On Friday June 25th I flew to Albuquerque, where Jimmy picked me up and we headed to Santa Fe for a long week-end of sightseeing, hiking, and hanging out with 2 of my college roommates. On Saturday we started out with an update tour of Jimmy's lab. Here we see him in the genotyping lab, with some of his fun new equipment in the background.
From Santa Fe, the 2 of us drove north on the scenic by-way through the mountains and scenic villages to Taos. After checking out the town we went out to the Taos Pueblo, which we decided is 1 great reason to go to Taos. Here are a couple of views of the pueblo. Native Americans still live there, as they have for almost 900 years.
From the pueblo we drove about 10 miles to this famous bridge over the Rio Grande. The view of the canyon is spectacular.
We decided 1 day in the Taos area is not hardly enough, but our time was up, so we headed back to Santa Fe, where we found my roommate, Jeff Morgan, who'd just arrived from his home in Kansas City. On Sunday Jimmy, Jeff & I went on a beautiful 11-mile hike in the Sangre de Christo range east of Santa Fe. The trail started out 18 miles north of the town of Pecos. We found some rain, lightning and thunder as we hiked, but it didn't hamper our enthusiasm.
On Monday we added roommate and Santa Fe resident Jerry Rightman to the mix, and the 4 of us headed for Acoma Pueblo, roughly 2 1/2 hours southwest of Santa Fe. It is famous for it's amazing location, and for being the oldest continuously-inhabited community in the U.S, dating back to approx. 1150 a.d. In the photo below the pueblo is atop the large mesa in the center.
Our tour guide said that about 10 of the tribal elders still live full-time on the mesa. The rest of the (probably 100) dwellings are owned by families and used for visits during festival days. They keep them all pretty-well maintained. Unlike the Taos Pueblo, Acoma has no water source, so now their water is either collected from rain or brought up in trucks. You can imagine how it was brought up before they had trucks and a road to the top! There is no electricity at either Taos or Acoma.
This is a view from Acoma east to the Enchanted Mesa. Before living at Acoma, the tribe lived on the Enchanted Mesa for defensive reasons, and they farmed the land around the mesa. The story goes that during a fierce storm, lightning struck the stairway going up to the top, destroying the route. Most of the tribe members were below, and they survived. There was no way to rescue those left on top however, and they perished. After that disaster the survivors relocated to Acoma.
Notice how much older and uglier my roommates are than I am...
On Tuesday Jimmy, Jeff and I drove northwest of Santa Fe to Bandelier National Monument for our big hike to find the Stone Lions. The trail in and out is 13 miles, and the challenges are the canyons. We started in Frijole Canyon, climbed 450' out, then over to, into and out of 2 smaller canyons, then to Alamo Canyon, below. That was another 450' down, then back up again. 
After 5 hours we got to the Stone Lions, ancient stones that used to look like cougars - the tails are still distinct. They date back several centuries, and are reportedly still sacred to the Pueblo Indians. At this point we were not looking forward to returning to Alamo Canyon, so we opted for an alternate route that added 2 miles to the trip but took us upstream, so the canyon crossing was not so daunting. Somehow we made it the 8.5 miles back in 4 hours. We were parched and exhausted, but very glad the hike was so successful.
That was the end of the adventures, but I must say, we all sure had a fun time!
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