ROAD TRIP 

Day 4, Part 2

The day of u-turns, cliff dwellings, black holes & cookies

After the epic (I don’t use that word lightly) few hours spent lounging around in hot tubes and saunas at Ten Thousand Waves, I  was feeling refreshed, relaxed and blissfully unaware of the next few hours to come.

Rachel and I spent them very lost, with no cell service, trying to locate the Puye Cliff Dwellings, which was next on our itinerary for the day. The Puye Cliffs were home to 1,500 Pueblo Indians who lived, farmed and hunted game there from the 900s to 1580 A.D.

Seeing the dwellings was something both of us were dying to see while in New Mexico because we thought it would be a wonderful way to learn about the history of the region, so there was no way in hell we weren’t going to find it.

It was a comedy of errors- we lost our packet of directions, had no cell service, took many wrong turns and at one point ended up on a tiny, curvy two lane highway in the snow-capped mountains above Santa Fe.

I’m truly floored that Rachel and I don’t end up killing each other during these high stress moments. Instead we both sit there silently managing our emotions.

After spending 3 hours making u-turns (silently) we finally made it to The Puye Cliff Dwellings not even sure if we would be able to tour the site anymore considering we were 2 hours late and they were closing. Luckily, the people who run the dwellings are the KINDEST people and said they would make sure we got a tour even if only for 10 minutes. Steve, our tour guide, is actually an ancestor of the people who inhabited the dwellings at one time- how cool is that? He ended up staying an hour late to give us the full tour- I mean how lovely of him, right?

I have been on a tour of cliff dwellings before and hated it, but this was a completely different experience. On the last tour I felt like I was a million miles away from the cliffs and couldn’t spot a thing. I ended up lying to the group and said that I could see the dwellings, windows and murals because I was getting so annoyed with everyone trying to point them out.

 But this was a completely different experience! This time we got to walk through them!!!  It was an amazing and I am still blown away that this was even allowed!

The only problem with being able to walk through the ruins was having to climb this enormous ladder wearing heeled boots and skinny jeans.

I’m sure graceful wasn’t the first word that came to mind when I climbed it.

But the view from the top was worth the climb.

After the tour we got in the car to make the hour-long drive to the Abiquiu Inn in Abiquiu, New Mexico. We were both excited to check in to our hotel and get some work done. As we got deeper and deeper into the mountains, both our phones lost service again and it was then I realized that I would be without my phone for the next two days while we explored Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch. Ugh, very frustrating but hey, at least I had my computer and could finally get some blogging done!

Sadly, when we checked in to the hotel we were told the rooms didn’t have internet service- I almost died. How ridiculous is that? Here I am at a beautiful hotel in a breathtaking location in the New Mexico mountains and I am worried about internet service. Shameful! I re-grouped and reminded myself to go with the flow and enjoy the adventure.

When we got to our room, we were greeted by a plate of warm Biscochito cookies (New Mexico’s official state cookie- it’s an anise flavored little piece of heaven) that immediately made everything  better.

…

 See Rachel’s take here!

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