Monday, June 27, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
New heights
Pueblo Alto. Balcony House. Alcove House.
We're now triple crowners of lofty historical sites.
On Tuesday, we explored Bandelier's dwellings carved into the sandstone cliffs of Frijoles Canyon. Down the canyon, at the end of a peaceful trail marked by huge pines nurtured by the Frijoles Creek, we came to Alcove House.
At Chaco, we scaled a mesa to reach the Alto ruins. At Mesa Verde, we descended ladders along sheer drops to see the Balcony community.
But Alcove topped them both. To stand in the cave 140 feet above the canyon floor, we would have to negotiate three long, steep, wooden ladders -- no rails, no nets, nothing to keep you from bouncing to the bottom. The original residents likely scrambled up using scooped-out hand and foot holds, but for modern, overfed Americans, nearly upright ladders made from tree limbs present enough of a challenge.
Ladders, schmadders: Slowly but surely, we got to the top. From the cool shade, the view was glorious. A ladder dropping into a kiva provided another reward for the boys.
After a while, we made our way back down -- three points on the ladder at all time, no looking around. At the bottom, we all felt proud of ourselves. Nobody would have won gymnastics medals, but we walked away in one piece.
We're now triple crowners of lofty historical sites.
On Tuesday, we explored Bandelier's dwellings carved into the sandstone cliffs of Frijoles Canyon. Down the canyon, at the end of a peaceful trail marked by huge pines nurtured by the Frijoles Creek, we came to Alcove House.
At Chaco, we scaled a mesa to reach the Alto ruins. At Mesa Verde, we descended ladders along sheer drops to see the Balcony community.
But Alcove topped them both. To stand in the cave 140 feet above the canyon floor, we would have to negotiate three long, steep, wooden ladders -- no rails, no nets, nothing to keep you from bouncing to the bottom. The original residents likely scrambled up using scooped-out hand and foot holds, but for modern, overfed Americans, nearly upright ladders made from tree limbs present enough of a challenge.
Ladders, schmadders: Slowly but surely, we got to the top. From the cool shade, the view was glorious. A ladder dropping into a kiva provided another reward for the boys.
After a while, we made our way back down -- three points on the ladder at all time, no looking around. At the bottom, we all felt proud of ourselves. Nobody would have won gymnastics medals, but we walked away in one piece.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Compliments to the chef
Our trip blog would be remiss without praising our wizard of the two-burner propane stove.
Thanks to Michele, we've eaten well at every stop. She has whipped up breakfasts of blueberry pancakes, corn muffins, sausage biscuits, cinnamon buns, French toast, and eggs and chorizo. Dinners have included green chile stew, steak and potatoes and, prepared in the wind and dark at the evil campground, beef stroganoff.
Her diners appreciate her campground culinary touch.
Thanks to Michele, we've eaten well at every stop. She has whipped up breakfasts of blueberry pancakes, corn muffins, sausage biscuits, cinnamon buns, French toast, and eggs and chorizo. Dinners have included green chile stew, steak and potatoes and, prepared in the wind and dark at the evil campground, beef stroganoff.
Her diners appreciate her campground culinary touch.
Rainmakers
We saw ancient power at work that night.Our first day at Bandelier National Park ended with a fascinating presentation about the famous cliff dwellings in the Frijoles Canyon. A young park ranger from the nearby Cochiti Pueblo talked about her ancestors living in the canyon, and her people's attempts to preserve the culture formed centuries ago.
At the end, she called her father — a Cochiti war chief and retired magistrate and Arizona highway patrol officer — and her kid brother up to the stage. Bedecked in gorgeous jewelry, they performed a dance in the Keras language, shaking instruments made from gourds and turtle shells.
They later explained they were speaking to their ancestors, asking for moisture for an extremely dry land being ravaged by wildfires, the nearest across the valley in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
It had been windy all day, and the strong breezes continued after darkness fell. We went to sleep with the tent quivering, despite the open window flaps. But we weren't worried.
That changed around midnight. Sudden gusts roaring like oncoming traffic rocked the tent. One almost caved in a corner pole. Michele and I bolted upright, shot outside and struggled to stake the rain fly even more in the intense blasts. As I pounded the last extra stakes with a rock, I felt something for the first time while in the Southwest.
