El Malpais 4/10/2007

I have finally found out why my pictures could not be clicked on and expanded. When I upload them as long as I don't move them they can be expanded. So all of the ones in today's entry can be clicked on and expanded. Now I need to get them so that when they expand they aren't bigger than the screen. I'll work on that in my next entry. I'm going to get this right one of these days. At least now if you expand them you can scroll them to see all of the picture in a better size, unfortunately not all at once. The scenery pictures are so much better blown up to full screen.
I haven't added any thing to the blog in a couple of days because we haven't gone any where. The weather has been so bad. We are having rain and very strong winds. Yesterday was so windy we didn't even stick our noses out the door (4/09/2007). Peggy got her sewing machine out and made her self a pair of pajamas. I tried to get caught up on some of my reading and the baseball season has started so when TBS carries the Braves games I get to watch them.
Since later this week they are predicting higher winds and freezing at night we decided to stay here for another 5 days. "Ain't retirement grant, no schedule". :-)
Tuesday was cold and very windy but we decided to brave it and go to El Malpais pronounced el-mal-pie-EES. It means "the badlands". The west boundary of El Malpais is about 20 miles south of Grants on route 53. We stopped at the visitor center for information and a brochure on the National Monument. Our first stop was the Ice Cave and Bandera Volcano. It is privately owned since it was owned before the area was made into a National Monument. We took the trail to the Ice Cave first. The picture below is an example of the surrounding terrain. It is very rough volcanic lava.
This picture is a close up of the lava showing how porous it looks. Since it is close up the field of dept is limited so the left side of the picture is not in focus but the right side is.

The entrance to the Ice Cave is down about 65 steps into a collapsed lava tube.

The temperature never gets above 31 degrees down here even in the heat of the summer. The ice has the green algae color from the algae being washed down in to the ice from above and them freezing.

After the Ice Cave we could have gone to the volcano but it was a half mile up a trail that rose a 150 feet to the top of the Volcano. The wind was blowing so hard and I didn't think I could make it up the hill so we skipped it. One of the many problems with getting old, I know it beats the alternative. :-) The ticket man gave us a pass to come back on a better day to go to the top of the volcano. On the way back we stopped at what the park calls the Calderon Area. There are a couple of collapsed lava tubes here and some trails to other interesting sites. The collapsed tubes were close enough that I could get to them. Below is a picture of one of them. There are about seventeen miles of tubes in the area and apparently some cavers do explore them.

From there we went back to route 40 and went east to exit 89 and took route 117 south to the east side of El Malpais. The first stop was a BLM ranger station. Adjacent to the National Monument is a National Conservation Area. The National Monument is administered by the National Park Service but the National Conservation Area is administered by the BLM (Bureau of Land Management). They also have a nice ranger station with views over the lava field and tapes you can view about the area. The first stop after the ranger station was at the Sandstone Bluffs Overlook area. The wind was blowing so hard we were afraid to get near the edge of the bluff for fear of getting blown over the cliff. The picture below is a view from the bluffs. The grey area in the middle is part of the lava flow. This is about twenty miles south of route 40 and the lave extends all the way to route 40. There were three volcanoes in the area that contributed to these lava areas.

From there we headed south another 10 miles to the La Ventana Natural Arch. The picture below is from the path into the arch. Note the white sand stone near the top of the mesa. Peggy is in th bottom left of the picture. It might give you some idea of how cold that wind was.

The arch is the largest in New Mexico. I'm looking forward to seeing the ones in Utah. From there we drove further south on route 117 through what they called the narrows. It is an area where the lava flow gets very close to the mesa so there was not much room for then to build a road. We stopped at the Lava Falls area but again unfortunately it was too far a walk to get to on such a cold and windy day. From there we headed back to the motor home, but first we had to stop at Wal-mart for a few supplies. Tomorrow we plan to go to Gallup to see about getting a hair cut picking up our mail, which we had sent there, and seeing if we can find a mall for Peggy to walk in. She has that restless leg syndrome and has to walk every day or she can't sleep at night.

