Acoma, "Sky City," New Mexico

We have recently been driving on Highway 40 across New Mexico where there are more tourist traps per mile than I thought possible. We didn't stop at any of them, but some of the scenery along the way is wonderful.

There are lots of red rock formations. Unfortunately, if there was great scenery on one side of the highway, that was the side with all of the power lines. I tried to photograph around them, but sometimes, it just wasn't possible, so if you see power lines in my pictures, just pretend they aren't there.

Tell me you don't see any power lines...

Our RV park is about 18 miles from the Sky City, the Acoma Pueblo, and and sits just off Highway 40. The scenery here is not too bad, either.

When we arrived and got out of the RV to do some sight-seeing in the car, we saw two hawks and a raven circling over head. The black and white of the birds was quite striking, although I couldn't catch both hawks with the raven all at the same time.

This area is very special, especially to Don. He was here the first time in 1966 and started his Southwestern pottery collection at that time. Because of this, he threatened to write today's blog himself. However, I decided to spare you that pain and just put in some of the things he particularly wanted me to tell you. Actually, that is usually the way it goes anyway, but to varying degrees.

Don's first Southwest pottery, acquired in 1966, was from the top of the Sky City mesa. He actually went into one of the houses with the lady who lived there and bought one of the pots that she used for cooking.

The next ones were from the nearby village of Laguna. We still have the pieces of one of the Laguna pots that Steve broke when he was a little kid.

Don and I together have added several more Acoma pots to his original collection over the years as we have visited Acoma two previous times.

The village of Laguna where Don bought his first pots in 1966.

Laguna Reservation is next to Acoma Reservation and the pottery looks basically the same. There is an area at a rest stop on Highway 40 next to the Laguna Reservation where some of the Indians have booths set up to sell their wares.

We bought this pot from a lady of the Laguna tribe who made it. Her work was very well done and her prices extremely reasonable.

Once when visiting in Arizona, we came across a wonderful old Acoma pot in a tiny museum in a very remote area where the old cattlemen and sheep herder wars had taken place many years earlier.

The museum was closed but the owner showed up just as we arrived and let us in. This pot was from the 1950's and she sold it to us. That is still one of our favorite pieces.

Once again we were planning on taking the tour of the pueblo on the top of the mesa.

When approaching the Sky City area, you drop down into a valley that is filled with huge monoliths. In the distance you can see the mesa with some of the adobe homes on top.

The mesa is 370 feet above the desert floor, and has had people living there since the 1100's. It is considered to be the oldest continuously inhabited community in North America. It is called Sky City and is known throughout the world as a destination for Southwestern art.

Sky City on top of the mesa.

Of course we wanted to take the tour again to the top of the mesa. It was a cold and windy on Sunday morning and so there was only one other lady on the tour with Don and I, so it was easy to ask the guide questions.

Our guide was a tribal member. The first thing they show you at arriving on top of the mesa is the church. You are not allowed to take pictures inside which I would have loved to do as the uniqueness of it is amazing.

Construction of the San Esteban del Rey Mission (the church) on the mesa was begun in 1629 and completed in 1640. The 21,000 square foot adobe mission complex represents and extraordinarily arduous construction process undertaken by the Acoma ancestors. 

The Acoma people themselves implemented traditional methods to ensure that this mission building would withstand time and erosion caused by the natural elements.

Huge wood timbers were brought from a mountain 150 miles away and were not allowed to touch the ground for religious reasons. If one did touch the ground, it had to be discarded and another one brought in.

All dirt and water to make adobe was brought by hand from the desert floor up the vertical trail. Access to the mesa top for people and all materials was only by foot-hole paths up the side of mesa. An unimaginable feat!

In front of the church was a large cemetery that I was not allowed to photograph. People are still being buried there.

The burials are four deep as this cemetery has been used continuously over the centuries. After one level of burials was completed, the women bought in another 10 feet of dirt for the next level of the cemetery from the desert floor, all by hand...Up the vertical cliff...I can't even imagine!

A few of the tribal families still live there full time and it is a center for tribal ceremonies and celebrations. There are over 300 adobe structures.

There are no services, power, water or sewer. There used to be one area of old wooden outhouses. Now one sees more "modern" fiberglas ones, sometimes set right next to the front door of the house. I can't blame them for them for that!

