The-PITTSTOP: Central New Mexico - Wolves and Sandstone July 10-13, 2018

Spent Tuesday and Wednesday in the Albuquerque area working on some minor repairs for the RV - a new tire rim and had met with an insurance adjuster to replace our damaged awning, and doing errands like grocery shopping.

Thursday

We left our fun Enchanted Trails Campground with its Route 66 and 1950's kitsch southwest through a small Navajo reservation to a wolf sanctuary. We had an hour and a half tour, seeing the wolves and hearing their stories. We learned a lot about wolves and really enjoyed the afternoon. While we were there, a wild coyote howled in the distance and then every wolf in the sanctuary starting howling. It was incredible. I made an audio recording of it, but have yet to figure out how to include it in the blog.

Many of these wolves were raised for the pet industry, but most people do not keep them because they are wild animals and not trainable. Some were abused and some were wild wolves rescued from various disasters. All have huge enclosures in which to roam and are left alone for the most part by their caretakers as wolves are not social, but they are well cared for - most are ancient for wolves - in the high teens.

We stayed at a wonderful campground in El Morro National Monument - no hookups, but weather is gorgeous and goes down into the mid 60's at night.

Inscription Rock from a distance

Friday
Stopped by the El Morro Visitor Center to find out what hikes are doable for us, but Jack wasn't up to it. I walked to the base of the Inscription Rock where travelers have scratched their names and years in the soft sandstone. The earliest ones date to ???? and are Native American symbols, followed by Spanish travelers in the 1600's and later by the American westward migrants. They have catalogued and identified all the inscriptions and for many, they researched the history and stories of the individuals.

The pool of water that made this such a critical place for travelers through this dry desert

Indian symbols

Starting up the trail

Then I hiked up the 300' cliff to walk the headlands trail. More strenuous than I thought as we are at 7500' elevation plus much of the trail is on uneven sandstone with steep drop-offs. Worth every deep breath!

Getting Higher (wheeze, wheeze)

The trail is along these rocks

Made it to the top!!

This IS the trail

There is a partially excavated pueblo ruin that includes the living quarters and a kiva, where the ancients held religious ceremonies.

The Kiva

Next up - El Malaise National Monument. This area which is Spanish for Badlands includes lots of volcanic rocks from ancient lava flows, and incredible sandstone bluffs. I walked around a viewpoint and took lots of photos.