Month: December 2019

Regular readers might remember that I love Petroglyphs.  So, when I saw that the Petroglyph National Monument was on our route home, I decided that we should stop in Albuquerque for the night and tour the petroglyphs in the morning.  

I’ll have to admit that I questioned that decision when we got into Albuquerque because we ran into not one, but two, major accidents.  In the first accident, a lone car was sitting in the middle lane of a very dark freeway missing most of its frontend.  There wasn’t a wrecker, policeman, or accident vehicle in sight, just cars veering at the last minute to avoid the car and driver.  We had barely got past that accident as cars whizzed by before running into an even bigger traffic jam.  When we finally got to the scene of the accident we realized that all the policemen and rescue vehicles were at the scene of this accident, and multiple cars littered the road.  Apparently New Mexico drivers don’t know how to drive in the rain.  

Undeterred, we got up early the next morning and got to the park headquarters just as it opened.  There we discovered that it would take at least a full day if not two full days to visit all the petroglyph sites.  We ended up visiting just one site both because of time limits and because of multiple warnings not to leave valuables in the car.  All of the sites were in remote areas and there were few cars around.  I really didn’t want to leave $6,000 in camera equipment, not to mention iPads and computers in the car while we hiked two or three hours to a remote site.  On our next visit, I will plan to spend two nights and leave our valuables in the motel while we visit petroglyphs.

We ended up visiting Boca Negra Canyon where you had to scramble up a rocky hill to observe most of the petroglyphs.  Turned out I didn’t have to worry about leaving the car because it was visible throughout the walk, but, even more importantly, because Leslie didn’t want to scamper across the rocks to reach petroglyphs near the top.

I’ll have to admit that I had some second thoughts myself when I spotted the photo at the beginning of the hike warning about rattlesnakes, not to mention the petroglyph near the top of the hike that conveyed the same warning even more clearly.

In the end, though, I couldn’t believe rattlesnakes would be out as cold as it was so I climbed the rocky hill to the top while huffing and puffing. Climbing the slope at 5,300 feet of altitude was a little more difficult than I had anticipated, but luckily there were so many petroglyphs to photograph that I got to rest and catch my breath quite often..  

I’ll have to admit that I don’t think I’ve seen petroglyphs like those at the beginning of the trail, and the guide I bought at the visitor’s center didn’t seem to identify the style, either.

This rock seemed much more familiar, reminding me of Newspaper Rock near Canyonlands in Utah. 

It is speculated that these kinds of petroglyphs cover a broad period of time rather than having been completed in a single period. It’s hard to grasp that some of these petroglyphs could have been written as early as 5000 BC to AD 300.  Not sure why I like petroglyphs so much, but I suspect it is because they seem to transcend time by tying us to a particular place and that feeling is reinforced when you spot a petroglyph of the Mourning Dove that greeted you on the parking lot fence when you pulled in.  

It’s impossible to see everything Garden of the Gods offers in the little over two hours we spent there before continuing on our trip, but it helps if you’ve visited several times before and know where the highlights are.

Although the light was coming from the wrong direction, I couldn’t resist pulling off the road and getting this shot of one of the main ridgelines in the park.

Right afterwards, I headed directly to the balancing rock, my favorite scene in the park.

On our way out I found it impossible to drive by a couple of other spots without taking a photo.  It’s hard to figure out how that tree could get started two-thirds of the way up the rock on the right — or how it could possibly survive there.

At first I was also attracted by the trees sprouting from this pillar, but once I saw the climber with the blue shirt near the top I couldn’t see anything else.

It wasn’t until I got home and put the shot up on the screen that I realized that there was actually a second climber with a black shirt slightly below and to the left of the first climber.

The bonus shot of the day was actually another misidentification.  This jay flew right in front of me while taking the previous shot.  I assumed at the time it must be a  Pinyon Jay since it said they were common in the park I had never seen one before, but I realized that was a misidentification when I looked it up on line to confirm the ID.  Turns out it was actually a Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay, a first for me.

Visiting Colorado and California in the same road trip has become rather routine for us, but this year’s trip was anything but routine. Although I swore several years ago that I would never visit Colorado at Thanksgiving again, it was really the only time we could get there this year so we planned some possible alternatives and went anyway.  Our first long day was quite pleasant — the roads were clear of snow and there was barely a sprinkle here and there. 

The second day’s drive through southern Wyoming wasn’t too bad, either, though the constant warnings about an incoming storm ensured that we would reach Colorado on our second day because it was clear that they were planning on closing the freeways on Monday.  The winds were picking up, but, as far as I can tell, high winds are the norm in southern Wyoming.

The storm that hit Broomfield, Colorado on Tuesday night and Wednesday dropped a record snowfall for this time of year so I felt pretty good about planning to arrive early.  Still, two feet of snow changed or plans somewhat. Strangely enough, I don’t feel the same way about playing in the snow at 77 as I did at 7. We finally managed to get out and see Leslie’s friend Greg Wednesday, and our ex-Tai Chi teacher on Saturday, but, other than that, I was generally housebound for the week.  

We kept our eye on weather forecasts as we tried to decide whether we should continue with our plans to visit New Mexico and Arizona on our way to Fresno to see Leslie’s brother Jeff and his wife Debbie.  Again, we felt lucky that we didn’t have to leave until Monday because the weather was awful on the whole West Coast.

When we finally headed south from Denver on Monday, we were greeted by lots of sunshine for our first stop, Garden of the Gods.  I’ve seen them several times before, but Leslie hadn’t so we decided it was a good place for a short break before heading to Albuquerque. I actually thought there would be a little more snow that there was and it would provide a nice contrast to the red rocks.  They had had white-out conditions a few days before we got there but apparently the snow had blown off the rocks.

Still, there was enough snow to add a little extra contrast to some of the wide-angle shots.

The park was as spectacular as I remembered it from previous visits, with rock formations rivaling some of the more famous ones in Utah.

This huge, red mesa is a colorful reminder of where Colorado got its name from.

Perhaps the Gods would be happy to have an entire garden of rock, but we mere humans tend to prefer bushes and trees with our rocks and there were some spectacular examples of those that have been able to withstand the harsh conditions here.

We probably spent a little longer here than planned, but we could easily have spent a lot longer if we hadn’t set up ambitious plans for the drive to Fresno.