Bandelier

Attached are a few photos from Bandelier National Monument, west of Santa Fe near Los Alamos. The animal photo is of Albert's squirrels, the most sophisticated looking squirrels I've ever seen. Bandelier is known for its cave dwellings (see photo of Jake and John in a cave), long house (view of ruin), and alcove house (see photo of me climbing a ladder to this cave and kiva). The photo of the plain is Valle Caldera, a volcano that blew up long ago that is now a park and working ranch.

Busy Weekend in Santa Fe

This weekend was full of special New Mexican activities. On Thursday we bought 2 bushels of roasted green chilis (see photo of the peeling process). Green chilis are now for sale all over town and propane powered roasters made out of a half barrel with a rotating mesh drum efficiently blacken the outer skins. Or some smaller operations have a charcoal grill for smaller quantities. Peeling takes awhile, so we will also freeze some unpeeled to be peeled after thawing. We got medium hot chilis, and they are pretty hot! We may get a bushel of mild for guests with sensitive palates!

Friday was our long awaited trip to the Santa Fe Opera. We had dinner with Tom and his family, and with Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg! Okay, she wasn't at our table, but she was at the pre-opera dinner along with 5 Secret Service agents in suits and sunglasses. You can see our southwestern getup in the photo above. I had a long skirt and boots and Jake wore jeans and boots. The opera dinner was an excellent buffet of seasonal vegetables, shrimp and tenderloin steaks. A lady gave an entertaining and informative talk about the opera we would be seeing, The Marriage of Figaro. The opera house is covered but has open sides and the back of the stage looks out onto the mountains. As we sat down the sun was setting behind the mountains turning the sky a peach-pink hue. The only bad thing was that it had been a hot day and we were very warm with little air circulating. The stage though was magnificent set with a garden of flowers. During the overture, 5 courtiers appeared from the back of the set and began picking bouquets until the whole front half of the stage had been cleared of flowers. The main set rolled out from the sides and through open windows and doors you could see the remaining flowers in back. The singing and acting were wonderful of course.

Saturday brought the start of the annual Indian Market attracting 80,000 people to town. The major downtown streets were filled with booths with art of all kinds made by indigenous people from across the US. The pottery, jewelry, rugs, sculpture, kachinas and other art were all of the finest quality I've seen and ranged from traditional to modern. All very pricey too. Apparently collectors will sleep in front of the booths of particular artists they want to buy from to be first in line in the morning. People watching was almost as much fun as the booths with many people wearing lots of jewelry, probably bought at previous Indian markets!

Today we went to Bandelier National Monument with John, a friend of Jake's visiting from North Carolina. See photos of Bandelier in the above post.

Oregon - last day

Our last day in Oregon dawned cool and rainy. Nelli showed me how to make stained glass in her studio and I made a little mushroom ornament with her help. The morning ended in a few ping pong games (Girey was the best of all of us for that game!). In the afternoon we went for a short walk and Wallace and Jake engaged in log rolling on the hill. Masha showed off her birthday Cinderella outfit showing that even frog catchers clean up good! Nelli and Ulyana filled us with good Russian food like blinis, pilmini, plov (a rice dish), and a cherry cake.

Oregon Mountains

On Sunday we tied two kayaks to the top of the jeep and took off for the Willamette Wilderness. Along the way we stopped for quick look at some hot springs (Belknap Springs) where people have been enjoying the hot waters since the early 1900s (and probably before). We also stopped to see Sahalie Falls, a beautiful waterfall that plunges down the mountain.

We ended up kayaking on Clear Lake, a natural lake among the forests and lava fields. The lava fields were fantastically jumbled slopes of dark rocks and you could only imagine what explosions took place to leave such a legacy. Even now the fields are still fairly barren. Clear Lake was aptly named. In the parking lot we were next to two divers who told us where to look for a sunken rowboat and a thermal spring. The water ranged from bright blue-green to dark blue depending on the depth, but only where it was dark blue was it too deep to see the bottom. The warm sun brought thoughts of swimming, but trailing your hand in the icy water for a minute dispelled those thoughts. The water above the thermal spring was still ice cold, but you could see its presence by the brown and bright green algae that swirled in the water above it.

