Final Sangre Blog: Art Galleries & Bandelier

Dear All

Well, it will be a problem to keep this blog to a reasonable length. There are 4 more sleeps to Departure Day on Tuesday and life is working up to a crescendo. I haven't started to pack yet because I will be still using a lot of things up until D-Day, but I have sent off 36 lbs of goods back to Rochedale to lighten my luggage a bit.

Last Wednesday, our visit to Bandelier was postponed until today and we were offered an extra trip into Santa Fe so I took the opportunity to start to look a Canyon Road, a mecca for Art Galleries in Santa Fe, with over 100 of them in a mile. One proprietor told me that Santa Fe is second only to New York as an Art Market. I could well believe it. I visited only about half a dozen galleries on one side of the first segment of the street that went on out of sight! There are clusters of galleries, all styles of galleries, small galleries, large and expansive galleries .... .Do you get the idea. I had a ball. There was so much beautiful art I ended up taking 172 photos!!!!! Now you are not going to see all of them - just a small sample of some exceptional ones. (I have just discovered only a small fraction of the photos I took are on the Memory Stick I am using, so you are saved from any excess of enthusiasm!)

1) This was a basket on a wall in the first Gallery - Modern Art, I think 2) This still-life was so stunningly realistic, it 'hit me in the eye' as I entered a room.

3) This is andtitled 'Sangre de Cristo' and is obviously the entry road in the dead of winter. A chap called Frank LaLumia did it. I wonder if he was ever here?

1) This is one of several beautiful paintings by a young Chinese painter.

2) A delightful statuette

3) A lovely flower arrangement - still life.

BANDELIER

This place, which is just past Los Alamos (where all the nuclear weapons are made and stored!) is a National Monument because it preserves a very important facet of Indian Pueblo history. It is also an area of stunning scenery, not too far from the Jemez Mountains which we went to last week. We left at 8.30 am in 4 vehicles, taking the where-with-all for a picnic lunch. The weather was beautiful - hot for here, at 26 degrees! After viewing an information video we headed for the historic site. The photos will be helpful here:

1) Looking ahead at the cliffs into which these people carved their dwellings. 2) Entrance to a dwelling 3) No explanation needed! Yours truly!

Ancestral Pueblo groups occupied the Bandelier area for more than 400 years. Frijoles (free-HOH-lace) Canyon was a fertile place with reliable water in the stream of this name running down the Canyon to join the Rio Grande River. The pink rock of the canyon is volcanic ash, compacted to tuff, which is very easily eroded. The ancestral people used tools to enlarge some of the small natural openings in the cliff face and built stone dwellings in front of the enlarged openings. They also built a pueblo on the flat land, where they grew corn, beans and squash, among other things.

1) You can see windows in the cliff and lines of holes into which poles were placed to support upper stories of buildings - up to four. If you look closely, you can see ruined walls at the base of the cliff from these buildings. 2) We went to one particularly high dwelling area. At the top was a ceremonial room. 3) The ladders were pretty long - but anchored to the walls, thank God!
1) You can see me waving triumphantly from the top of the 140 feet of ladders and stairs. I am standing on the roof of a Kiva, which was a circular ceremonial construction into which people descended by ladder for sacred ceremonies. 2) This is actually an earlier construction with a view of a chap entering it. He was the one who took my photo on the ladder. 3) Finally, there is another view of an area at the base of the cliffs where dwellings had been established.

After lunch, many of us headed off in the opposite direction, down the Frijoles Canyon, to the Rio Grande River. On the way were two very nice waterfalls. The scenery was absolutely beautiful. It was 2 1/2 miles each way, with a climb thrown in for good measure. The scenery was stunning and the trail 'interesting' in parts. I'll just put in a few photos for your edification.

1) The notice says it all! 2) The trail was very pretty in parts. 3) This was the first waterfall, viewed from a turn in a steep and narrow part of the trail.

1) This was waterfall 2 along the way. 2, 3) The surrounding scenery was rugged
Finally we reached the Rio Grande River. It looked dirty and small from a distance, but was quite impressive when we reached it.

1) Here I am again, and a quite swiftly-flowing Rio Grande behind me.

2) Looking downstream.

3) A dear little squirrel on the way back who sat and looked at us and did all but smile and take a fee!

That will have to do for this blog. It is 11.35 pm and I need to hit that bed! I could have written a lot more, but this much will give you some idea of the places and let you know what a good day we had at Bandelier.

Hopefully, I will be able to do another blog or so, while I am in Europe. Until then, au revoir (I'm practising the French already!) God bless you. Rita