Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Abiquiu Dam COE Rec Area, Abiquiu, NM - Aug 10-11
Leaving Chaco was unbelievably difficult, but we finally did it. We met some fine people there and hope to return next spring. We came almost due east to the little town of Abiquiu, hoping to get an electric site for a few nights -- it was a little hot during the day so we felt we needed to be able to run the a/c. 
Since all we could get was dry camping, we decided to only stay two nights. even though we had a much nicer view of the lake than we would have from the hookup sites. We had a wonderful day trip to a detached part of Bandelier Natl Mon called Tsinkowe (sank-an-WEE), which contains an ancestral Pueblo village used in the 1400s and 1500s, well after the people had left the Chaco area. Although this area contained only one pueblo of about 350 rooms, many other villages were located on nearby mesas and in canyon bottoms. There are a large number of petroglyphs throughout this small section of the park. The 2-mile loop trail passes along a sandstone mesa, and at times is worn 8-12 inches into the rock from so many centuries of travel. It is amazing to see such deep trails in what seems like "solid rock". There are also several ladders to go up and down along the trail. Luckily, none of them were high enough to scare Willie off!
# posted by Doug and Willie @ 6:21 PM 