The homes are all owned by Acoma Pueblo females who pass them on to the youngest daughters in this Matriarchal society.

Only in recent years was a road constructed to make it possible to drive on to the mesa. For centuries, the only access was by climbing the vertical paths straight up the side of the mesa.

The women still cook in these adobe ovens. They can be seen all over the reservation as well as on the mesa.

Homes on top of the mesa.

One of the things that Acoma is known for is it's pottery. On the mesa, vendors have tables set out here and there, usually in front of their homes, selling their wares.

They make the clay from scratch and coil it. The paint is made of colored local rock that is ground into powder and then made into different colored paints. Then the pot is fired.

It is a long process and many of these potters are amazing artists. The style of painting is very distinctive and easily recognizable.

Don and I have several of these pots that we have collected over the years and weren't going to buy any on this trip. However, we did find one on the mesa that was different from any that we have and since it was a (very) cold day in slow season, it was half price, so we felt it needed a new home.

One of the native vendor's table of pots on the mesa.

We bought this pot from this lady on the mesa.

At the end of the tour, you are allowed, if you want, to walk back down off the mesa via the original trail.

Don talked me into doing this with him years ago the last time we were here and this time I opted to let him go it alone. Actually, I told him, "NO WAY! Once was enough!!" 

It is actually not for those with "heights" issues or those who might be claustrophobic, or those who don't bounce well if they fall the 370 feet. Since I am ALL of those things, Don went down by himself and I waited for him in the warm and cozy coffee shop.

As I mentioned, the trail is very steep and quite vertical in some areas. There are deep hand and foot holds, all of which were hand carved out of the rock many, many centuries ago.

There are areas with steps, sometimes quite steep. In spite of all of this the view is spectacular. Don took a camera with him and took these pictures on the way down.

Here he has started down and turned around and took this back toward the top of the mesa. You can see a roof line of a home.

Hand craved steps down the trail.

Hand carved hand holds and more steps.

Valley view from inside the stairway.

Looking back toward the top of the mesa from the bottom.



Part of the road that goes to the top of the mesa.



Old corrals at the bottom of the mesa.



This is the Enchanted Mesa which sits very near the Sky City mesa and was the site of the original settlement till lightening destroyed the only access.



There is so much more of interest and facinating history of Sky City, I wish I could tell you, but I would be writing all day.

 Some of the history is rather disturbing when the Spaniards murdered hundreds of natives and made slaves of many more. Yet somehow they survived.

You may be able to find some additional information online. Put this into Google Search: Timeline results for history of sky city  I didn't put in the web address as it is very long, but this will give you a lot of interesting history.

After our tour of Acoma Pueblo, we drove around the area where the RV is parked and discovered we were on old Route 66.

At Budville was this old building with a 1960 (or so) Impalla parked in front. Most businesses are closed as was this one, but it was good for a little nostalgia.

The reservation demonstrates a definite level of poverty, of course. One interesting thing we noted was that all the old rock and adobe dwellings that were falling down were always left in whatever state of ruin they might be and a small, newer home had been built very nearby.

We wondered what the reason was for not removing the ruins of the original place, but it was like that everywhere. We saw dozens and dozens of these and I wondered if there was some tradition attached to the situation. We don't have an answer to that question.

It has been very cold here for the past few days. Fourteen degrees or less at night. We could see snow falling in the hills around us here but nothing built up. This afternoon and it has been very windy and there is not much to slow the wind down out on the desert.

Tomorrow we start east again. We are hoping to get to Branson, Missouri by Wednesday, weather permitting.

New Mexico sunset.

Tucson to the Petrified Forest

Today we are driving north through a beautiful part of Arizona. We left Tucson after a few days where we parked in a casino parking lot (with about 20 or so other RV's). The first night we had an amazing sunset...in the casino parking lot of all places.

We did some sight-seeing when there and had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with old friends, Rich and Lisa Atkinson at Lisa’s parent’s house. (Don and Rich have been great friends since 1978.)

We spent last Thanksgiving with them as well, and they were kind enough to invite us back again this year. After dinner, we all looked pretty much like you probably did, sitting around like slugs rubbing our bellies, while Lisa’s mom kept offering more pie…ohhh! And I promised I would not do this to myself again this year…maybe next year I’ll do better…or not.

When in Tucson, we took a drive up to Mt. Lemmon. We had not been there in many years. It is a beautiful drive up a wind-y mountain road to beyond the 9000 foot elevation point.

