New Mexico

We've been in New Mexico for almost two weeks now and we are loving it! We drove down from Cortez through Shiprock NM to Farmington NM. Then, after a brief trip back to Durango, we went to Aztec NM and rode the Alien Run mountain bike trail. It goes past an (alleged) alien crash site from 1948, where 16 alien bodies were found before being quickly removed. We met the super nice fellows who built the trail as we were leaving and they filled us in on the details.

We also went to Los Alamos, home of the Manhattan Project. The town is actually really pretty and you'd never guess that it was the birthplace of the nuclear bomb...until you have to show your I.D. as you go through a check point that goes past the laboratories. You can visit the labs if you want, but you have to go through the check point even if you're just passing through. We were actually headed to the Valles Caldara National Preserve, home of a super volcano! The caldara is over 12 miles long. Here's a photo of a small part of it:

We hiked a trail called the East Fork that went into a box canyon. Besides being incredibly beautiful, the stream running through it had gold!

Luke, the aspiring gold miner

Gold!!

We learned earlier in our travels that you find gold in the black sand of rivers. There was so many flecks of gold all through the river! However, this area is one of the few where it is illegal to pan for gold (which is why the gold hasn't been taken already) so we regretfully left it where we found it. It was beautiful to see though!
Further down the canyon we saw this lovely little waterfall:

And here's a sweet fluffy flower I found:

We also spent some time in Santa Fe. It is an incredibly artistic city. We wandered around for a couple of days and finally had a good experience with a mechanic (we had yet another repair to do on the truck. sigh. ) We made a trip to Taos, which has crazy amazing mountains and is also super artsy. There is an earthship community just outside the city (where the homes are made from recycled materials, use passive heating/cooling and recycle their water). The visitor centre was unfortunately closed when we got there, but I took a photo of one of the homes:

Taos also has the oldest continuously inhabited pueblo community (which was also closed to visitors when we tried to go there). The weather wasn't great when we were there however, so we headed down to Albuquerque. We didn't get to bike any of the trails in Santa Fe, Taos or Los Alamos, so we have unfinished business there.

We both really like Albuquerque! It is located in the Rio Grand Rift Valley, with the large Sandia Mountains on the east (sandia means 'watermelon' in Spanish, since the mountain glows red as the sun sets, with the layer of green trees at the top) on one side and the The Sisters dormant volcanos on the other side. The volcanos are a rare example of fissure eruption, where the magma rises along thin cracks. The fissure is over 8km long! The mountain is still slowly rising and the valley is still slowly dropping, being one of only a few active rifts in the world.
We visited the volcanos and I particularly enjoyed walking on the volcanic rock--its hollow sound makes me feel like I'm walking on cheerios.

We went to the Sandia Caves, one of the oldest cave dwellings known from the Pleistocene era. The trail to get there was pretty short and easy, but the climb up the spiral staircase to get to the cave didn't make the afraid-of-heights me too too happy.

the stairs. why did the have to make them see-through?

Here's the entrance to the cave. All the significant finds from the people who lived here (including mastodon bones!) have been removed and there has been substantial vandalism.

the entrance to the cave

The cave goes back quite a ways, but it is blocked off. Here's the view at the furthest point you can walk:

 It's hard to see, but it does continue on. On a sad note, we met a fellow at the cave whose nephew had commented suicide a couple of days before. They used to go to the cave together and he had taken a break from the funeral preparations to come to that quiet place to honour him.

On a happier note, Luke always takes his gps along when he is biking the trails and he recently inputed the info into his computer. Here are the details of his mountain biking on the trip so far:

2,710 km

377 hours

107,779 calories

climb 189,410'

descend 206,725'

My details are less than this, but still a happy amount for me :) 

I'd also like to show off my new socks for a moment.

 What's that swimming in my sock?

 Sock Shark!

And finally, here is a photo taken at a Walmart parking lot:

In my next post I'll share some photos from our visit to the White Mesa, and my new past time of geocaching!