Wallace and many other fishermen had their lines out, but not a fish was to be seen or caught. We did see occassional swirls, but never an actual fish. There were three kinds of ducks on the lake, none of which were particularly phased by humans. Wallace took the photo of the mergansers. The other two ducks were mallards (with the ducklings) and buffleheads. A few osprey also lived along the lake, so there must be fish in there!

For plant life, there were pretty pink Spiraeas along the shoreline and sedums among the lava rocks.

Oregon - Mt Tom

My dad, Wallace, lives on Mt. Tom outside of Harrisburg, Oregon. The house was constructed over time and rambles along with plenty of space for everyone. The current inhabitants are Wallace and his wife Nelli, her 11 year old son Girey, and her daughter Ulyana and her family, husband Sergei and 4 going on 5 years Masha. This was the first time I had met Ulyana, Sergei and Masha and I hadn't seen Nelli and Girey for about 2 years. We all had dinner together the evening we arrived, but Nelli had recently bought a home near Portland that is being rented and they went up to do some work on it over the weekend before the renters moved in the next week.

On Saturday morning Wallace took Jake and I up onto the mountain in his Ranger, an ATV. Whipped by blackberries, stinging nettles and fir branches, Jake seemed to enjoy the wild ride anyway! I was a little more sheltered sitting in the middle. In one photo you can see the view of the valley below Mt. Tom. They grow grass seed in the valley and there are sheep and dairy cows. We walked up to see a small stand of old growth timber owned by BLM (see photo of Wallace by tree). There were large fir and cedar trees and moss covered the ground. Most of Wallace's land had been cut over but we also stopped by a stand of unusual knobcone pines whose cones adhere tightly to the trunks of the trees until the heat of a fire opens them.

The previous owner of the land had been somewhat eccentric and had started a commune with her house and several others in the 1960s. There were relics of eccentricity like the cement "fuzzy igloo" (see photo of Jake and I in this structure) perched above a creek and complete with a little fireplace inside.

On the way back down we stopped to check on the wildlife camera, but its batteries seemed to have malfunctioned and there were no animal photos. In the past he has gotten photos of racoons and maybe a bobcat and of hikers.

For our afternoon entertainment we opted to go to a local winery that was having a garlic and wine festival. The winery was on the other side of the valley back in the coastal range of mountains. Before we could go, Wallace got a call from some people interested in the house (he has put it on the market as well as an 80 acre housesite below the house), so Jake and I hung out by one of the pools/waterfalls in the front yard while he gave them the grand tour. The day before, Masha, a budding naturalist, showed me with great glee the rare red-legged frogs in the pond. Wallace helped her catch them in a net but she was happy to hold onto them for close observation.

The winery "festival" turned out to be a band playing outside where it was 90+ degrees and some garlic flavored food for sale inside. But there were several wineries there with samples. Jake designated himself the driver for the afternoon so Wallace got he and I each 5 tickets for the wine tastings. The host winery, King's Estate, had the best wines with Wallace favoring a Reisling and me favoring a pinot blanc. But there were a whole range of wines to taste from sparking white to rose to reds, whites and dessert wines. We took a different route home passing through more scenic countryside. By the time we got back to Wallace's house the evening had cooled off to a much more reasonable temperature.

Oregon Coast - day 2

We woke up pretty early lying in the tent listening to a light rain. Jake got the campfire going again though to ward off the chill. It was very foggy, so we went into Yachats for breakfast at a nice little place where locals and tourists seemed to congregate. The cafe makes its own breads and pastries so we started with a big slice of blueberry pie while our egg and sausage sandwiches were being made. Good strong coffee too! We read the town newsletter which had the usual issues with lots of summer tourists, sewage problems, etc. Sounded like many eastern shore towns!

The fog was beginning to lift when we were done with breakfast so we continued south along the coast making Devil's Churn our first stop. The coast in this area is incredibly dramatic with the coast range running right down to the shore. The only sandy beaches were little arcs between rock outcroppings. The tide was coming in while we were there which made Devil's churn - a narrow opening in the rock that the waves rush through - all the more dramatic. It was a good place for looking at tide pools too, although I didn't see much of great interest besides starfish.

A little ways further down the road on the inland side is Darlingtonia, a bog filled with huge pitcher plants, Darlingtonia californica. I think Mickey might have told me about this site. It's a very small park but well worth the stop to see the bog. There were some tiny sundews in among the moss too.

