May 16, 2012 – Chaco Chaco Man

Because we wanted to visit the Chaco Culture National Historical Park early in the day, we left the Super 8 in Farmington, New Mexico a little after 6 am.  After driving on a rough section of road for 21 miles (16 of which were dirt) we arrived at the park.  Without a doubt, the ancient Pueblo ruins and the access to the dwellings were the best we have seen anywhere we have been.  This canyon would  have been a thriving agricultural community between 800 and 1300 AD.  The pueblo structures at Chaco are amazingly well preserved.  There are places where visitors can actually walk through the buildings.  We took a ranger led tour through Pueblo del Arroyo then did self guided tours at the Pueblo Bonito ruins that are huge areas that would have served hundreds of people.  While on the tour at Pueblo del Arroyo, we saw workers stabilizing the walls to preserve the structures.  Other self guided tours through Hungo Pavi, Chetro Keti and Casa Rinconada are also interesting.

Pueblo Bonito

Pueblo Arroyo

Kiva at Pueblo Arroyo

Excavated kiva at Pueblo Bonito

Lunch was peanut butter on crackers, oranges and mixed nuts along with a lot of water since the day became hot quickly despite the 7000 feet altitude of the park. Since we weren’t interested in some of the longer hiking trails today, we opted to leave the park a little after 1 pm which meant another 21 mile drive on mostly dirt roads to get back to Route 550 to head southeast. 
While walking around Chaco Canyon, we met a lady who had worked as a botanist at Fernow Experimental Forest near Parsons, West Virginia.  She knew several of my friends from the College of Science at Marshall University.
We were in Bernalillo, New Mexico by 4:30 pm and crashed at the Super 8 a bit before taking a short walk around the motel before going to dinner at a local Southwestern restaurant called The Range Café on Rt, 66, known here as Cameno del Pueblo.  They specialize in meals with blue corn, especially enchiladas and chile rellenos.  Mary had blue corn chicken enchiladas and I had a combination that included a chile relleno and two blue corn beef enchiladas.  Both meals had beans and arroz verde on the side.  We swapped enchiladas and enjoyed our meals.  This place wasn’t a Mexican place but is more a southwest cowboy fare.  One thing that we have noticed here in going to many Mexican and Southwestern restaurants is that there isn’t hot sauce on the tables.  This is true even in very authentic Mexican places in some of the small towns.  The only restaurant we have been to that had hot sauce on the tables was the Holiday Inn in Chinle, Arizona.

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