IN NEW MEXICO

My husband and I are having quite an adventure in New Mexico. We are staying with a Forest Ranger friend in Chaco Canyon and have spent the last couple of days exploring Indian ruins in a beautiful setting. Our friend's dinner table looks out directly on Fajada Butte and it changes with the weather and the time of day.This morning we got up and he said we were going on a little 3 1/2 mile hike. I was excited until we reached the place and he showed us the bluff we were going to climb before we began the hike. It was a sheer bluff but he said the trail was not too bad. The sign had an arrow pointing straight up!
We started climbing up a small crack in the bluff and we climbed and we climbed and finally got to the top. The view was wonderful and the descent was MUCH easier--mostly on the seat of my pants!

This afternoon we drove to a ruin that is quite a distance from the other ruins located close by. We went with a group of Sierra Club people who are here doing volunteer work in the park.
The road was little more than a cow path and we dodged afternoon showers and vivid lightning all the way out there. It was a beautiful site with a building that had been built about 900 A.D. It is a stretch of my imagination to think about people living in this vast wilderness that many centuries ago. And their buildings were quite spectacular!On the way back we even saw a herd of elk! And more adventure tomorrow!