Hiking & Rodeos

July 11

We had a free Saturday and I wanted to go exploring! Travis had taken the boys to hike El Morro about a year ago, but I'd yet to go. It's an hour south of us and took us about 2 hours to hike it. It was a beautiful afternoon with monsoon clouds that overtook us at the end with some light sprinkling.

 I told him I wanted a picture and he hurries over to the rock to lean against it for the perfect pose.

This Indian village is called Atsinna and was occupied around the 1300's by the ancestors of the Zuni people. Stuff like this just fascinates me.



Bah! This was the part that made me a nervous nellie, walking along cliffs and drop offs. Couple it with arguments from know-it-all 6 year olds, that "I won't die if I fall off. I'll just hang on to a rock."

No, child, this is not like the Roadrunner cartoons. You would in fact, die! 

I don't know whose mothers those kids in the background belong to!

Travis told the boys to smell the Ponderosa Pines and see if they thought it smelled like strawberry, chocolate or vanilla. I totally thought he was pranking us, and didn't want to try it and get made fun of. But when I finally did it, I was surprised! They DO smell yummy. Vanilla, if you ask me. ;)

Lunch break!

Miss thang didn't have any shoes that fit her, so Dad scrounged up these old ones from Weston. Why not?!

There was a whole section of trail that was lined with fields of these angry things. Get.me.away!

The switchback trail was fun to walk down.

At the end were the huge, shear cliffs with engravings along it. We had a guide sheet that explained many of the inscriptions. 

I thought this one was cool... one of the oldest and more famous inscriptions at El Morro- that of the first governor of New Mexico, Don Juan de Onate- was inscribed in 1605, fifteen years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock!

 Exactly what we like to see....

That night was the annual Wild Thing, bull riding championship. It didn't start until 8pm, so we got a babysitter so we could actually enjoy it and not have the kids up super late. It was an EVENT! The place was packed. They had the announcers out in the arena the whole time and they were super funny and kept the whole thing entertaining. Especially, the one guy who apparently enjoyed dancing. He was my obvious favorite! At "half time" they had a really cool fireworks show and then scared the crap out of me with something called "Cowboy poker". They sit 4 guys at a table, playing "poker", and let a bull out into the arena. The last guy sitting in his chair wins. I started to wonder if they did something to the bull's horns to make it "safe", but later was assured that no, they've had guys carried out on stretchers before. Idiots. I could not even handle it, watching that bull put his head down and paw at the ground getting ready to charge, with men sitting just a couple feet away!!! What the heck?!!



 

Well, I've got to give it to Gallup today.... she really put out! :)

Good times in the desert.