Mine Museum

We had planned to go to the Ice Cave today but the weather was so cold and windy that we decided to go to an indoor exhibit. The Mine Museum is a simulated Uranium Mine here in Grants. When Uranium was discovered in the area around Grants it produced a boom for the town. The population went from 1200 to 20,000. Grants became the largest producer of Uranium Ore in the country, producing about 63 percent of all Uranium ore mined.
The mine simulation was very interesting and well done since of course you wouldn't be able to tour the real mine because of radiation. From the first floor museum, where there were exhibits that explained the history of Grants and the mining industry, you took an elevator down to the mine. You walk through the simulated tunnels with regular stops that tell you about the machinery you are looking at, there is a button at each stop to push where one of the men that worked in the mine further explains what you are looking at and how it is used. The tunnels you are walking through are well designed to make you feel like you are in a real mine. For further information on Uranium mining in Grants and a short history of Grants go to the link below. One of the interesting tid-bits you will learn is that at one time Grants was the carrot capital of the US.
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/HC-Grants.html
The first two pictures will expand if you click on them, I don't know why the third one won't.

This sign explains the picture of the drill bit below.

Drill bit used to sink shafts at the Uranium Mine.

This is the engine they used to pull the ore cars. It was battery operated. The driver in this case isn't. :-)

El Morro

Today we visited El Morro. It is located about 42 miles south of Grants on Highway 53. El Morro means "headland" or "bluff". The first historical record of El Morro was in 1583 when the Espejo Spanish expedition stopped here for water. From then on many of the expeditions passing here stopped for water and inscribed their names and dates on the sandstone.

The remains of the buildings on top are called the A'ts'ina village. The place was occupied during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Why it was abandoned is unknown.

The water hole that drew the traveler to this place. It is usually about 12 feet deep.

View of El Morro from the entrance road.

One of the many writings on the walls of El Morro. Translated it reads "On the 25th of the month of June, of this year of 1709, passed by here on the way to Zuni - Ramon Garcia Jurado"

In 1728 he was the "alcalde mayor" of the Keres district, not far south of Santa Fe.

Seep hole in the rock. Rain water running down cracks in the rock come out small holes in the side of the mesa. The water seeping out of the opening gradually wears away the rock.

View of a distant mesa which is composed of the same rock as El Morro. The brighter colors are caused by thin films of iron oxide around the sand grains, which are not present at El Morro. The lack of water around it kept the early travelers from stopping there.
For further information go to this link. http://www.nps.gov/elmo/

Sky City

Yesterday we moved from Albuquerque to Milan N. M. and are camping at the Bar-S RV Park. One thing you can say about New Mexico is they seem to have great train service. The campground is near a railroad and all night long you can hear the train whistles. Milan adjoins Grants both of which are between old route 66 and 40. We drove route 66 back to Grants looking for a Post Office which we eventually found. Grants also has a Wal-Mart. So naturally we had to stop there and get a few groceries.
Today we went to Sky City which is in the Acoma Pueblo. I am told Pueblo is Spanish for town. Along the way we stopped at the New Mexico visitors center. What a great new building with a view of the surrounding lava fields. We viewed a film about all the things to see in this area and they have 35 other ones to view. If we go back that way tomorrow we will stop again and view some of the other films. They have a good book shop with many books about this area, New Mexico and the Indians of this area. The people there are very eager to help with information and maps.
Sky City is about 20 miles east on route 40. It also has a nice new visitor center. We took the tour of Sky City. They drove us up on a bus to the top of the Mesa, thank goodness. :-) The tour was great. The young man was very knowledgeable about the Acoma history and culture. He quoted the statement that "Winners write history" to refute some of the things in the history books. One of the points he wanted to make was that this place was not chosen for defence but for spiritual reasons. According to him originally the sand was so high around this area that it was only about a 12 foot drop to the surrounding sand. At the end of the tour you could either take the bus back down or walk the narrow trail. The tour was about 2 hours, so by that time Peg and I were ready to sit down, so we opted to take the bus back down. The weather has been great in the lower seventies. The nights get a little cool, in the low thirties and in the afternoon sometimes the wind kicks up a good bit.
The pictures do not do the area justice. It is much more beautiful than they can show.
Please go to my picture link to see the 23 pictures I took and remember it is much prettier than they show. By the way I had to pay $10.00 to be allowed to take pictures and we were not allowed to take a picture of the church's outside or inside. Here is the Sky City web link for more information on Sky City.
http://www.newmexico.org/place/loc/cities/page/DB-place/place/159.html
I have been trying to get my pictures to expand when you click on them. I don't know why they won't, but for some reason the first two of these pictures will expand if you click on them but the third one won't.
View of the visitor center from Sky City.