Continuing south, the shoreline changes from rocky to extensive sand dunes. In the dunes, some areas are designated for ATVs and dune buggys, and there were all ages and sizes participating in this sport. Fortunately other areas were off limits to motorized vehicles! See photo of Jake in among the dunes.

Our next stop was in the town of Florence, which also has a working harbor and lots of shops. Having seen boats selling tuna for $3/lb and cod in Newport the day before, Jake was on the lookout for one where we might buy a tuna to take to my Dad's house that night. Sure enough, there was a boat with a big Tuna sign out. After talking to the captain about sizes of fish and where to buy a cooler we headed off for lunch and then to find ice and a cooler. Lunch was a great seafood pizza on the back patio of a little restaurant in town. The cooler was harder to find than a good lunch. After the 2nd try we found one at Rite Aid and brought it back to the harbor. Jake opted for a whole fish since it would be more dramatic. He had visions of grilling the whole thing. The fisherman cleaned it and at the urging of a bunch of kids who were watching a seal swim behind the boat, he dropped the innards overboard for the seal (probably strictly illegal). The seal got most of the guts with the seagulls getting a few scraps. The tuna barely fit into the styrofoam cooler and on picking it up one side of the cooler broke off. Fortunately the ice and fish were bundled into a trash bag so we just used the remaining pieces of cooler as insurance.

With our fish in the back seat, we headed back over the mountains to my Dad's house outside of Eugene. Wallace was the only one home when we arrived but word of the fishes arrival had spread and his son-in-law, Sergei, had been designated to grill it. He took the probably wise approach of filleting it and he grilled it with onions, tomatos and cilantro - YUM! Wallace boiled up the fish head and fins for stock and took the remains out the next day to put as bait by his wildlife camera.

Oregon Coast - day 1

We took a week's vacation and flew northwest to Oregon last week. I have lots of photos from this trip, so I'm going to break this into several blog postings. The first two days we drove from Portland down the Oregon coastline as far south as Florence. The first day we stopped at the first beach we reached, appropriately named Road's End Beach and took a walk along the sandy beach to stretch our legs. Despite a record-setting heat wave inland, the beach was wonderfully cool and windy. Much too cool for swimming! The only people out in the water had on wet suits.

We had reached Newport by lunchtime so we stopped for a bowl of clam chowder and an excellent blackberry barbecue sauced salmon on salad at a restaurant that had a view over the ocean. The old port town lines a quiet harbor away from the ocean side. Along with many other tourists we strolled past the shops and down along the piers. There are still several working seafood processing plants right along the harbor and along one low dock a colony of sea lions basked in the sun. They must all be closely tracked because many had letters and numbers shaved in their fur or ear tags.

In the afternoon we visited the Oregon Coast Aquarium just south of Newport, http://www.aquarium.org/. The aquarium has several indoor exhibits and just as much outdoor exhibit area. Outside are sea lions, sea otters, seals and an aviary. Also a nice "nature walk" with views over the harbor and many native plants labeled. Indoors there was a great jellyfish exhibit and another special exhibit called Oddwater that featured odd sea creatures in tanks with abstract glass sculputures created by a local artist. They have 2 tunnels that go through giant aquaria as well.

We camped at Beachside State Park, which would have been nice except that our campsite was about 15 feet from the road. It is very close to the beach though, so you could try to focus on the beach noises rather than the road noises. When we got there they were in the final stages of fixing a 3 day septic failure, but they got it done by the time we got back from dinner! For dinner we went into Yachats and stopped for a drink and appetizer at a nice little restaurant that had a wine store. I had an excellent Washington State Cabernet Sauvignon from the Nelms Road winery (I think - swore we would remember the name and it did start with an N). We had passed dozens of Oregon wineries on the way to the coast in the morning, but this bar didn't have that many choices in Oregon wines. The appetizer was a wonderful little plate of roasted garlic cloves with blue cheese, toasted hazelnuts and focaccia to spread it all on. We went to a more casual restaurant next door for dinner that had a nice view over the harbor, but the food wasn't that great. My crab cakes were bready and Jake's cippolino soup was more like a pasta sauce in thickness.

