Roswell to Albuquerque, NM

Our drive from Roswell was uneventful.  We drove up Hwy 285 all the way to I40 and then on into Albuquerque.  We are staying at Kirtland Air Force Base FamCamp.  Very nice;  cold, but sunny both days.  We came through here to see a couple of National Monuments, Bandelier, Pecos, and Petroglyph.  Wednesday morning, 1/25, we drove the Jeep up I-25 north past Sante Fe and Los Alamos Research Center and into Bandelier NM.  As you can from the pic above, and others that will follow, it had just snowed the day before, and can be seen in a lot of our pics.  Brrrr!  It wasn't bad though, about 50 and sunny, and a little breeze.

From Wiki:  Bandelier National Monument is a 33,677 acres (13,629 ha) National Monument preserving the homes of the Ancestral Pueblo People. It is named after Swiss anthropologist Adolph Bandelier, who researched the cultures of the area. Bandelier was designated a National Monument on February 11, 1916, and most of its backcountry became a "designated wilderness" in October 1976.

Above, you can see a person walking among the canyon floor remnants of the pueblo community.  And just to the person's left, you can see one of the three Kivas that were used for various ceremonies and rituals by the community.

 Some, if not most of the structures are reconstructed and preserved for future enjoyment of the visitors and researchers.  Some of the cliffside structures were up to four stories high.  Verification of this can be seen by the supporting roof beam hole-supports in the sides of the cliffs.  Some of those hole supports can be seen in our pics below.  Here I am trying to be serious in one of the cliffside residences.  :-)

 Above, Nancy taking a break in front of "Long House".  Below, some of the support holes of the floor/roof log beams.

 On my way down the trail steps, I napped a pic of Nancy, and below, I am in the dwelling looking out at her.

 There were a few etchings and petroglyphs in the cliff walls.  Some have been preserved from the lava eroding from the elements.

We finished up our visit to Bandelier, which was a very nice break from our long drive across our beautiful country, and headed about 60 miles away to Pecos Pueblo National Historic Park.  This Park is located on the other side of Santa Fe from Bandelier, but still northeast of Albuquerque. 

From Wiki: 

Pecos National Historical Park is a National Historical Park in the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is located about 25 miles (40 km) east of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The site was originally designated Pecos National Monument on June 28, 1965. In 1990 new lands were added to the park and the official designation was changed to Pecos National Historical Park. It includes the Pecos Pueblo, a National Historic Landmark.  Pecos National Historical Park is composed of several noncontiguous units. The main unit of the park preserves the ruins of Pecos Pueblo. The first Pecos pueblo was one of two dozen rock-and-mud villages built in the valley around AD 1100 in the prehistoric Pueblo II Era. Within 350 years the Pueblo IV Era Pecos village had grown to house over 2,000 people in its five-storied complex.

 Up on the hill away from the dwellings was the remnants of a very large mission structure.  The original structure was abandoned and eroded into nearly nothing, but was later rebuilt when the Spanish returned late in the 1600's to settle for good.  The second structure was built right on top of the original foundation, but was larger.

 It was now late in the afternoon and cool breeze was now discouraging us from walking through the dwelling part of the Pueblo.  We limited our visit to the Mission area only.  Hence, our pics cover only that area.

Between the mission and the dwellings which were about 500 yards away in the lower canyon, was a very large Kiva.  And here we are "hamming" it up a bit. 

 Above is a pic from within the Kiva.

Well, here we are at the end of another blog, and the end of our stay at Kirtland AFB.  We will drive the MH to Petroglyph NM this morning, Thursday and we hope they room for us to park there.  We will do our hiking-thing through the Monument and then drive on toward Flagstaff, AZ.  Probably won't make it all the way, as it's about 300 miles.  So, till the next blog, Joe & Nancy as the RVing Beach Bums.