What to do when they come to the Land of Enchantment: Enchant them!

We had the pleasure of hosting sister Maria for a week and showing off our new home environment. It also gave us an opportunity to see some things we had not yet explored.

City of Rocks is a little south of us and located on the high desert.

The geology is fascinating, but I won’t take your time here to describe it, other than to say that it’s a large group of huge boulders standing on end out of the ground with little pathways and lanes between the boulders – hence the name, City of Rocks. This is the volcanically-formed natural version of Stonehenge. It has been visited for millennia, as long as there have been two-footeds in this place. We talked at some length with the volunteer staff member in the Visitor Center, and he showed us photos of the pictographs and petroglyphs.

After looking us over carefully, he gave us a map of the locations of the several extant petroglyps and pictographs and wished us, "Happy Treasure Hunting!" Apparently they don’t give the maps out to everyone, because the legend at the top said, to the effect, "Be careful about distributing this map. Don’t give to unwashed long-haired prospectors with picks or people with rolls of wax paper sticking out of their backpack and muttering about rubbing stuff." Well, it didn’t say the parts about prospectors or wax paper, but it really did caution about distributing.

Once we started looking for the artworks, it became obvious that, if you didn’t know what to look for, and where, you’d never find anything. And even with a map, it was a real challenge.
After crisscrossing the site, trudging off in wrong directions, and starting over a number of times, we finally found two pictographs of kokopelli. What a thrill to finally look at these little images painted (pictographs are painted, where petroglyphs are etched or pecked into the stone) so many centuries ago by the Mimbrenos. I’ve attached images of the two kokopellis that we found: one is painted inside a shallow hole in the rock face, and the other painted on the side of the rock about 20 feet off the ground. When you visit us, have your hair cut, a recent shower and leave the pick and backpack in the car, then you too can go on a hunt for ancient treasure.

Gomez Peak is a volcanic cone on the edge of the Gila Nat’l Forest, about 15 minutes away from the house.

It is part of the Little Walnut/Gomez Peak trail system, which intersects with the CDT. That stands for Continental Divide Trail to the locals in the know ;-D Nick, Maria and I, and Nutmeg, of course, went for a walk one day with no clear goal other than to enjoy the scenery, get some exercise and spend another gloriously blue and sunny day outside. It was, however, windier than it had been, with projected gusts above 20 mph.

We dressed, or in my case, overdressed for the possibility that it would be pretty chill on the trail. I think I had 5 layers from the skin out and ended up shedding 2. But that’s what backpacks are for, right?

We started by following instructions Steph had given us to get onto a particular trail head, and then chose a new direction at each intersection. The intersections were well marked with numbers and lines representing various trails. Maybe because it’s tough to illustrate up and down on a trail map, or maybe it’s just that we are mapdicapped, but there were times we were going in directions counter to where we thought the map pointed us. Given some of our experiences following the treasure hunt map at the City of Rocks, I tend to think we suffer from a slight mapdicap.

Anyway, without any real intentions, we ended up following the trail that went up to the peak. I suspect the elevation at the full peak is well over 7000, but we didn’t quite make it. The trail narrowed to a slender foot path – rather I should say, a path for a slender foot. And the drop off grew steeper. Don’t even imagine that there might be barriers or handrails on the forest trails. And I had Nutmeg on a lead. The combination of my fear of heights and the dog having no such hesitation, pulling as heartily on the little trail as she did when we could walk 3 abreast, brought me to a stop and a request to turn back.

Maria, as it turns out, was of similar mind based on a similar wariness of heights without edges. So we made our way back down. I’m not sure how short of the summit we were. But Nick and nephew Dave have gone back this afternoon to attain the top of Gomez peak and I’m sure they’ll report back on how close we came. The views from the higher trail were incredible, especially of the Monastery secluded on the next range and the wilderness beyond.

When Maria and I visited the Monastery the next day, Maria pointed out Gomez peak, looking much smaller and less impressive from the perspective of higher ground. As Arnaud would say, "Ah’ll be bahck" and climb Gomez when I don’t have the dog and can take my sweet time.

Mimbres pottery designs are elegant black and white geometrics, sometimes with figures.

We visited the Western New Mexico University’s museum which had a very large selection of the pottery made by the Mimbrenos people from perhaps 500 AD through 13-1500 AD.

And I was inspired! I have inherited my father’s leather-working tools and have wondered what I’d ever do with them. A few days ago, in the New Mexico magazine, there was a little "make your own valentine" article, using tin. I have always loved the perforated tin in old pie safes, and have seen tin inserts in the fronts of cabinet doors, in place of glass. And of course, worked tin is a classic Mexican art form that you’ve seen around mirrors and frames. So I was interested by the apparent ease of working with tin as demonstrated in the article, and thought it might be possible to work tin using the leather-working tools of my father. But it wasn’t until I was in the museum admiring the designs on the pottery that I was struck that I might be able to create an interpretation of those designs in tin. I bought two books in the gift shop and will, as I have time, begin to explore where to find tin, how to work it, and how to create Mimbres-like geometrics; I’m sure there’s a way, and if I figure it out, prepare to receive tin gifts for every occasion. After all, every famous artist had to start somewhere. And somehow, the concentration of artists in this region can bring the artist out in anyone. If you’re curious, google mimbres pottery and you’ll find a number of informative and attractive sites; here’s a good place to start -- http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/Files/mimbres.htm

Maria left yesterday, and within 15 minutes of her take-off out of El Paso, our nephew Dave landed. We managed to change and wash the sheets, and make a new pot of spaghetti between one visitor to the next. He’ll be with us until Tuesday. We will most likely spend our time outside.

Where Maria wanted to split her time between the galleries in town and the trails beyond, Dave claims not to be the "gallery type." Which is fine with me – I used up all of my self-control not to buy anything while with Maria. I’m telling you, I can’t go through these galleries too often because I’m just too tempted. If I bought everything I liked – even if I limited myself to just those things I liked A LOT, we’d need another job and a 5,000 square foot house, all walls and no windows!