Rain.
Drops spat out of the sky — no deluge, but rain where none had been predicted. Not much fell, but over the Sangre de Cristo fire, enough apparently came down to reduce a towering white smoke column to a few whispy fingers.
The ancient Frijoles people had heard.
Bandelier Father's Day
Today in Bandelier National Park, my family reminded me how lucky I am.
Worried about getting a campsite, we left Santa Fe late in the morning. By the time we found a shady spot in the Juniper Campground, it was near lunch. To celebrate Father's Day, we divided our Pie Town peach pie in quarters, and I ate under a Ponderosa pine while pulling my presents out of a bag.
John Michael gave me a cool 2012 calendar of art deco-style National Park posters. From Ted came a book about the Navajo code talkers. And, big surprise, Michele gave me a handsome silver Navajo/Hopi bracelet she bought behind my back from the Hanrahans in Pie Town. John Hanrahan, after wearing it for more than 20 years, was selling it at the flea market where we met. I liked it, but unsure of its quality, had passed.
But when Ruth Hanrahan, seeing my interest, secretly approached Michele with a Father's Day suggestion, my dear wife recognized a good deal.
I love my bracelet, calendar and book. But I love my family the most. What a great Father's Day.
Worried about getting a campsite, we left Santa Fe late in the morning. By the time we found a shady spot in the Juniper Campground, it was near lunch. To celebrate Father's Day, we divided our Pie Town peach pie in quarters, and I ate under a Ponderosa pine while pulling my presents out of a bag.
John Michael gave me a cool 2012 calendar of art deco-style National Park posters. From Ted came a book about the Navajo code talkers. And, big surprise, Michele gave me a handsome silver Navajo/Hopi bracelet she bought behind my back from the Hanrahans in Pie Town. John Hanrahan, after wearing it for more than 20 years, was selling it at the flea market where we met. I liked it, but unsure of its quality, had passed.
But when Ruth Hanrahan, seeing my interest, secretly approached Michele with a Father's Day suggestion, my dear wife recognized a good deal.
I love my bracelet, calendar and book. But I love my family the most. What a great Father's Day.
Left turn at Albuquerque
We were going from one extreme to another.
After Pie Town, we planned to stay in the metropolis of Albuquerque, then drive up to Bandelier National Park in the morning. Still aglow, we drove down Highway 60, past the giant white radio telescope dishes of the Very Large Array, all pointing to the same galactic spot. We wanted to check out the visitor center but missed the turn and didn't realize it until we were miles down the road.
Approaching Albuquerque on I-25, we asked Karen to direct us to a motel in the Comfort Inn family so we could collect reward points. She obliged. Her choice sat beside an off-ramp, next to warehouses and lots fenced off in barbed wire. Few cars were in the lot. Michele and I both had a bad feeling, suddenly picturing a smashed side window in the morning. We were tired, but should we stay?
No thanks. We learned our lesson outside the Petrified Forest.
We pulled out of the motel lot, turned left and cruised up to Santa Fe, a nice Comfort Inn on Cerillos Road and excellent green chile dishes and beer at the Blue Corn Brewery.
After Pie Town, we planned to stay in the metropolis of Albuquerque, then drive up to Bandelier National Park in the morning. Still aglow, we drove down Highway 60, past the giant white radio telescope dishes of the Very Large Array, all pointing to the same galactic spot. We wanted to check out the visitor center but missed the turn and didn't realize it until we were miles down the road.
Approaching Albuquerque on I-25, we asked Karen to direct us to a motel in the Comfort Inn family so we could collect reward points. She obliged. Her choice sat beside an off-ramp, next to warehouses and lots fenced off in barbed wire. Few cars were in the lot. Michele and I both had a bad feeling, suddenly picturing a smashed side window in the morning. We were tired, but should we stay?
No thanks. We learned our lesson outside the Petrified Forest.
We pulled out of the motel lot, turned left and cruised up to Santa Fe, a nice Comfort Inn on Cerillos Road and excellent green chile dishes and beer at the Blue Corn Brewery.
Pie Town promenade
Unlike a piece of pie, Pie Town got better the next day.
