Breathing some Mountain Air around Mountainair, New Mexico

As we are heading east, we have another chance to enjoy some mountain air, as we approach Mountainair, New Mexico. The main reason we are traveling east through New Mexico on Highway 60 is to visit another national monument. In fact, we made a stop as we drove the motor home towards Mountainair. We usually do some research on google map to see if the parking lot has room for the motor home with the car attached. We also have to check for options to turn around. As you can tell from the picture below, we made it to the Mission church at Abo successfully.

There are three different churches within the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument, and we are here at Abo to see the ruins of the first one.

Built in the 1600's, this church was made from the native red sandstone rocks, and was the center of community activity. It housed the Franciscan missionary who traveled into New Mexico under the orders from the Pope to "Christianize the natives of the New World." 

The Indians were living in pueblos surrounding the church. They liked the horses and goats that the Spaniards brought to their world. But they preferred their own traditions to the Christian services. Just partial walls are left at the church complex. But with the help of drawings and sign board information, we got a glimpse of life in the New Mexico desert over 400 years ago.  

The church was abandoned in the 1670's, when a severe drought led to wide-spread starvation of the Indians. Much later, the Spanish returned to build stucco homes in the 1800's in this same valley. So this picture shows layers of things built in this part of New Mexico--the Spaniards' stucco houses in the right foreground, the missionary church in the middle center, and God's mountains in the left background.

This is another little-known national monument off the beaten path. We are urged to stay on the trail and respect the privacy of the area's wildlife. We certainly weren't interested in stumbling onto a rattlesnake.

After seeing the Abo church ruins, we headed ten more miles down the road to the little town of Mountainair, New Mexico. We left the motor home in the campground, and drove the car the eight miles to the next pueblo church north of town.

This church sanctuary is the most intact, and we could get a better feel for just how big it was. This Quarai Pueblo church is located in the shadow of the Manzano mountains.

We're wearing jackets today, with temperatures in the 50's. It definitely feels like fall is in the air in New Mexico.

We haven't gotten much exercise the last two days, so we took the one-mile trail that circles the property overlooking the Quarai Pueblo compound. Again, this large church on the prairie was abandoned in the 1600's when a drought led to famine for the Indians that lived in pueblos surrounding the church.

Since we're in the neighborhood, we decided to drive into the Cibola National Forest and the Manzano Mountains. We parked the car, and started hiking the Red Canyon Trail. We were soon gaining elevation. Next to some of the rocks on the mountain side, Denisa looks small in the left hand corner of the picture below.

We hadn't done our home work, so we didn't know how long this hike was, or where this trail was taking us. We were just enjoying the exercise and the fresh mountain air. As we hiked further up the mountain, the pine trees got taller.

When we got to the ridge, we could see the other mountains of the Manzano range around us. It seemed a good place to turn around since we were both hungry and dinner was back at the motor home. 

Denisa's Garmin estimated we hiked 9 miles today. We certainly got to breath lots of mountain air in our one day stop at Mountainair, New Mexico.