Back in Albuquerque

Alas, we left the "wilds" of the San Juan River behind and came back to Albuquerque last Saturday.  Heinz finished out his time on the river with some nice catches upriver, but nothing to bring home for dinner...maybe on the next river or lake.

Fishing the San Juan River 

Fishing at sunset

Tree in bloom on the river

We've been keeping a pretty low profile here in town, doing a little shopping and a lot of lounging.  Heinz took most of a day cleaning and waxing the truck only to have 40 mph winds come through and cover it with a fine layer of dust.  

Friday and Saturday will be spent at the International Gathering of the Nations Powwow, so will have lots to talk about and lots of pictures to share after that.  

'Til then, hope you had a great Easter and here's your friends for the day.

Each of these little guys is about 3/4-1 inch long!

Hanging out on the San Juan River

We spent this past weekend doing some sightseeing…I think Heinz was trying to bribe me, if we played all weekend, he could fish all day for the following four days until we leave - that worked for me.

Saturday we headed west and went to Shiprock, NM to check out the Begaye Flea Market.  The market wasn’t much, 30 or so vendors, mostly selling used tools, clothes, etc., but there were some selling jewelry, and I picked up a great pair of earrings made of silver and White Buffalo turquoise that goes really well with the bracelet I got in Gallup.   

Leaving town we headed south and went to see the rock formation called Ship Rock (Tse Bit’a’I - winged rock - in Navajo).  It rises to almost 1,800 feet from the desert floor.   The only road that runs past the base of the rock is a two wheeled rutted dirt road, not recommended for anything but four-wheeled vehicles, so we stayed on the paved road and viewed it from a distance.  

Ship Rock (on the right)

Driving out to Ship Rock we noticed signs for Toadlena Trading Post featuring Navajo rugs - so off we went another 25 or 30 miles southwest.   The store opened in 1909 and has worked with the local weavers of the Two Grey Hills area ever since.   Along with being a traditional trading post, where you can buy anything from flour to aspirin to clothing, the post has a small museum exhibiting Navajo rugs.  The owner told us that he changes the exhibit every two years.  Right now the exhibit is of rugs woven by the women of one family from 1900 to the present day.  The owner gave us a great little orientation to Navajo weaving, and explained that completion of a rug can take up to 6 months for a small one and a year for a large one.  The women raise their own sheep, shear them (no electric shears here), and wash and card the wool by hand.  This step can take up to 3 months.  Then the weaving starts, this step is 3-6 months (or more) per rug.  The fastest weavers can only complete 2 rugs a year.  While we were there we were introduced to two of the local weavers, neither looked to be younger than 75 years old.  The weaving is apparently becoming a dying art, as the young people are not interested in spending the time necessary.  After hearing all that (and seeing the price for a small 8” x 12” mat …$175) we were too scared to ask the price of a full sized rug!

 

Antique rug from the 1920’s, still in almost perfect condition

Inside the Toadlena Trading Post

It was kind of interesting getting off of the main highways and on to the smaller roads on the Navajo Reservation.  The houses were scattered a mile or more apart and you could barely see many of them in the distance.  All of them had roads going out to them that were rough two wheeled rutted dirt roads.  In addition, the livestock all ran free with no fences to keep them in and off the roads.

Sheep along the road to Toadlena NM

A sheepdog and his charges

On Sunday we headed north to visit Mesa Verde National Park in southern Colorado.   National Geographic Traveler named Mesa Verde as one of the fifty “must see” places of a lifetime and it’s easy to see why.  The beauty and complexity of the homes and villages here tell quite a story about the early Puebloan (aka Anasazi) cultures.  The area was first populated around 750 AD and started with pit houses partially built in the ground and partially above.  By 1000 AD the people of Mesa Verde had advanced to stone masonry and continued to the late 1270’s when the area was abandoned for unknown reasons. We drove the loop roads looking at the ruins along the cliff walls and the pit houses that have been excavated.  Then after lunch we took the Cliff Palace tour.

Heinz checking out Balcony House across the canyon

Cliff Palace

Check out the cracks in the rock slab.  Archeologists have found evidence that the crack was there centuries ago and that the Ancestral Puebloans made efforts to shore it up with adobe plaster.  

Cliff Palace was estimated to have 150 rooms, three stories and house around 100 -125 people at its peak

Painting on the wall of an interior room, estimated to have been painted around 1100 AD.

