Santa Fe and Bandelier National Park

We had been in the Albuquerque area for almost a week, and we hadn't driven north to Santa Fe yet.  So Sunday morning we picked out a church to attend in Santa Fe, and then did some sightseeing around the city afterwards.  

We drove by "The Roundhouse," the informal name for New Mexico's state capitol building.  It's the only round state capitol in the United States.  We then walked the Historical plaza area downtown.  We walked by San Miguel Church, the oldest church structure still standing in the United States.  The original adobe walls and altar were built in 1610.



 





We also walked by the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi.  We thought it was interesting that there were tents set up in the basilica courtyard, selling arts and crafts.  We pondered what Jesus would think of the  sellers in the market place so close to the church on a beautiful Sunday morning.


Santa Fe is known for its art community, and the area around the plaza is saturated with shops and galleries.  There were tourists going in and out of those stores.  But Mark is saving a lot of money now that Denisa has no room in the motorhome.  We walked right by all those stores without even looking
 inside. 

Tucked amongst the shops are trendy restaurants.  This is the only type of shopping we are doing these days.  So we stopped into a little French Bakery and Creperie for a treat.  We had a savory crepe for Sunday brunch.

Our last stop before leaving the historic plaza area was the oldest house in Santa Fe.  Denisa is standing in the doorway, which is barely tall enough for her 5'3" frame.  She would have been taller than the average homeowner of the 1600's.

 But our real destination of this beautiful Sunday afternoon was Bandelier National Park.  It takes about an hour to drive northwest from Santa Fe to its location.  As we drove closer to the park, we spotted some changes in the mountains.  We commented that they looked like swiss cheese.  We found many more of these swiss cheese rocks once we got inside the national park.









We walked the main loop trail, that led us right up to the canyon walls.  These walls are made of volcanic ash that compacted into soft rock called tuff.  Tuff will erode in the wind and rain. The ancestral pueblo people used tools to speed this erosion process to enlarge some of the natural openings into doorways and windows. 












There were ladders propped up against the canyon walls that allowed visitors to get a closer look inside, as well as to look back outside.

The pueblo people that lived here a thousand years ago certainly had a beautiful view of the canyon out of those windows!


  After living in a motorhome for four months, we think we could adapt easily to being cliff dwellers.

The little stream that runs through the center of the canyon is Frijole Creek.  It is literally translated as Bean Creek.  The day we visited it was about three feet wide and less than a foot deep.  It could be characterized as a babbling brook.  But in September 2013, rains turned it into a raging flood that swept through this canyon.  It took out hundred year old trees that formed log jams in the floor of the canyon and tore out bridges and picnic tables.  The piles of logs are still found throughout the floor of the canyon.

We also hiked the trail to the Alcove House on this beautiful Sunday afternoon.  Since we are spoiled with getting to sight see on week days, it was hard for us to get used to the crowds of the weekend.  But most people stay close to the visitor's center on the shorter trails.  This trail took us further up the canyon to a larger opening high up the canyon wall.  You can see some of the ladders we will use to climb up 140 feet to the opening visible on the left.












 These ladders are considerably taller than the ones closest to the visitor center.  There are three different ladders to climb ever higher to the entrance of the alcove house.  Denisa is on the first ladder,





and Mark is on the second ladder.

There was another great view down the canyon from the entry of the alcove house once we got up all those ladder steps.  This side of the canyon was shaded from the heat in the summer, and got the best warm sunshine in the winter.  There were hundreds of cliff dwellings and pueblos built on this wall of the canyon, and it looked like a beautiful place to live.

The space inside the natural cave opening was large, but was probably a group gathering place with the round kiva behind Mark.

What goes up must come down, so we hit the ladders for the return trip to the canyon floor.  To the left, you can see two of the ladders, with the third and longest ladder out of the picture and further below.  Denisa is on the top ladder, waiting on some shaky visitors that were wishing for an elevator at that point.






 




 


On the right, Denisa is half way down the second ladder, and Mark caught a picture of a bird soaring overhead.

















We made it back to the canyon floor, still marveling at the size of the old pine trees that made it through the flood of 2013.  We also noticed that most of the really tall pines seemed to form a fork way up on their trunk.  Not sure why that happens, but we tried a panorama shot up the trunk to document it just for fun.






Mark is always offering to climb trees, and this seemed a good time to encourage him to climb one since it was parallel to the ground already.  Even though it was a dead tree caught in the log jam from the flood, it was ten feet above the path and looked like fun to Mark.  The people walking down the path under the tree looked a little startled at someone hanging out on a tree so far above them.  Or maybe they were a little startled at the age of the kid climbing trees.

Or maybe they were just surprised at how handsome this tree climber was.  That's what Denisa thinks, and she just had to add the next picture because she liked it.

We continued down the path, and found this doe munching on the  dense greenery in the canyon.  This mule deer seemed to be quite comfortable with sharing the path with humans, but we couldn't help but notice she was sticking her tongue out at us hikers.

It's now 5:30.  The visitor center is closed and most of the Sunday crowd has gone home.  We've already hiked the two most popular trails and experienced the best of Bandelier National Park.  But the park trails are open until dusk, and the trail to the upper falls is just another three miles.  How could we leave without seeing the falls?





So we headed down the trail with the sun lighting up the canyon wall.  After the crowds of the day, we didn't see anyone on this great trail that took us down to Frijole creek, and then up the wall of the canyon.

We made it to the end of the trail with plenty of sunlight to enjoy the falls.  It was beautiful and peaceful, and reminded us that this was yet another of God's wonders. 

We enjoyed a very peaceful wander back to the parking lot, now almost empty of cars.  It was another good day and we're so glad we got to experience another park that we didn't know existed--Bandelier National Park!