It was tempting to sip coffee on the Toaster House deck and enjoy our surroundings, but once the kids woke, we headed over to The Daily Pie, the local breakfast spot (the Pie-O-Neer opens at 11 a.m.). It was bustling, and we enjoyed our eggs, sausages, hash browns and biscuits in sausage gravy. Of course, we each had pie -- cherry, apple and two blackberries. They were delicious, but we give the Pie-O-Neer the nod.
Just as we finished, Nita dropped by, looking for us. She wanted to give us her “25-cent tour” of Pie Town. It turned out more like the $25 version.
Crammed into her Subaru, we saw the tiny post office with the original 1930s mailboxes. Pie Town originally was a stop on the trail, where cowboys knew they could always get good pie and other refreshments. When the U.S. Postal Service wanted to set up an office, it asked what the town wished to be called. Pie Town, the residents said. Choose a more dignified name, the postal service replied. But Pie Town held fast, and the feds caved in.
Today, Pie Town still lies on the Continental Divide, at about 7,900 feet and far from everything. For groceries and supplies, residents drive more than an hour east or west. Nita told us the history of the closed gas stations, including one where she used to work. We drove by a stand of oddball windmills — a local man’s museum — and down a dirt road to something stranger. Pie Town is home to one of the huge, white radio telescopes from the Very Large Array, most of which are down Highway 60 in the Plains of San Augustin. They’re the ones in “Contact.” Pie Town’s is officially the “Pie Town Dish,” proving that scientists have a sense of humor.
Nita also showed us Pie Town’s old main road, shunted aside by Highway 60 in the 1950s. As we crept along, she gave a running history. A general store and motel used to be in that shambling house. That church was put on rollers and moved down the road. That empty lot once held so-and-so’s home. The state just closed the town dump. By the time we returned to our car at The Daily Pie, we felt like we could give the next tour.
We hugged Nita goodbye, thanked her for her hospitality and got an “Aloha” in return. But we weren’t ready to leave Pie Town -- not when Kathy at the Pie-O-Neer had a fresh batch of pies waiting.
Before that, we desperately needed clean clothes, even by camping standards. So we drove a few miles west to the Top of the World general store and its small laundromat. A small flea market was hunkered down in the wind whipping around the parking lot. John Michael bought a shower nozzle for a quarter; the easy exchanges with the vendors, John and Ruth Hanrahan, were free.
Transplanted Easterners who used to run a bed and breakfast in Raton before falling in love with Pie Town’s charms, they were the latest local residents to befriend us. The store manager gave popsicles to the boys while the clothes dried. Earlier, another resident, Tony, with a Santa white beard, offered to show us the wolves he raises on his ranch. Was everyone in Pie Town as easy to sit down with as one of Kathy’s slices? It sure seemed so. At the flea market, a woman kidded me that the town had us fooled. Then the next Oscar goes to Pie Town.
Soon, it was on to the Pie-O-Neer for lunch. We were too full for pie — just kidding. We ended up having seven more slices, including New Mexican apple (with green chilles and Pinon nuts). I gave my “Pie Fixes Everything” shirt to Kathy, who promptly had her partner, Stanley, nail it up on the wall in a place of honor. Thea stopped to chat some more. We took group photos in front of the restaurant and the pie racks. I took a picture of Kathy holding the peach crumb pie she baked for us. Kathy filmed John Michael describing what makes good food (if a 9-year-old can read the ingredients), vowing to put it on her Facebook page. We told pie stories, talked about the mystery of pie, shared pie tips — just pie freaks and soulmates bonding.
We loved the fact that Kathy once shipped pies, but no longer. If people want her pie, she said, they have to come to Pie Town.
Eventually, we had to break away or else buy our own desert plot. More hugs, and Kathy gave us her signature “Hasta,” telling us Pie Town would talk about our visit for then next week and always remember the pie family. We promised to return some day, and send people to the Pie-O-Neer with instructions to say the pie family said hello. We left with a Pie-O-Neer shirt, a Pie Town bumper sticker on our car, a Pie Town cookbook, our boxed pie and a lot of fond memories of our new favorite place.
Hasta, Kathy. Aloha, Nita.
Thanks, Pie Town.
