Three weeks in the West,part six (the second third)

Soon after we left Navajo Lake State Park and crossed the New Mexico border, we stopped at a ranger station in Bloomfield. I picked up maps for the time that we'd later spend near Santa Fe and Taos, and then we continued south along US 550. We stopped again, however, when I saw a huge sign for frybread at Blanco Trading Post. Among the many things I'd been talking up about New Mexico to my Lady Friend, frybread was high on the list. And like the reunion that I felt had taken place while I stood among the juniper and sage in the morning, it was a delight to hear the inflections of speech and see the traditional crafts and jewelry of the Dine' (Navajo) and Pueblo people.

These examples of cultural diversity and artistic tradition are two reasons why northern New Mexico is one of my favorite places on Earth. Another is the depth of history in regard to the land and its inhabitants. Our next destination, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, was one of the best examples of that history.

I'd wanted to visit Chaco Canyon for some time -- when I'd lived in New Mexico and on different occasions after I moved away. A friend from Seattle visited the site a couple of years ago, and he came back with tales and reflections that only deepened my desire to go. Allow me to share a bit of text from the park's brochures to explain:

"The cultural flowering of the Chacoan people began in the the mid-800s and lasted for more than 300 years. We can see it clearly in the grand scale of the architecture. Using masonry techniques unique for their time, they constructed massive stone buildings... much larger than any they had previously built. Construction on some of these buildings spanned decades and even centuries. Although each is unique, all great houses share architectural features that make them recognizable as Chacoan. [The same can be said about the structures at Mesa Verde. -- Ed.]

"During the middle and late 800s, the great houses [of Chacoan culture] were constructed. These structures were often oriented to solar, lunar and cardinal directions... Sophisticated astronomical markers, communication features, water-control devices, and formal earthen mounds surrounded them. The buildings were places within a landscape surrounded by sacred mountains, mesa and shrines that still have deep meaning for their descendants.

"Researchers believe that the Chacoans used many of the prominent mesas, buttes and mountains in the area for signaling stations. The people could have communicated great distances -- as far away as Mesa Verde and Chimney Rock in Colorado -- using fires or reflectors made with selenite (gypsum crystals) ."

I need to get the photos, so let me wrap it up. After jostling along the graded road to the visitor center, we paid our fees and then decided to see if there were any open campsites (despite the sign near the highway that indicated that the campground was full). There were, in fact, two or three spaces available.

I thought that my Lady Friend wouldn't have been interested in staying overnight in order to see more ruins in the morning, but she showed an Indiana Jones-like interest in the place that made her want to spend a second day in the canyon. So not only did we arrive in time with the Full (blue) Moon, we had the fortune to spend the night at Chaco as well.


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Photos from the beginning of day six are here.

This is the third (but not the final) post for day six.

Photos from day five are here.