The Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument, N.M.

Monday, June 15

After picking up a park brochure at the visitor's center in Mountainaire yesterday, and a good night's rest, we were ready to tour the two missions out of the three in the monument that we had selected for this trip. (Park map his here)

 As far back as 7,000 years ago agricultural based Pueblo societies flourished here. Then, in the late 1500's Spanish explorers established a permanent colony for the primary purpose of mining salt and other valuable minerals they expected to find. Though not much in the way of valuable minerals was ever discovered, the Spanish king decided to finance the colony for the purpose of Christianizing the natives.   The Salinas Pueblo Missions  are the result of those efforts, which spanned about 70 years.

Admittedly, there has been much restoration and preservation work done to keep enough of the original structures intact to enable visitors to visualize the original complex. You can see a comparison of two different repair/preservation operations in this photo. A ranger we talked with said they make the rounds and try to work on each mission every five years or so, so this demarcation is due to differing ages and possibly different materials used in the mortar. He explained that while the fallen wall tops are topped with colored stucco to prevent further erosion, the mortar between stones is a combination of adobe soil and stucco. It does erode with the weather, but not as quickly as plain adobe.

These missions were complexes, or small cities, not just churches. A model in the museum, as well as the maps in the brochure clearly indicate huge settlements. These were all at their peak during the late 1500's through the middle of the 1600's.  Then, around the 1660's or '70's, drought and famine, disease, and the inability of the Spanish government and the Catholic church to maintain the desired level of control over this area led to the Spanish retreating. The people from this area joined other pueblo cultures further to the south, and these villages were never occupied again.

Archeological excavation has revealed some of the structures, but others remain buried under hundreds

of years of melted adobe, sand, and rubble.

A walk around the area however reveals the remaining stones peaking through mounds of adobe, and with a good imagination one can envision a thriving community. The area behind this main ruin at the Abo site is covered with mounds, most with bits of wall protruding.

In Pueblo tradition, the men do the weaving and the women build the houses (perhaps because they own and control the property!). . . lending a new meaning to the term "house work"! 
This church was built by Tia Pueblo women over a span of five years. The complexity of the church is amazing, and there was considerable help from men as the heavy timbers used for the roof and windows had to be lifted up and installed as the walls were built.

There are a few more photos of the mission ruins in the album here if you'd like to see some of those details.


After touring the ruins of the missions at Quarai and Abo we moved on to Datil Well Campground,http://www.blm.gov/nm/st/en/prog/recreation/socorro/datil_well_campground.html just outside the town of Datil. We've stayed here before and have always enjoyed the quiet.

The campground is never very full, and it's well maintained. The signs displaying the historic information for the area, and the little visitors center, are nice touches that one doesn't usually find in a BLM campground. The best part is, the camping fee is only $5, which is cut in half with a Golden Age Pass. Now, you can't beat that! From the BLM website: "Datil Well Recreation Area Campground includes one of 15 water wells along the old Magdalena Livestock Driveway. The old cattle trail was established in the 1800s and stretched 120 miles from Springerville, Arizona, to Magdalena, New Mexico. The area includes 3 miles of hiking trails in piñon-juniper and ponderosa pine woodlands, with scenic views of the San Augustin Plains."

I had never noticed the sign leading to the trail before, but when we saw it on our loop around the campground this time I decided to give it a try. In the morning Steve was occupied with trying to resolve some electronic gremlins  (I think your gremlins hitched a ride with us Grayce!) so Shiner and I explored part of the trail.

It's beautifully maintained, and probably not heavily used. There wasn't a spec of litter anywhere!

The trail starts at space 6, then crosses a gravel road where you hit the trail head sign and a log book box. A few yards from the trail head there is a nice little gazebo with benches. This time we took the loop to the Crosby Canyon overlook. At the overlook there is another shelter with a bench, clearly marked so you know you've arrived at your destination. Next time we visit we'll try out some of the other branches of the trail. Here is a great map of the campground and the hiking trail.

As the day was ending Steve brought my attion to the view just behind me. . . what a perfect way to end the day!

Manzanos Mountains State Park, New Mexico

Sunday, June 14
On the way to our camping location we stopped in the town of Mountainair at the visitors center for the Salinas Pueblo Missions. The town has several galleries and art related shops, and murals on several of the buildings.