There are a lot of interesting rock formations along the way. You get a great look at the entire Tucson valley from various points on the way up there.

Saguaro cactus grow like weeds in this part of the state, so there were lots of them along the way till we got to the top where there were pine trees.

In my now-so-often-fading-memory, I seem to remember previously, several little shops and restaurants in the tiny village at the top of the mountain.

There are only three there now plus the ski area as they and 90% of the village was leveled due to a large forest fire in 2003. Those three have rebuilt, one cute little gift shop, a general store and the Cookie Cabin where we purchased one of their $5.00 chocolate chip cookies.

It totally covered the seven-inch paper plate it was served on and was still warm with gooey chocolate chips. We shared it and still left some behind. After thoroughly licking our fingers, we headed back down hill.

The next day we went looking for some petroglyphs that I had seen posted on the web that were near Tucson in the Saguaro National Park.

The only problem is that there are two totally separate Saguaro National Parks, both with the same name. One is on the east side of Tucson and the other one on the west side.  My search of the national park’s web site had no mention of petroglyphs. 

Putting the park's name into Google Maps showed us only the park east of the city as did my GPS.

Then I noticed on the posting I had originally found said, “west,” again with no other real details except, “Signal Hill Road.” Google Maps and my GPS both easily found Signal Hill Road, so off we went.

After several miles of, “Turn right here,” ”Turn left here,” numerous times, the “Turn left for 5.3 miles,” was onto a single lane, dirt and very rocky road that eventually became a sandy, and somewhat soother, road.

There was no other traffic except for a couple of bicycles. Since we were in the car and not the motorhome, and the scenery was nice, we continued on.

As we approached the end of the road, the sign said only, “Signal Hill Picnic Area.” Don commented, “Well, this has been a fiasco,” because we obviously had not found the petroglyphs. But we decided, at least it had been a nice drive and we like driving back roads. This was definitely a back road!

We stopped at the picnic area where a little sign said there was a ½ mile long trail which we decided to take.

The trail was a series of rock steps down and then up and around again with really nice views. Ahead was a small hill with a big pile of rocks on top.

Looking up, we were surprised to see the petroglyphs and then a small sign mentioning them and telling people to not go onto the rocks.

It was all very low key. Probably to keep peole from destroying them.

Now piles of rocks in Arizona tend to also come with...ah…critters….so there was a sign warning of rattlesnakes.

Petroglyphs at the top of the pile of rocks.

Oh, no! Not again! Watch where you step!

Here we have a house with a door, a guy lifting weights and...goodness know what else...

And this means, what???

We were able to walk very close to the petroglyphs and get a good look. We have always enjoyed finding petroglyphs and find them very interesting. It has to be a lot of work to do them, and who knows what they really mean?

There were several that were spirals, which I would guess refers to the sun…or maybe just that the people who did them were lost and running around in circles.

Anyway, the Signal Hill Petroglyphs are one of Tucson’s best kept (and well hidden) secrets and we were very glad we found them.

As I said at the beginning, we have been driving through a beautiful part of Arizona today. The scenery has been pretty the whole way, but then we came on the Salt River Canyon.

You drop way down into this canyon and then go back up again. It is so big, I could only photograph snippets here and there. It is a spectacular area.

Approaching Salt River Canyon

Next we came to the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert. There are tons (literally!) of trees and logs and broken wood that has been petrified in this area and through a complicated process, turned into crystals and agates and amazing colors within what used to be just wood.

Besides the smaller pieces, and there are thousands of them, in some areas there are also some huge long logs still all in one piece.



Colors of the ground and hills in the Painted Desert area are breath-taking. It is a smaller area, but we thoroughly enjoyed driving through it.

There was a dusting of snow in some areas which added to the beauty.

Tomorrow we are headed out to Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico. It is an amazing place that if you have never been there, you will enjoy hearing about.

It is an Indian village that is located on top of a mesa and has been lived in continuously since around the year 1000, and that is without any services, no water, electricity or sewer!!

Don has gone there since the '60's and we have been there two or three times and have several pieces of Acoma pottery from the Pueblo.

In the meantime, here is tonight's sunset picture...we are sitting beside the I-40 in a small truck stop...the sun is setting behind a big rig truck. All sunsets are pretty...