freshly baked croissants, and since the conference was officially over we drove north to Taos. Kathy’s cousin is spending the summer there so we met up with him and his girlfriend and talked to them for a while. They recommended a few places for dinner and we ended up going to a restaurant housed in the oldest building in Taos, which is allegedly haunted by the daughter of the first governor of the territory of New Mexico. Luckily she didn’t interfere with our dinner and we enjoyed our food.
When we got to the car we saw that I had managed to leave the lights on when we parked a few hours before. I tried to start the car anyway, and sure enough, it did not start. I called AAA and in the meantime Kathy asked passersby if they had jumper cables. No one did, but AAA said it wouldn’t take them very long to get to us. As we waited, another guy walked by and we decided to ask him, just in case. He said he didn’t have jumper cables, but that if the car had a manual transmission, we could try popping the clutch. I knew there was a reason why Tim and I were so adamant about buying cars with manual transmissions! The guy was kind enough to not only tell us how to do it, but to do it himself. Fortunately we were parked on a street that sloped down slightly and there were no cars in front of mine. Kathy and I pushed the car and he jumped in and got the car running – it was a huge relief to know we could be on our way. We thanked him profusely, and then called AAA to cancel the roadside assistance call. It’s nice to meet someone who not only knows how to do useful things, but is also willing to help. My plan is to buy jumper cables soon, and also write myself a couple of how-to lists to keep in the car: how to use jumper cables, and how to pop the clutch. Very useful information.
Saturday we took off from Albuquerque and drove off toward Durango, Colorado. We stopped for lunch at a diner in a small town and looked at the directions that Kathy’s friend had given her to find a trail near Durango that would lead us to several waterfalls. When we got into Durango the weather was less than ideal, and it even hailed for a while. Luckily that stopped and we went off in search of the waterfall hike. We didn’t find it (and later learned we hadn’t gone far enough), so we returned to Durango, parked the car, and wandered around for a bit. We walked into an art gallery that had some beautiful and very expensive sculptures that Kathy and I really liked, and then inside found a bunch of prints by a Blackfeet artist named King Kuka. His prints are gorgeous and both Kathy and I fell in love with his work. Someday I will get some of his prints! Afterwards we went to dinner at a restaurant called Ken and Sue’s that Kathy’s friend had recommended and had a wonderful meal. We ended the day by driving to Cortez and checking into a small motel run by a little German lady. The motel was cheap but very clean and the room was very impressive for the price. If I return to Cortez, I will try to stay there again.
The following morning, Sunday, we got up early and headed to Mesa Verde National Park. I had been there just 3 months before with my mother, but knew that today I would be seeing some different things. Balcony House was still closed when I was there in April, and Kathy and I also planned to go on a hike while we were there. So we signed up for the Balcony House and Cliff Palace tours, and it turned out that the 32-foot ladder at Balcony House wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting. It would have been even better if there hadn’t been a little girl ahead of us who started crying because the wooden rungs of the ladder were hot. I felt bad for her, but at the same time was a bit annoyed at getting stuck partway up the ladder. The dwellings of the ancestral Pueblo peoples at Mesa Verde are really an amazing place to visit. To think that those buildings were built in alcoves on the cliff faces is incredible, and then to think that their inhabitants climbed those cliff walls regularly in order to get to their crops on the mesa tops makes you realize just how easy we have it, with the variety and quantity of food available at our grocery stores.
After the tours and after driving around a bit, looking at the sites that can only be seen from the opposite side of the canyon, Kathy and I went on a 3 mile loop hike that leads to a panel of petroglyphs. We didn’t pick up a trail guide at the trailhead and so kept wondering what all the numbers we encountered stood for. We found out from other hikers that they mostly pointed to the different plants found at Mesa Verde, so we were at least glad we hadn’t missed out on other archaeological remains. But I do need to learn more about plants – at least we learned about the yucca, many of which had large fruit growing on them. The fruits are edible but apparently taste horrible. Kathy and I were terribly tempted throughout the day to take one and open it later, but we didn’t. We almost missed the petroglyph panel when we saw a sign that said Do Not Touch. We thought it referred to the rather strange rock formation that the sign was perched on, and only after we looked above the sign did we see the petroglyphs. Oops. But the petroglyphs were definitely cool, and the hike itself was fun. It was mid-afternoon and the quality of the light was starting to change, giving the rocks a sort of glow which hadn’t been there earlier in the day.
We left Mesa Verde that afternoon, stopped in Durango for dinner at an Italian place recommended by Kathy’s friend, and then were on our way back toward Albuquerque since Kathy’s flight was on Monday. We thought we’d stop somewhere along the way but found that the towns south of Durango on Rt. 550 didn’t have much of anything, and definitely did not have any motels that were visible from the road. So we drove all the way to Bernalillo, which is just north of Albuquerque and arrived past midnight. The following morning we drove to Albuquerque and I dropped Kathy off at the airport and then began my own journey home to Oklahoma City. It was an uneventful drive, but the sunset was gorgeous and the Weatherford wind farm at twilight was beautiful, too.