Toeholds used by Puebloan people to move from between their farms on the mesa tops down to the cliff dwellings and back.  Imagine climbing/descending on these with a clay pot of water on your head, or groceries on your back.  Slip and you're looking at upwards of a 600 foot fall to the canyon bottom.

The weather is turning nice, warming up in the afternoons, while still cool at night.  The wildflowers are starting to bloom and the trees are budding out.  However, there is still snow up in the mountains.

Wildflowers at Mesa Verde

Wildflowers at Mesa Verde

San Juan Mountains, Colorado

Heinz spent Monday fishing, caught a nice one in the catch-and-release area and another couple in the catch and keep.  Unfortunately, they got away (AGAIN), so salmon was on the menu for dinner instead of trout.  On Tuesday he brought home two nice sized rainbow trout, so I sautéed them in some butter and olive oil, then browned some parsley and pecans in the butter/oil to drizzle on top of them.  They were absolutely delicious.

Rainbow trout with pecans

And our friends of the day…

 

 

Just kicking back...

My how time flies when you're doing next to nothing.  It's the 14th of April already and I last posted on the 3rd.  My excuse?  Ah... minimal wifi availability - yeah, that's it!

Our stay in Albuquerque was pretty much a non-event.  We did meet up with a couple that we had met in San Antonio and enjoyed dinner out with them.  Otherwise, we did that wonderful thing called...relaxing!  We stayed at Kirtland AFB until the 7th, then packed up and headed for Heron Lake northwest of Taos.  As we were leaving, it started to rain and I decided to call up to the lake area and ask about the weather and the possibility of RV slot availability.  Turns out it was 22 degrees, snowing, and expected to stay that way for several days.  We abruptly decided to head to Navajo Lake and the San Juan River in northwest New Mexico instead.

The weather here has been pretty good, cold at night (25-35), but nice during the day except for some wind now and again.  We have a spot on a low bluff above the lake with a great view.  The nearest "town" is the Community of Navajo Dam (maybe 200 people) and the nearest after that is Aztec (population 6,800).  Heinz has done some fishing, I've done some reading and a little photography and we have both been totally unambitious.

Navajo Lake at sunset from our camping spot 

Tucked in for the night

Makes one wonder what prompted the installation of this yellow sign...

Monday, the truck was blowing lots of smoke out the exhaust - we took it to the nearest Ford dealer in Farmington (38 Miles).  Turned out to be a bad fuel injector - many dollars and a day later, we have the truck back in fine working condition.  The town of Farmington is not exactly a tourist destination if you like bright lights and whistles, but the people are friendly, the food is good, and there's a neat little bookshop in the middle of town called Andrea Kristina's with a very eclectic mix of books that range from fly tying for New Mexico rivers to women's studies, great jazz on the stereo, and a cafe with a variety of coffees, teas, sandwiches, and salads.  This is a bookstore that would be more than at home in Berkeley CA.

Heinz has spent quite a bit of time out on the river in the mornings with our "next door neighbor" George.  Heinz has caught a few in the "catch and release" part of the river.   He's also been going out in the afternoons to the "catch and keep" area (3.5 miles further downstream), but hasn't had any luck landing any fish.  But that's ok, I've stocked up the fridge with "Plan B" meals.  Tuesday he and George went out with a local fly fishing guide and got his first formal lessons in fly fishing.

Fishing the San Juan River

Catching a nice Rainbow Trout!!

The catch and release part of the San Juan River (right below the dam).

Further downstream on the San Juan River.

Yesterday Heinz went out fishing with George again and apparently had quite the encounter.  As he tells it, "... the fish hit like a ton of bricks, and took the line almost out to the backing (80-90 feet).  When reeled in close, George got an eye on it and said it was a good 20-24 inches - by far the largest fish we've caught yet.  Trying not to break the line, I worked it for about 20 minutes before it tore the hook out of its mouth.  It was a rookie mistake... and a lesson learned about playing a fish."  Of course, once again, there is no fish to show, no pictures to share, no proof - just a fisherman's tale...

On Tuesday I took off with the truck and headed into Aztec to see the Aztec Ruins National Monument.  The ruins were built and inhabited between the late 1000s to the late 1200s by what is thought to be people from the Chaco Canyon area.  The building had over 500 rooms, was 3 stories tall and had many kivas, including a great kiva in the central plaza.  The area was abandoned in the late 1200s,  archeologists suspect that a combination of enemy raids and drought led to everyone moving on.