Plant Sale

I know those of you who work or volunteer at the Arboretum are preparing for the plant sale by now and I wanted you to know that the weekend after the Arboretum's plant sale, the Santa Fe Botanic Garden is having its second annual plant sale! The Botanic Garden here has 2 employees and 100 or so volunteers. They have plans for a new garden on Museum Hill in Santa Fe, but currently manage two natural areas outside of town, a wetland and a mountain (see posting on Ortiz Mountain) where they have educational programs. On Friday I drove up to the Seeds of Change farm (some of you may know their catalog, they specialize in organic seeds), with Fran, a new employee at the Garden who is in charge of the plant sale. The farm let us (Fran, the director of the botanic garden and 10 other volunteers) dig up as many perennials as we wanted for the plant sale. They had a nice potting area with soil mixed up for us, so we dug and potted up about 125 plants. Seeds of Change is looking after them for the Garden until the plant sale. Fran convinced me to be in charge of organizing the plants at the plant sale, so I'll be keeping in practice after all! The plant sale relies entirely on donations of plants and they aren't all native plants. I think the biggest challenge will be identifying everything!

Feast Day

Tuesday was the feast day of Santa Clara and we drove up with Tom to the Santa Clara Pueblo to see the celebrations. Although a celebration of a Catholic Saint, it was hard to see any Catholocism in the day's festivities. Different family groups performed different dances in three areas around the center of town. They were all dressed in costumes of various kinds mostly distinguised by different headdresses. The women tended to wear plain white leather boots and an embroidered white or black dress with a colorful shawl. The men wore white boots with a ruff of skunk fur, short pants with a pelt of coyote or fox hanging off the back and a bare torso smeared with different colors of clay and draped with strings of musical shells. Both men and women often wore turquoise jewelry in the form of necklaces and bracelets as well. The headdresses for one group were colorful geometrical cut outs that stood straight up for the women, and elaborate feather headdresses with a large morning glory looking flower on the sides. Another group did a buffalo dance where the men wore headresses that appeared to be from buffalo fur with horns and they carried little lightning rods. I wondered if they weren't also going to perform at the new Buffalo Thunder casino. A couple groups also carried bunches of pine branches and the men wore garlands of pine around their necks and had rings of bells around their legs.

It was very sunny and hot and the dancers looked almost trancelike without many smiles in the heat. Drummers and chanters accompanied the dancers. The dances had some coreography to them, but mainly consisted of keeping time to the music with stamping feet. Besides the dancing, there were vendors selling food, but I think most people who weren't tourists ate at their homes. I did have though the best tamale I've had so far filled with red chili, ground pork and posole. Jake got a bowl of green chili and fry bread. There were also many people selling jewelry and other Indian art at booths. They were mainly from other pueblos I think.

About the time we had seen enough dancing a big storm cloud came up, so we left and Tom directed us to Tsankawi, a pueblo ruin on a mesa within Bandelier National Monument. Since there were no cameras allowed at the feast day, all photos are from Tsankawi in this posting. The ruins on top of the mesa are just visible as piles of rocks now and only a little excavation was ever done there. The mesa sits atop volcanic rock and the rock has many caves in it where the Indians used to stay in winter for additional shelter. Well worn paths in the rock exactly wide enough to walk in lead up to and around the mesa. In steep sections there are foot and hand holds worn into the rock and occassionally a wooden ladder. Petroglyphs appear as you round different sections of the mesa, usually more visible from a distance than up close. Because there are many fewer visitors to Tsankawi and less excavation, it feels like you've just happened on it. On the far side of the mesa where many of the caves are the traffic noise disappears and no roads or buildings are visible.

Sunday hike

After a leisurely start, we decided to go for a hike near the Santa Fe ski basin on Sunday morning since we hadn't been up there yet. The ski basin is at about 11,000 feet, and the trail started with a 1/2 mile of uphill switchbacks. We could feel the altitude (isn't great to have altitude to blame on being out of breath after a 1/2 mile!). After that the trail fortunately leveled out for a stretch passing through aspen and pine forest. Our destination was a lovely meadow called La Vega from which you could see the peak of Santa Fe baldy, a mountain.

