Surprise

 3/4- Juniper Campground, Bandelier National Monument, Los Alamos NM

   We decided this morning to try out the San Juan Scenic Skyway. This is a road that completes a circle in southern Colorado. Unfortunately we only lasted on it until Durango and then it went north. It was a bit chilly this morning so we thought we’d stick to lower routes. Well we got that wrong also as we went over 9000 feet even before we got to Durango. We did cross the continental divide at some point.

    The scenery and views were awesome. I broke out my online thesaurus to get more adjectives and I’m starting out with the A’s. We traveled through pine forests up and down steep grades. Then there were the huge mountain meadows finally coming to the plains dotted with junipers. 

    We headed for our campsite for the night in Bandelier National Monument. We’d never heard of this place before so we decided to hit the visitor center before going to our site. To get there you drive out on the top of a mesa until the end and you wind down into the canyon. There we took a short trail which led us to another collection of pueblos. These were carved into the side of a sheer cliff which had the consistency of Swiss cheese. This is a certain kind of volcanic effluent called tuff. It can be soft or hard so it can be carved or made into bricks. Anyway the best part about this park is they have the wooden ladders that you can use to climb up into the caves. One thing I’ll say is that these were some awfully small people. 

    On arriving at or site we noticed the campers on the site next door were from Vermont so we went over to chat. It turns out Alayne knew one from her Bone Builders and another used to live down the street from us. She had even purchased some of my pottery once upon a time. Funny to come all this way to meet up with neighbors.