warning: extremely photo heavy and super long post ahead.
also, somehow i messed up a day already...on day 3 we spent the morning driving around looking for dried chilies (with no success) and then stopped by trader joe's (i could NOT get enough of trader joe's. seriously. i can't wait until KC gets one.) and i went in a grabbed us a nice hiking lunch. we then drove up to bandlier national monument park, about an hour's drive from santa fe and spent the morning hiking.
we both really liked bandlier A LOT. it was a pretty popular place. we were there on a monday and couldn't find a place to park when we first got there! so we drove up the road to one of the scenic overlooks and ate our lunch and found a place after that.
bandlier is a great park that preserves the way of the ancestral pueblo people. they lived in multi story homes carved into the rock face of the canyon in which they lived and were accessed by large tall ladders. bandlier is the last name of the anthropologist who studied the people and area before the monument was opened as a park.
note: i have no idea why it took me so long to realize that the date was wrong on all these pictures. i finally realized it about halfway through the trip and turned it off. *facepalm*
the large hole is where a family would have slept, the small hole right above that are where they would have ran wooden beams out to form a roof type structure. almost like a porch.
this is a kiva, a ceremonial structure. i loved that you could get in and climb around on pretty much everything in the park. it was like a giant playground. the kiva was accessed through the "roof" and was pretty small once we got down in there.
a quick look down the frijoles canyon. it was gorgeous. northern new mexico and arizona were definitely my favorite areas of both states. i love the mountains.
this is the type of ladder that the pueblos would thatch together and use to climb pretty much everywhere.
kyle modeling one of the ladders. i'm sitting up in the hole from the previous picture. he's going to kill me when he sees i put this on here. true story: that shirt has been around longer than me. seriously, he owned it when we started dating. in 2002. LOVE YOU, BABE! :)
just so he's not so mad at me, here's me showing off my sweet modeling skills in front of one of the biggest ladders on the trail. you go up this one (it's the first and second longest of four ladders.) and then the longest one. wind along the rock face on a trail that is I SWEAR TO GOD the width of your foot and then up two more ladders to the kiva in the second picture.
and if you remember from my incorrect previous post, we THEN went to the sandia peak tramway.
end of day 3.
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the ABQ has a GREAT zoo. i love animals, penguins being my favorite. and while they didn't have any penguins, they did have some great ones.
warning, adorable pictures of baby chimps ahead.
new mexican squirrels do not look anything like kansan squirrels.
i'd never seen a porcupine up close before. this guy's name was homer. he wasn't very friendly.
this guy spent the entire time picking his boogers and eating them for us. lovely. i'm glad i caught him mid-nibble. gross.
there were a lot of babies at the zoo for fall. maybe it's just zoos in kansas, but usually the babies are born in the spring here. anyway, cute baby chimp.
same cute baby chimp swinging!
i think this zebra was hot. don't worry, friend, he's not dead. he got up and walked away shortly after i took this picture.
after lunch we headed over to the abq square and had some more mexican food for lunch. true story: mexican food is very different in new mexico than arizona. i personally thought that arizona had better mexican food.
and i was on a mission to find the best mexican slash eat as much mexican food as possible on this trip.
some pictures of the square:
still with me? good. day 5, more of the ABQ! it was a super fun, quirky city. i mean, come on, their baseball team is the isotopes. how awesome is that!?!
