Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Red Rocks State Park, Gallup, NM - June 16-22
The campground here is beautiful and reasonably-priced; however, the wind was a problem the whole time we were here. Our first day we opened the outside door and windows, but after finding everything covered with a fine layer of grit that evening, we closed up and ran the A/C the rest of our stay. Gallup was named for D.L. Gallup, paymaster for the A&P Railroad, which was instrumental in starting the community around mile marker 157.5. Since Gallup's name was printed on every pay envelope and all the bags of money, his name stuck.
Our first driving day took us to Window Rock, AZ, named after its most prominent feature, and capital of the Navajo Nation. Our first stop was the Navajo Nation Museum, Library, and Visitor's Center. Excellent museum displays included the Long Walk, Navajo Codetalkers, and pictures by two prominent Navajo photographers. From there we drove to Veteran's Memorial Park just below the Window Rock, and when we arrived, there was a Unity Day of Prayer Service just starting. Three separate prayers were offered: a Traditional Ceremony, the Native American Church (these first two were in Navajo), and Christianity (in English). The prayer topics were listed in a printed agenda, and included the drought, the 2002 election (for president of the Navajo Nation), family unity, and world peace, as well as restoration of Mother Earth and of Dine' values & spirituality. We saw an interesting juxtaposition of the traditional and modern worlds when a group of elderly Navajo women arrived, dressed in very traditional garb, each with their folding Wal-Mart chairs slung over their shoulders, which they proceeded to unroll and sit in for the service.
We enjoyed a lunch of Navajo Tacos at the Indian Market in Window Rock (the best we have found so far!), then drove west a couple of miles to St. Michaels, home of the St. Michael's Mission. The original mission building has been restored and converted to a museum depicting the life of the early Jesuit priests and their work publishing a dictionary of the Navajo language. The Navajo language is quite complex -- it has, for example, at least 6 different sounds associated with the letter "e" -- so this was a very difficult task. A short drive south (made long by road construction) took us by the Lupton Tea Pot, a silly (but cute) rock formation.
Sometimes serendipity plays an important part of our schedule, as it did when we read that the next day, the 20th Annual Great Race, a rally-race of over 100 classic cars, was driving through Gallup. Participating cars must have been made before 1951 (with a few exceptions); the oldest was a 1911 Velie. This year's race was from San Antonio to Anaheim, and some of those puppies were really struggling under the 90+ temps and the moderate (by CO standards) climbs between Albuquerque & Gallup, but only one needed towing. It was fun to see how some of the drivers got into it, with dusters, caps, and goggles. Afterwards we toured some of Gallup's free fun things to do, including their own Codetalkers Museum (not as good as Window Rock's), the Storyteller Museum (quite good), the Playground of Dreams (a huge wooden playground), and the "We the People" park, containing quite fascinating, diverse, and creative outdoor sculptures.
Our next planned activity was Casamero Pueblo, ruins of an early Chaco outlying settlement. Only about 12 rooms, we found no literature on it beforehand, and only spent a short time there. Even more disappointing was Bluewater Lake SP, where we had planned to have lunch, but drove straight through & home for lunch. The park was okay but too windy to stop & enjoy an outdoor lunch. That afternoon we hiked to Church Rock, the most prominent feature in Red Rocks SP. The trail we took (none are well marked!) ended in two separate box canyons.
In the late 1980s we spent a week tenting in Chaco Culture Natl Historic Park and found it to be a magical experience. We decided to take a day trip there, coming in from the south. The road is horrendous (18 miles in exactly 1 hour), but it was worth the drive. While Chaco may have lost some of its magic due to popularity, there is still an indefinable energy there. Again serendipitously, we were there on Summer Solstice, and Native Dancers from Acoma Pueblo were performing at Pueblo Bonito. 
They extended their scheduled time by performing a Rain Dance, and, incredibly, midway through the dance, the sky opened up and we were drenched for about 5 minutes with a good solid rain -- the first rain we have seen since Texas, 3 months ago.# posted by Doug and Willie @ 12:04 AM 
