Chaco Canyon

We stayed in Gallup, NM several days and visited El Morro National Monument and Chaco Canyon National Park.  El Morro consists of tall canyon walls where Zuni Indians lived around 850 A..D.  They had built  brick building 3 and 4 stories high over looking the canyon.  We saw some workers putting mortar between the bricks to keep the buildings standing.  One man was was a Zuni and talked to us a long time about his ancestors who lived there and stories that had been passed down to him.  Fascinating.  He was an employee of the park.  We hiked up to the top of the canyon walls where you could see for miles. 

We also went to Chaco Canyon which had dwellings that dated to 825 A.D.  To get to Chaco you have to travel for about an hour on really rough unpaved road.  The signs suggested you only use a 4 wheel drive.  It is pretty primitive compared to most of the other parks we've seen.  They are in the process of building a new visitors center which will be nice.  I don't know why the road is still unpaved but I'm sure cost enters in.  Our guide was a young woman in the YCC, Youth Conservation Corp.  She was excellent and knew a great deal about the Canyon.  She was also very honest about what thy don't know.  The buildings were made of stone the Anasazi got off the top of the Canyons.  Bigger stone at the bottom and smaller on the top floors.  Most homes were at least 4 stories high.  Unsure if Chaco was home/cultural/trade/religious area.  There are 700 rooms!  There are about 5 different areas of buildings.  Amazing that these could be built so long ago and be so precise and still be standing.  Amazing to hear about how they uncovered them and the problems encountered as they unearthed them, mainly keeping them standing as they pulled the hundreds of years of dirt off them.  You can actually walk through the outlying dwellings and there are info guide books that tell you about each dwelling as you walk through.  The Indians resent when we say:  "the civilization just disappeared."  They say; "we didn't disappear.  Our ancestors are in towns all around the canyon."  We spent the day at the Canyon and got some gorgeous pictures. 

As we were driving out of the Canyon we encountered a young woman and her mother and two labs from NY who had lost a tire and had only the rim.  We stopped and helped them.  A ranger came to help while F was changing the tire.  They had also called AAA but we were so far out they never made it.  F told them them after preachiing on the Good Samaritan all those years, darn it, he felt he had to put it into practice!  They were so nice and appreciative.