Alex is off climbing a hiking trail very near the cliffs (in this header photo) that rise above the Colorado River. I suspect he has another 90 minutes or so before returning to the Lodge. As for me, I am sooooo content to sit out on my patio and enjoy a very similar sight…watching kayaks on the river rushing by, and the sun and shadows playing on the steep landscape with only the sound of random crows breaking the silence. We keep asking…”Does it get better than this?”
Surrounded by historic and before contact eras (that’s how the folks at Blackwater Draw refer to time before the Europeans showed up) — as we have been since arriving in Clovis, NM last Friday — we often find ourselves talking about “old stuff”. Like how Paleo Indians had kill sites where they left surplus body parts of the mammals they hunted that sustained them (mammoths, mastadons, and the huge bison) that were too heavy to transport (skulls and tusks), and bone sites where they systematically claimed virtually every useful scrap of food or hide from the massive beasts…and left only the carcass to be discovered thousands of years in the future.
A recurring ‘theme’ in these esoteric discussions has been “Who got here (and Texas) first…much like the question that provoked our trip down the rabbit hole to create the DIGGING UP HISTORY program with the amazing Steve Baird as our guide. So when I saw this meme (below) in a Facebook feed, I figured it was important to insert it into our written experience. We are constantly reminded that this beautiful landscape is inextricably interwoven with the history of the Native American people. We remained on the Navajo Reservation, for example, for days as we traveled into Arizona, New Mexico and finally Utah. When we head to Albuquerque tomorrow, we will explore the UTE Mountain reservation, the Mesa Verde National Park, the ancestral Puebloan sites scattered throughout the area, and the ancient rock art to be found there. I’m counting on the tireless and cooperative Alex to climb up to capture the pictographs!
Not sure which magnificent sites we’re going to this afternoon…I think the temps will remain in the 100’s today. Sure, it is drier and that makes it less HOT…uh, not so much. That’s a myth the Chambers of Commerce out here love to perpetuate.
Later.
Babs' Getaways 