It was tempting to sip coffee on the Toaster House deck and enjoy our surroundings, but once the kids woke, we headed over to The Daily Pie, the local breakfast spot (the Pie-O-Neer opens at 11 a.m.). It was bustling, and we enjoyed our eggs, sausages, hash browns and biscuits in sausage gravy. Of course, we each had pie -- cherry, apple and two blackberries. They were delicious, but we give the Pie-O-Neer the nod.
Just as we finished, Nita dropped by, looking for us. She wanted to give us her “25-cent tour” of Pie Town. It turned out more like the $25 version.
Crammed into her Subaru, we saw the tiny post office with the original 1930s mailboxes. Pie Town originally was a stop on the trail, where cowboys knew they could always get good pie and other refreshments. When the U.S. Postal Service wanted to set up an office, it asked what the town wished to be called. Pie Town, the residents said. Choose a more dignified name, the postal service replied. But Pie Town held fast, and the feds caved in.
Today, Pie Town still lies on the Continental Divide, at about 7,900 feet and far from everything. For groceries and supplies, residents drive more than an hour east or west. Nita told us the history of the closed gas stations, including one where she used to work. We drove by a stand of oddball windmills — a local man’s museum — and down a dirt road to something stranger. Pie Town is home to one of the huge, white radio telescopes from the Very Large Array, most of which are down Highway 60 in the Plains of San Augustin. They’re the ones in “Contact.” Pie Town’s is officially the “Pie Town Dish,” proving that scientists have a sense of humor.
Nita also showed us Pie Town’s old main road, shunted aside by Highway 60 in the 1950s. As we crept along, she gave a running history. A general store and motel used to be in that shambling house. That church was put on rollers and moved down the road. That empty lot once held so-and-so’s home. The state just closed the town dump. By the time we returned to our car at The Daily Pie, we felt like we could give the next tour.
We hugged Nita goodbye, thanked her for her hospitality and got an “Aloha” in return. But we weren’t ready to leave Pie Town -- not when Kathy at the Pie-O-Neer had a fresh batch of pies waiting.
Before that, we desperately needed clean clothes, even by camping standards. So we drove a few miles west to the Top of the World general store and its small laundromat. A small flea market was hunkered down in the wind whipping around the parking lot. John Michael bought a shower nozzle for a quarter; the easy exchanges with the vendors, John and Ruth Hanrahan, were free.
Transplanted Easterners who used to run a bed and breakfast in Raton before falling in love with Pie Town’s charms, they were the latest local residents to befriend us. The store manager gave popsicles to the boys while the clothes dried. Earlier, another resident, Tony, with a Santa white beard, offered to show us the wolves he raises on his ranch. Was everyone in Pie Town as easy to sit down with as one of Kathy’s slices? It sure seemed so. At the flea market, a woman kidded me that the town had us fooled. Then the next Oscar goes to Pie Town.
Soon, it was on to the Pie-O-Neer for lunch. We were too full for pie — just kidding. We ended up having seven more slices, including New Mexican apple (with green chilles and Pinon nuts). I gave my “Pie Fixes Everything” shirt to Kathy, who promptly had her partner, Stanley, nail it up on the wall in a place of honor. Thea stopped to chat some more. We took group photos in front of the restaurant and the pie racks. I took a picture of Kathy holding the peach crumb pie she baked for us. Kathy filmed John Michael describing what makes good food (if a 9-year-old can read the ingredients), vowing to put it on her Facebook page. We told pie stories, talked about the mystery of pie, shared pie tips — just pie freaks and soulmates bonding.
We loved the fact that Kathy once shipped pies, but no longer. If people want her pie, she said, they have to come to Pie Town.
Eventually, we had to break away or else buy our own desert plot. More hugs, and Kathy gave us her signature “Hasta,” telling us Pie Town would talk about our visit for then next week and always remember the pie family. We promised to return some day, and send people to the Pie-O-Neer with instructions to say the pie family said hello. We left with a Pie-O-Neer shirt, a Pie Town bumper sticker on our car, a Pie Town cookbook, our boxed pie and a lot of fond memories of our new favorite place.
Hasta, Kathy. Aloha, Nita.
Thanks, Pie Town.
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