Aztec Ruins

 

Excavated Kiva 

Interior of house wall, the two tone stone is a technique used at Chaco Canyon also.

If things go as planned (and we all know how well we stick to a schedule), we will be here for another week and then head back to Albuquerque for the International Gathering of the Nations Powwow, one of the largest annual gatherings of Native Americans - it will be the last weekend of April.

Here's our friend of the day.  Spotted him out at the Aztec Ruins.

He's a little early for Easter... no doubt scoping out egg hiding spots?!?!

Another day, another couple of towns

The first Sunday in April already, time is flying.  We're now in Albuquerque NM, kicking back at an Einstein's Bagels and sipping coffee/tea while watching the world go by.

We left Camp Verde behind on Tuesday planning to head for Albuquerque, but got sidelined at Gallup NM for two nights.  Guess the glitter from all the silver got our attention.  Don't know if you knew it or not, but Denver has nothing on Gallup for altitude.  Denver is always touting its status as the "mile high city" at 5,280 feet above sea level, but Gallup gets my vote at an official 6,516 feet.  Of course, Denver would win out for bells, whistles, and nightlife. Gallup has 20,000+ people in a land mass of 13.5 square miles while Denver has 600,000+ in the same amount of space, not to mention all the suburbs which up it to 1.2 million.  The sidewalks definitely roll up at dusk in Gallup.

But, Gallup is known as the Indian capital of the world with 4 major reservations surrounding it and the largest number of Indian jewelry and art galleries in a concentrated area than anywhere else.  Of course we went shopping for new and dead pawn jewelry, and picked up several nice pieces at really good prices.  Considering how small Gallup is we were shocked to find that within 50 miles of the town there are an estimated 45,000 people involved in the Indian jewelry trade, artists, suppliers, brokers, buyers, sellers, etc.  Found a rather fascinating article about the business in the New Mexico Business Journal if you want to read more.

It amazed me that everywhere we went looking at jewelry or any other type of artwork, shop personnel would reel off the maker's name, tribe, reservation or town of residence, year the piece was made, and if turquoise, the name of the type of turquoise and mine it came from.  This is apparently considered the minimal amount of information any purchaser would want to know.  Try getting that kind of information out of your local big-box store jewelry department!

While there, we drove up to Canyon de Chelly (pronounced d'shay) for a day.  The area is within the boundaries of the Navajo Nation and is know for the cliff dwelling ruins of the Anasazi that lived in the area in the 1000-1300 time period.  The bottom of the canyon is off limits to visitors unless with an authorized guide, as Navajos still live and farm the area.  But, there are multiple lookouts along the rim and you can see the ruins from a distance.  If you visit, be sure to take along binoculars in order to see them better.  There is one hiking trail going down to the canyon floor, but we didn't take it as the wind was blowing 25 mph and the temperature was in the 50's.  I know, I know, we wussed out, but so be it.

The following are a long stretch of pictures from the canyon - click on them to enlarge.  Hope you enjoy them.

North Rim

 

North Rim

Ruins along the North Rim, the picture was taken from across the canyon, around a half mile away.

 

Of course, it puts it into a little bit of perspective when you pull back the lens and realize that the buildings are around 300 feet below the rim and 400 or so above the canyon floor!

Pinon tree

Navajo home on canyon floor

 

Rock formations  

Guess who checking out the sights 

Knowing my high klutz factor, Heinz threatened to put a harness on me when he spotted this sign.

Ruins, photo taken from across canyon, approximately a mile away.

 

Once again, to put it into perspective, the previous photo shows the ruins that are located in the strip of shadow across the middle of this one.  They are approximately 400 feet from the canyon floor and 300 feet or so from the rim.

According to the ranger, the north rim is best viewed in the morning, and the south rim in the afternoon, so to kill a little time in between we drove back into Chinle, AZ, just a mile or so outside the canyon lands.  While there, we ate brunch at a little restaurant called The Junction Restaurant.  Heinz got an omelette which he said was average, and a blue corn pancake which was very tasty.  I got a breakfast burrito, which turned out to be enough to feed a small army.  It was made with a Navajo tortilla (much thicker than Mexican ones and more of a bread flavor), eggs, spicy sausage, tomatoes, and when ordering it I thought I was ordering green chile sauce.  Turns out that when the waitress asked if I wanted red or green chile, she meant did I want fresh red or green chiles chopped up in the burrito.  Glad I asked for green, pretty spicy, but very flavorful.  Heinz was envious, but I did share a bite or two, after he mumbled and whined for awhile.

