On our first day headed west, we spent most of the day in the air getting to Albuquerque, but did arrive in time to walk a bit around Old Town and then visit Petroglyph National Monument; Our time in Old Town was spent eating some good New Mexican food and taking photographs. We’ve included one above by Claire that we all enjoyed.

After leaving Old Town, we drove out of Albuquerque a short way to visit the Petroglyph National Monument.  Most readers will know that Petroglyphs are Native American sacred art — images etched in stone that may date from 2,000 – 3,000 years ago according to the NPS brochure.  The landscape itself is amazing. 

This is a 17 mile mesa created by volcanic eruptions which left striking basalt boulders.  The images were then etched into these boulders — some 20,000 in all with the majority made 400 to 700 years ago.  On our hike to the top of the mesa, we took countless close-ups of the petroglyphs. 

These are wonderful works of art and we couldn’t get enough photos.  Claire was taking shots with her black & white camera (the “classic” she calls it), while Andrew took over with the digital.  I’ve included one of his shots of a petroglyph in the thumbnail photo above, but the photograph of his that we all enjoyed was the panorama view from the top of the Mesa looking back towards Albuquerque and the mountains that point the way to Santa Fe. I have a feeling that’s not the last panorama shot you’ll see from this trip (especially since Andrew taught me how to use that feature!  It is great having techno-savvy teenagers.)  

We’re now watching the opening ceremonies at the Olympics and gearing up for tomorrow’s trip to Acoma Sky City.

More to come…

DJB