I can’t believe I am up to day nine already. Yes, yes… I know. My trip was eight weeks ago. But as I’ve been writing these posts, I’ve been going through and editing the photos. Have I mentioned yet that I ended up with over 3000 photos? Everywhere I turned I found something beautiful to photograph.
On day 9 of our trip to New Mexico, Scott and I headed up to the Farmington area. This area is also known as the “Four Corners” area because it is the location of four states that border… New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona! I hope to one day visit every single one of these states!
The first place we stopped to look at was the Aztec Ruins National Monument. From 1050 to 1300 A.D., the ancestors of this place constructed and used these structures, roadways, and multi-storied buildings for trade centers as well as public and ceremonial events. This place was amazing!!! It contains a 700 yard, self-guided trail that winds through the excavated ruins, including the Great Kiva which is the only reconstructed kiva of its kind in North America today.
Here is a fun little pic that shows the gentleman and his bike-riding buddy that we followed into the Farmington area. I got really tickled at his buddy! The rest of the photos here were taken at the ruins. I love the blue skies and the yellow trees too. We spent our time in New Mexico during peak leaf season, that’s for sure.
After we left the ruins, we were starving for some lunch! So Scott and I headed out in search of a place to eat. Now I’m sure you can imagine how sick we are of eating out, right? This is day 9 we’re talking about here. So we wanted to find some place to eat that wasn’t a chain. So we plugged in the food option into Laura Lou (my gps), and she came back with a place called “Dad’s Diner”. I have to say that this place was absolutely fabulous! I felt like I was back home! It was a little 50′s style diner like the one in the old show “Happy Days” and they had a burger named after the town’s high school mascot. Scott and I split a Scorpion burger and fries, and then we split a slice of hot apple pie and ice cream! (Yes Meagan… I shared ice cream with Scott!!!) For those of you who are wondering what that little tid bit is about… I do not share dairy products with anyone because it grosses me out. But I was in hot apple pie heaven at the moment and I had a dairy fobia weakness.
After eating lunch at Dad’s Diner, Scott and I set off in search of the Shiprock Pinnacle. This fabulous rock formation is a mass of igneous rock that is also flanked with upright walls of solidified lava from an erupting volcano 27 million years ago. The Navajo people, who call this rock Tse’ Bit’a'i (meaning rock with wings), hold this rock sacred because they believe that the clipper ship that brought them into the area turned to stone after they arrived.
Every photograph I had ever seen of this place was fabulous! But I was getting really irritated because I could not find a good composition. I knew there had to be something better than the view that was seen from the road like in the photo below. The power lines alone were enough to get me irritated… not to mention that it was so far away that I couldn’t get a clear shot. All I could get was a cloudy, hazy shot.
By golly I didn’t drive five hours from Albuquerque to turn around and go home empty handed. I was determined to find a better shot of this rock with wings. So Scott and I drove for about an hour looking… NOTHING! We could not find where to go to get a better shot. And just when we were about to give up, someone approached us in the parking lot of a convenient store. He saw us looking at our atlas and he offered to help us because he thought we were lost. When we told him that we were just trying to find a better road to drive in order to see the shiprock better, he offered to drive us right up to the base of the rock! My heart started beating 100 miles an hour. I was so excited that a local was going to take us somewhere that the average visitor does not get to see. But at the same time… I realized that the foot of this rock was out in the middle of the desert and there was nothing stopping this guy from hitting me upside the head and taking my camera and all of our money from us. So Scott did what every smart person would do. He took MOST of our cash, and his credit cards out of his wallet and shoved them into his sock. That way if the guy demanded his wallet, he wouldn’t get everything. Me? Well I’m texting Meagan on the way there telling her what this guy was driving and what his license plate number was just in case I never made it home… they would know who to look for.
Luckily for us… we were totally safe! The local was a complete gentleman, and he took us directly to the spot that I needed to get the perfect shot. We slipped the guy a $20 bill to show him our appreciation for his time and his gas that he used driving us all the way out there.
The wall that you see on the left side of the photo is a wall of solidified lava from the erupted volcano as well. I am amazed at how this lava created a thin wall stretching high into the sky, yet the ground was not covered with it as much.
After leaving Shiprock Pinnacle, we decided to head back to Albuquerque. We were running out of daylight fairly quickly, and I really wanted to see the Bisti Badlands. We stopped at a few cute spots along the way.
We finally made it to the Bisti Badlands by way of highway 371 and gravel road #7297 which took us through the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness area. This area was created by the erosion and weathering of interbedded shale, sandstone and coal formations into unusual forms. The area is also rich in fossils flora and fauna. 3,946 acres of the Badlands were designated a Wilderness area by Congress in 1984 to preserve their scenic and cultural value. This area is protected by federal law.
We arrived so late we were almost out of daylight. We had been told that the best views of this area was seen by hiking two miles into the Badlands, but there was no way we could risk it. We had no flash lights, no gear. We did walk about a mile into it, which put us back to our car way after dark. It was actually pretty scary… but we risked it! I hate that I didn’t end up with very many pics of this place. My ISO was so high on the few that I did get, that the digital noise is horrible. But the place is too unique for me to not show you the formations of some of these rocks.
Day nine is over! It ended just like any other day we spent in New Mexico where we were rushing to beat the sun setting before putting away the cameras. As soon as it was too dark to do anything else, we told Laura Lou to take us back to Albuquerque to the hotel. It was extremely late when we arrived and we were too tired to even shower! GROSS!… yes I know. But hey… live a little, okay? LOL!
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