donna-sue and martin's amazing adventure (aka: ds & m see America)

Our next stop was Coronado campground in Bernalillo, NM not far from Albuquerque.  We just had a couple of days so we spent a day in Old Town Albuquerque and a day exploring Petroglyph National Monument. It just so happened that we chose Oct 31, to go into old Town Albuquerque, having no idea what we were going to experience. Being a white protestant from not only New England, but Vermont, with roots that went back to the Mayflower, who took French for a foreign language in school, believe me when I say that I had no idea when we arrived in Old Town what the significance of “el Dia de los Muertos” was.  It became clear quite quickly that this was not a typical day in Old Town and it was another opportunity for us to immerse ourselves in a different culture. This was not Halloween as we (or, I should say, I) know it, similar, but more. Much, MUCH more.  The Old Town itself consists of shops, restaurants, galleries, a catholic church and a school, many of which su

new and old, contrails and ancient tales  Our next stop in our discovery tour of the history, mystery and mastery of understanding the indigenous peoples of “our” land (eye roll, eye roll, ahhh, whose land???) was out to Chaco Culture National Historic Park.  This is a UNESCO World Heritage site and although it's another very remote park, it's fascinating to see the remains, extrapolate from those remains the buildings that existed in this area, the system of roadways, the trading, the kivas, the architecture, the purpose and importance of this community to the greater southwest of the the North American continent. Once again we are hindered from knowing the exact purpose of many of the Great Houses constructed here, indeed the whole settlement, because there are no written records. However,  from the design and scale of the buildings, their relationship to each other, the roads that were built, archaeological artifacts found and the traditional stories of the indig