When we got to the car we saw that I had managed to leave the lights on when we parked a few hours before. I tried to start the car anyway, and sure enough, it did not start. I called AAA and in the meantime Kathy asked passersby if they had jumper cables. No one did, but AAA said it wouldn’t take them very long to get to us. As we waited, another guy walked by and we decided to ask him, just in case. He said he didn’t have jumper cables, but that if the car had a manual transmission, we could try popping the clutch. I knew there was a reason why Tim and I were so adamant about buying cars with manual transmissions! The guy was kind enough to not only tell us how to do it, but to do it himself. Fortunately we were parked on a street that sloped down slightly and there were no cars in front of mine. Kathy and I pushed the car and he jumped in and got the car running – it was a huge relief to know we could be on our way. We thanked him profusely, and then called AAA to cancel the roadside assistance call. It’s nice to meet someone who not only knows how to do useful things, but is also willing to help. My plan is to buy jumper cables soon, and also write myself a couple of how-to lists to keep in the car: how to use jumper cables, and how to pop the clutch. Very useful information.
Saturday we took off from Albuquerque and drove off toward Durango, Colorado. We stopped for lunch at a diner in a small town and looked at the directions that Kathy’s friend had given her to find a trail near Durango that would lead us to several waterfalls. When we got into Durango the weather was less than ideal, and it even hailed for a while. Luckily that stopped and we went off in search of the waterfall hike. We didn’t find it (and later learned we hadn’t gone far enough), so we returned to Durango, parked the car, and wandered around for a bit. We walked into an art gallery that had some beautiful and very expensive sculptures that Kathy and I really liked, and then inside found a bunch of prints by a Blackfeet artist named King Kuka. His prints are gorgeous and both Kathy and I fell in love with his work. Someday I will get some of his prints! Afterwards we went to dinner at a restaurant called Ken and Sue’s that Kathy’s friend had recommended and had a wonderful meal. We ended the day by driving to Cortez and checking into a small motel run by a little German lady. The motel was cheap but very clean and the room was very impressive for the price. If I return to Cortez, I will try to stay there again.
The following morning, Sunday, we got up early and headed to Mesa Verde National Park. I had been there just 3 months before with my mother, but knew that today I would be seeing some different things. Balcony House was still closed when I was there in April, and Kathy and I also planned to go on a hike while we were there. So we signed up for the Balcony House and Cliff Palace tours, and it turned out that the 32-foot ladder at Balcony House wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting. It would have been even better if there hadn’t been a little girl ahead of us who started crying because the wooden rungs of the ladder were hot. I felt bad for her, but at the same time was a bit annoyed at getting stuck partway up the ladder. The dwellings of the ancestral Pueblo peoples at Mesa Verde are really an amazing place to visit. To think that those buildings were built in alcoves on the cliff faces is incredible, and then to think that their inhabitants climbed those cliff walls regularly in order to get to their crops on the mesa tops makes you realize just how easy we have it, with the variety and quantity of food available at our grocery stores.
After the tours and after driving around a bit, looking at the sites that can only be seen from the opposite side of the canyon, Kathy and I went on a 3 mile loop hike that leads to a panel of petroglyphs. We didn’t pick up a trail guide at the trailhead and so kept wondering what all the numbers we encountered stood for. We found out from other hikers that they mostly pointed to the different plants found at Mesa Verde, so we were at least glad we hadn’t missed out on other archaeological remains. But I do need to learn more about plants – at least we learned about the yucca, many of which had large fruit growing on them. The fruits are edible but apparently taste horrible. Kathy and I were terribly tempted throughout the day to take one and open it later, but we didn’t. We almost missed the petroglyph panel when we saw a sign that said Do Not Touch. We thought it referred to the rather strange rock formation that the sign was perched on, and only after we looked above the sign did we see the petroglyphs. Oops. But the petroglyphs were definitely cool, and the hike itself was fun. It was mid-afternoon and the quality of the light was starting to change, giving the rocks a sort of glow which hadn’t been there earlier in the day.
We left Mesa Verde that afternoon, stopped in Durango for dinner at an Italian place recommended by Kathy’s friend, and then were on our way back toward Albuquerque since Kathy’s flight was on Monday. We thought we’d stop somewhere along the way but found that the towns south of Durango on Rt. 550 didn’t have much of anything, and definitely did not have any motels that were visible from the road. So we drove all the way to Bernalillo, which is just north of Albuquerque and arrived past midnight. The following morning we drove to Albuquerque and I dropped Kathy off at the airport and then began my own journey home to Oklahoma City. It was an uneventful drive, but the sunset was gorgeous and the Weatherford wind farm at twilight was beautiful, too.
posted by Ana at 07:42
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