Weekend Highlights

Saturday brought yet another arts festival on the plaza, this one sponsored by Girls, Inc. We biked down to check it out. There was much more jewelry at this market than we had seen at other ones, and in general a nice diversity of booths. One of our favorites was South Texas mesquite with their gorgeous inlaid boxes and furniture. You can see photos of their work at http://www.mesquiteboxes.com/, but the web site doesn't do it justice. They inlay cracks in the wood with copper flakes and fill it with epoxy so the copper seems to float in the cracks.

Today we went to the Santa Fe County Fair, very reminiscent of the Caroline County Fair. There were some gorgeous quilts in the indoor exhibit area and of course lots of entries by 4H kids. Pretty much everyone had one a ribbon!

We had gotten there in time for the chili contest, judged by fairgoers. For $1 you got to sample all the red and green chilis contestants had made. They divided the judging into red and green chili. The green chilis were much better in my opinion, but they varied enormously in ingredients from turkey and bean to chunks of vegetables, to beef chunks. Both Jake and I voted for the green turkey chili as being the best. The red chilis have a much drier, and spicier, taste, being made from dried red chili powder. Jake and I totally disagreed on which ones we liked in this category. I really only liked one of them, but by then my mouth was burning, so that may have been a factor!

After the chili contest we watched the animal agility contest. This was really entertaining! The first category were large dogs and they were supposed to jump over a low rail, jump into and out of a tire placed flat on the ground, and then weave around a few cones. Most owners basically coaxed or dragged their dogs through this one using dog biscuits. Only one dog actually did everything and it wasn't even on a leash! It one, paws down. The second round was for small animals, not just dogs. In this round the animal was supposed to walk over a rail on the floor, go through a little tunnel, sit in a tire, and then go up and over a children's slide. Participants included several small dogs, 2 chickens, a ferret and rabbit (see photos). Most had to be carried through the course and it was great fun seeing kids attempt to get their animal through the tunnel or into the tire. The slide as a finale got lots of laughs as well. Chickens tend to fly off when they are sent down a slide!

Taos

On Friday we decided to drive up to Taos for the day, perhaps the spiritual center of New Mexico for artists. There are many ways to drive to Taos. On the way up we took the quick way so we would arrive in time for a late breakfast. The quick route takes you through several pueblos. You know this because of the number of casinos passed. The latest, set to open on August 12, bears the thrilling name "Buffalo Thunder". It is huge and from the description in the paper looks quite elegant. It includes a golf course and conference center. Its "coming soon" ads feature giant bolts of lightning. We haven't set foot in a casino yet, but maybe once this one opens ...

Anyway, eventually the road narrows and winds through the very scenic Rio Grande Gorge . Just before you get to Taos the road veers away from the gorge and a giant plain opens up with the gorge cutting a gash through the middle. Taos is about 15 miles from the gorge. We had an excellent breakfast at Michael's Kitchen, a well known diner/restaurant in Taos. We ate at the counter since there was a line for tables. Michael himself came around clearing dishes and pouring coffee a few times, very cheerful guy with a good sense of humor. I had huevos rellenos - esentially eggs on a tortilla smothered in beans, cheese and chili sauce. I opted for the vegetarian green chili sauce. Sooo good! Spicy too, but I got used to it after the first couple bites. Jake had a breakfast burrito smothered in green chili sauce. Michaels is also known for its cinnamon buns, but we were too stuffed to try one on this trip.

From there we drove to the Taos gorge bridge. Jake declared it was like a tourist stop from the 60s. There were hippies and indians selling goods by the side of the road with tables set out in front of their vans and trucks. You can walk back and forth across the bridge to look down the gorge (see photos). Of course now there is also a visitors center on the other side of the bridge, but we didn't go there.

Back in Taos we browsed through the many shops and galleries. The town is much smaller than Santa Fe, but still touristy. Still, it seemed as though it belonged more to the artists as Jake noted. Prices there seemed better than in Santa Fe but we resisted buying anything since neither of us are great shoppers!

On the way home we took the scenic route up through the mountains to the east of Taos. It still amazes me how quickly the scenery changes with a little elevation or curving around a hill. The scenic route goes through Carson National Forest and through some small villages. We detoured to see what Santa Clara Lake was not too far north of Santa Fe. It is one of the reservoirs used for flood control and water and there is a nice camping area. Technically no swimming allowed, but apparently there are lots of coves away from the main boat launch areas and the only danger in swimming is if they are releasing water from the reservoir.