We were quite impressed by the mural where we parked. Please excuse my fat finger across the corner. That's the problem with digital cameras in bright sun..... you can't see what you are doing!

This mural has a lot of detail that was especially nice up close. There are subtle rock art symbols on the boulders, and snakes hiding in the rocks.

They have a nice little bookstore/gift shop at the park information center, and as usual I picked up a couple of children's books, but we were most impressed by the fantastic adobe "L" shaped bench in the parking lot.

Mosaic and hand crafted tiles were used to create a snake curling around the back of the bench, and there are little reptiles tucked in all over the structure. Strong sunlight and the lattice covering combined to make a very harsh shadow, so it's difficult to get the whole structure. Guess you'll have to use your imagination!

We're camping at Manzano State Park this evening, for one night only. It's a nice park, with plenty of pine trees and and between spaces. We headed for the big space, #33, way at the back and though it looked spacious, by the time we dodged branches we still had a bit of a challenge to get our rig shoe-horned in. We finally got it settled and enjoyed a cool evening as we're up a little over 7,000 ft,in the juniper and pine forested mountains.

This campground reminds me of  "the old days" of camping. There are few services, no water and electric at the sites. There are trees between and in all the spaces, so they are more private than we often see, and the surrounding area is fairly wide open, so you can walk anywhere.

It's also a very friendly campground, tonight anyway! We tried to go for an evening walk to get Shiner a bit of exercise and could barely move to the next space before we struck up another conversation. Shiner seemed to enjoy the walk, even if it was at a snail's pace.

Tomorrow we tour the ruins of the Salinas Pueblo Missions. 

Bottomless Lakes State Park, New Mexico

This state park is a very scenic area, and one of our favorite stops as there is a place where Shiner can swim, but this time we aren’t doing much “touring”, it’s a stop to catch up on a few things that didn’t get done before we left, run errands, and just relax.

We arrived Friday after a short drive from Brantley Lake. Hot weather, brilliant blue skies with huge clouds, and a bit of an afternoon breeze made things very comfortable, if a bit on the warm side. We puttered at a few chores, getting technology set up, working out the bugs in several systems and making up a short shopping list.

Saturday was shopping day. We haven’t spent much time in the city of Roswell before, so this trip into town gave us an opportunity to venture down a few side streets.

First of course comes a quilt shop. I found some great fabric at the Calico Cow, which has a nice selection of Southwestern fabrics, and I really enjoyed my visit there.

Perfect souvenirs

Steve relaxed with an iced coffee at the shop next door, and then we proceeded with the rest of the shopping.

We haven’t tried the locally produced Alien beer yet but it’s on ice… we’ll report on it later. On the way out of town we passed the New Mexico Military Institute. We’d seen signs on the highway pointing to the facility, but we were amazed when we actually saw it. The campus is huge, with a multitude of brick buildings, all with the “castle parapet” look of the Corp of Engineers logo, if you’ve seen that. Their website says “Located in Roswell, New Mexico, the New Mexico Military Institute  offers a rich history and tradition of educating tomorrow’s leaders through a program of strong, challenging academics, leadership

preparation, and character development. Known as “The West Point of the West,” NMMI remains the only state-supported co-educational college preparatory high school and junior college in the United States. “ And I might add, that campus is a very impressive facility.

Roswell is famous for aliens, but that image is getting a bit worn out now – they need another visit to refresh the image I think! It’s pretty much just a typical southwestern town. We finished the shopping for groceries, the post office, pet store, etc. – boring stuff but gotta do it, then back to camp to stow everything away.

And then the afternoon zephyr hit.

We frequently hit extreme weather here, and this visit is no exception. In 2013 we were here for a monsoon, which was pretty amazing. This time, about 3 o’clock in the afternoon the wind picked up, and up, and up, and soon everyone’s tents were laid flat, sun-shade tarps bowed like giant sails, lawn chairs tumbled… you get the picture. Some folks were a little more prepared than others and had things battened down early, so they scurried around and assisted the Johnny-come-latelies with gathering up their wind battered belongings. Little rain accompanied the dark clouds this time, but the wind certainly sent us all scurrying. Shiner thought it was very strange that we had all the awnings pulled in and all our chairs and tables were wrapped up on the picnic table, as this is not our usual procedure. I will say, thanks to gathering everything up to save it from the wind we are pretty much packed up and ready to go tomorrow morning!