day of adventure!

Wednesday November 4 

When I woke up it was full on raining and blowing. It never fully passed but when it died down to a drizzle I packed the wet tent up and went out to the soggy park. Luckily, most of the sites are accessible from the road without too long of a muddy trek.

Hard to capture the beautiful wet desert fall coloration

Even the lichen come in cool color combos

Section of a wall

The masonry is crazy precise: mortar-free walls thicker than my arm is long, made up of long flat slabs along with smaller slivers for filling in the gaps, leaving nothing wider than an eighth of an inch. There was one free standing piece of wall in the first site that was so solidly built that everything around it had crumbled but it still stood perfectly straight, intact. Pueblo Bonito and Chetro Ketl were large, complex and multi-level spaces, all done to the same amazing standard. It all reminded me of walking through my dad’s construction sites, through spaces not yet finished, trying to guess what the function of each space would be when finished. 

You can imagine people going about their business in Pueblo Bonito

Their kiva looks almost intact even after all this time

Leaving was the adventure: those dirt roads from the night before had turned into mud in all the low points. Only because there hadn’t been a lot of traffic since, there was a semblance of tracks that I could drive across to keep traction in my poor low clearance 2x4. 

Then, just as I’d cleared the mud it started to snow! Visibility dropped but it wasn’t like I was going anywhere fast. Then, as soon as I had gotten back on pavement, the snow stopped.

I considered skipping Bisti but decided to push my luck. There was plenty of sandy mud and skid marks from other vehicles that had gone before me but what was scarier was that the trailhead was nothing but a small empty lot and a sign in book which had last been used two days prior. As a compromise I decided I’d go in for an hour, and after going over a couple of hills and walking along the riverbed for a  while it started drizzling again so I went back.

Badlands selfie

Snowy butte

On my way to Gallup it started snowing hard, and red buttes were dusted in snow and rain. Then, just as I came onto a plain, the snow and rain lifted and the sun began to peek through the clouds.

Navajo country after the rain

In Gallup I drove on maybe a mile of Route 66 past motels and shops to find a greasy spoon diner where I got lunch. It was OK but at that point I was starving so whatevs. On the way to Holbrook I couldn’t resist trying to squeeze Window Rock in since the snow had stopped, but it was getting dark when I got there so it wasn’t super awesome. Oh welz.

Gallup

In Holbrook the Wigwam motel reception area reminded me of a taxidermy shop and each teepee had a real period car parked outside and a bona fide vintage cabin interior. Very cool.

My conical time capsule

My teepee ran out of TP

The next morning, before sunrise