Now we're in Albuquerque, NM for a week.  No big plans, mostly just hanging out and chilling.  Plan to do a little light-weight sightseeing and some basic maintenance on the trailer and truck - nothing big, just washing and tweaking a couple of odds and ends.   We thought there was a wood hobby shop on Kirtland AFB where we're staying, but it turns out that someone got injured and they shut it down a year or so ago.  Heinz is bummed as he hoped to finish up the closet and settee storage while we're here.  

Yesterday we checked out the local Mexican markets and tried to decide on what to fix for dinner.  It  was a tough decision after we ran across the item below.

Whole lamb's head.  If you don't care for this one, there's a whole cow's head 

in the fresh butcher section.

I finally decided on Enchiladas Suiza with homemade tomatillo sauce, with Heinz supplying the Margaritas (recipe for both at the end of post).  

Here's your friend for the day.  We met this fellow up on the South Rim of Canyon de Chelly.

Recipe Corner:  Enchiladas Suiza

Makes 4 servings

1 1/2 lb. chicken breasts, skin removed

2 tsp salt, divided

4 cloves garlic, peeled

1 tsp black pepper (or 5-6 peppercorns)

1 small can Hatch green chiles, divided (I use hot, choose your green chiles according to your tolerance for heat)

2 tbsp chicken bouillon (low salt), I use Better than Bouillon concentrate

1 1/2 lb tomatillos, husked and cut in half

1/4 cup loosely packed fresh cilantro

2 tsp vegetable oil

1/4 cup sour cream (you can use non-fat if calorie watching)

8 corn tortillas (blue corn* preferably)

1/2 lb queso fresca* (shredded Monterey Jack if you can't find the queso fresca)

*Try your local Mexican market for these items

Place chicken in large saucepan.  Add 6 cups water, 1 tsp salt, 2 garlic cloves, black pepper(corns), 1/2 can Hatch green chiles, and chicken bouillon.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 15-20 minutes until chicken is cooked through.  Remove chicken to a platter and cool slightly, then shred chicken and discard bones.

Place tomatillos and remaining Hatch chiles in chicken broth and boil over medium high heat until tomatillos are soft, approximately 8 minutes.  Drain, reserving 1/2 cup liquid.  Transfer tomatillos to a blender; add remaining garlic cloves and cilantro; blend until smooth, adding reserved liquid a little at a time if necessary.  

Heat oil in saucepan over medium high heat.  Add tomatillo mixture; reduce heat to medium and simmer until thickened, stirring occasionally.  Reduce heat to low, add remaining salt and sour cream.  Stir about 1 minute, set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Warm tortillas in microwave for 10 sec or so to soften.  Divide shredded chicken evenly between tortillas, add crumbled queso fresca to each; roll up.  Spread 1/3 of tomatillo sauce into bottom of 9" baking dish.  Arrange enchiladas in 1 layer, seam side down.  Cover with remaining sauce and crumble remaining cheese on top.  Bake 30 minutes or until cheese starts to brown (if using queso fresca, cheese will not melt).

Serve immediately.  Very nice with a simple side of chopped lettuce and tomato to give a cool complement to the spicy sauce.

--------------------------------------

Heinz is researching various Margarita recipes in a quest to find the "perfect" one.  Here is the first of probably many to come:

2 oz Tequila (try Blanco for a different taste angle)

3/4 oz fresh squeezed lime juice (MUST be fresh-squeezed - makes a world of difference)

3/4 oz cold water

3/4 oz Agave Nectar (sweetener found in health food stores/Mexican groceries - usually by the honey)

Mix together Agave Nectar and water.  Add to shaker containing ice cubes.  Add tequila and lime juice.  Shake well.  Pour liquid only into glass containing fresh ice cubes.  Enjoy!  Do not salt the rim of the glass.  A very light drink (not like in your local Mexican Restaurant) that is refreshing and could be sipped all day long - not that WE would do that on our trip... well...  :)