One of the streets in Sky City.

View from an overlook, looking back at Sky City. Sky City is on the Mesa in the middle of the picture.

Tinkertown

Today was a really good day. We took Peggy's bike in to have the two flat tires fixed at the Albuquerque Bike Center on Coors Boulevard. I had my mileage computer (speedometer) looked at because it wasn't working. It had a broken wire. They fixed Peggy's tires, put two new heavy duty tubes in them and slim. They fixed my speedometer, had them ready in a couple of hours and they didn't charge me for fixing the speedometer. All they charged was $24.00 which I thought was very reasonable. Any time I'm back in Albuquerque and need any bike work I certainly will take it back to them.
From the bike shop we went to Tinkertown. It is unbelievable. Anyone who hasn't seen it needs to go see it. http://www.tinkertown.com/ I'll post a few picture here and more on my public album but they don't do it justice. The detail of the miniature carvings is as I said unbelievable. The longer you stand an look at the models the more detail you see. It only cost three bucks but you could spend all day finding new details to see.
We also drove to the top of Sandia Mountain. What a drive, beautiful scenery and what a road. It's a bikers dream with all the curves. Like they say "you can see forever."

Just think all these little figures were carved by hand by one man.

There are two large (large in a miniature sense) circus tents on display with hundreds of figures.There are a lot more pictures at my picture album site.

On the way up to the top of Sandia Mountain we found this snow bank. Peg can't stand the cold.

Bosque Bike Trail 4/01/2007

We rode the Bosque Bike Trail again today. To get there from our campground we had a straight shot down Central Avenue which is the old route 66. In Albuquerque they had changed the location of route 66, at one time, so that it actually crossed over itself, at one point on Central Avenue you can stand on the corner of route 66 and route 66. :-) I was glad to see that the trail was very busy. It's good to see these trails being used. People were out walking, roller blading, biking and running. It's nice to see whole families biking together. We rode about four miles one way today, we are trying to ride a little father each time. The trail is eighteen miles long so we have covered just about half of it so far. I guess we will have to wait till we come back the next time to ride the rest. The weather was great again today. About three fourth of the way back Peg had a flat tire and had to push her bike to the first parking lot so I could go get the car and drive back to her. By the time she got to the parking lot she had two flat tires. Those Goatheads (sharp little balls of thorns) really are bad in this area.

The Bosque Bike Trail along the Rio Grand in Albuquerque. Busy on a Sunday.

View of houses from the Bosque Bike Trail in Albuquerque.

Wally World 3/31/2007

Peg finished the washing. We drove to the nearest Wal-Mart in Albuquerque. It was just off exit 155 on route 40 about 6 miles from where we were camped. On the way back I checked out the Flying-J truck stop, it is just one exit down from us . You wouldn't believe the traffic, and on a Saturday, it took fifteen minutes to get back out of their parking lot. Flying-J is another one of those gas stations that charge extra for using a credit card and they don't take debit cards, at least Petro allows debit cards the same as cash. Who in this day and age carries hundreds of dollars in cash to pay for fuel? They are ripping the American people off for more than enough now with out adding insult to injury. In the evening we had dinner at the Rockfish restaurant with John and Janna Wilson. John is the brother of Judy Barnes, the wonderful lady I worked for at Bevill State. The food was good the conversation even better. You can tell Judy and John are related, such good people. The evening was a memorable one.