pueblo @en
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The crossing to the east continues…
Still in New Mexico, I crossed the El Malpais area – “the bad country” – a volcanic site that spread a large lava flow approx. 3,000 years ago…
1. A lava tunnel revealed by the partial collapse of its vault. Its access was closed to protect bats that overwinter there.
2. View the gigantic lava flow from El Malpais, an Hawaiian type volcano. It covers nearly 35 miles.
3. La Ventana Arch, one of the largest natural arch in New Mexico.
4. The Pueblo Acoma on a hill of sandstone. I have not been allowed to visit it, the access being restricted, paying and … suspended for the winter!
5. Further, the Pueblo Laguna Library and its Hispanic-style church.
6. The next morning I woke up on the Valdez Caldera, remains of a giant volcano that collapsed on itself. This caldera is 14 miles in diameter!
7. Beautiful sky while there is still a few snow at over 7,000 feet. Yet, for 5-6 years, the place doesn’t receive the usual 6-10 feet snow…
8. East Fork River.
9. By collapsing, the volcano has poured an incredible amount of tuff nearly 55 miles around, sometimes more than 600 feet thick. It’s in a canyon carved in the tuff that are the Bandelier Dwellings. In addition to the cavities in the tuff, the Indian built houses at the foot of the walls. Note the horizontal rows of holes that allowed to fix the frames on the wall.
10. Natural cavities.
11. They were connected by passages duged into the tuff. Note soot that still covers the vaults.
12. At the bottom of the canyon, the ruins of an impressive semi-circular pueblo.
13. A local resident who allowed me to approach, which is rare for a woodpecker.
Further upstream, there is a kiva – a room for rituals and ceremonies – found almost intact under a large overhang; only the roof was rebuilt there sixty years ago. It is 140 feet above the canyon and you have to climb on long ladders to get there.
15. Detour in Oklahoma to discover the original work of an artistic collective: 10 old cars planted in the ground from the front…
16. Quite original, it must be said. Too bad, I arrived a little late, the light wasn’t great…
17. Winter wake up in the middle of a Wind mill field in which I spent the night. It was blowing a strong blizzard (announced between 50 and 60 mph!) and actual temperature was 15F…
18. Hellish road conditions! Freeway was just a carpet of ice, the few inches of snow fell during the night was packed with trucks before freezing. VivaLaVida traveled almost 450 miles in these conditions, a little tiring for her driver…
19. The next day in Arkansas, it was not much better: snowed all day to more than 400 miles. I stopped counting the vehicles out of the road at 50…
20. It improved a bit as I crossed the Mississippi River in Memphis TN.
Without showing it that much, this update relates to a three-day trip and more than 1,300 miles in very difficult conditions. After a stop at Maryville TN to eat with a couple of friends, I found the snow back on the road to cross the Appalachians but arrived in the region of Asheville safely.
I’ll be on the departure to Switzerland when you’ll discover these lines…
This blog will then be quiet for a few weeks … but will continue to relate VivaLaVida’s journey from early May no doubt!
Thank you for following this journey, I’m always very pleased to read your comments. 😉
Craters and ruins…
On the road to the east, VivaLaVida made some detours, the first close to Flagstaff to discover scoria cones. They appeared very recently, about in year 1080.
1. Mount San Fransisco in a freezing morning, a snowy volcano close to Flagstaff.
2. Cinder cones around Sunset Crater…
3. The vegetation is sparse and scattered.
4. First collons… 😉
5. Riding the volcano… 😉
6. Some areas are rich in ferrous minerals.
7. A lava bubble (hornito) whose roof collapsed.
8. Diagonals…
I then went to explore various ruins of Wupatki National Monument, at the limit of the Painted Desert. Several pueblos are grouped within a radius of ten miles.
9. Arrival in Pueblo Wukoki looking like a castle on a cliff.
10. Yet this was the home of two or three families.
11. These ruins were built by the Indians who left the Sunset Crater region, about 25 miles away and were inhabited from approx. 1080 to 1200.
12. Stones to grind seeds.
13. Another very impressive pueblo: Wupatki. The circular part of the foreground was a place of council and ceremonies.
14. Here is a Ballcourt, a kind of arena in which games and trainings were organized. Ballcourts are frequent in southern Arizona and New Mexico but it is the only on known in Northern Arizona; thus assumes that Hoppi Indians who built these pueblos had contact with Southern tribes…
15. An overview of Wupatki Pueblo who had a hundred various rooms.
16. A pothole in the sandstone, a kinf of bowl eroded by water…
17. Other destruction the Lomaki Pueblo. The canyon on whose banks it was built is not due to erosion; it’s an earth crack created by the seismic activity.
18. Cinder cones dot the landscape; There are nearly 600 registered in the area.
19. Here is a crater but it is a very different origin: it was created by the impact of a meteorite estimated at 140 feet in diameter 50,000 years ago! It hit the desert to the incredible speed of 11 miles/second, creating a shockwave of an equivalent power than a 20-megaton nuclear bomb. The crater is about one mile in diameter and 500 feet deep.
20. In the distance, Mount San Francisco rises above the plain…
21. I got to a nice oasis at dusk…
22. Restful tranquility…
Other discoveries to follow soon. 😉
D5 Creation