When We Could Travel – A Look Back (II)

Since back roads long distance travel has been temporarily suspended given all the precautions that folks of a certain age and vulnerability should take, I’m reliving a scattering of vignettes from our previous road trips.  Perhaps they will provide readers with the desire to plan a trip and hit the road as soon as it makes sense for you and yours… This is the beginning of the second trip in the series.

Based on this photo of a prairie dog and the bone dry dirt, you may be able to guess that this road trip was in the Western USA.  Actually, our explorations on this occasion took us to Northern New Mexico, Southern Colorado and Northeastern Arizona.  It was the summer of 2006…

Prairie dogs (they actually are rodents) live in large colonies or ‘towns’.  A town can cover up to 2.5 acres and collections of towns have been known to cover hundreds of acres.  Although ranchers sometimes consider them as pests, it has been proven that they are actually beneficial as their borrowing habits aerates the soil and moisture is preserved.  To learn more, you can just go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prairie_dog.

The stores in this photo were located in “Old Town” Albuquerque New Mexico.  Old Town Albuquerque is the original town site for the provincial kingdom of Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico, which was established in 1706.  The Old Albuquerque Historical District includes about 10 blocks of historic adobe buildings that surround Old Town Plaza.  

This is the Nuestra Senora de Dolores Catholic Church in Manzano New Mexico.  The church was founded in 1824 and it was built in 1829.  Love the flying buttresses on this adobe church.  The village of Manzano is very small and, with a 2000 population of only 54 residents, it’s just listed as “a census designated place”.  FYI, in Spanish Manzano means apple tree…

This is the Shaffer Hotel and Café in Mountainair New Mexico.  We stopped here for lunch during the trip, but in those days, I didn’t take food photos… From what I can tell via research on the Internet, it appears that the hotel and restaurant were closed for a couple of years but have now reopened.  The town has about 860 residents.  It’s not called Mountainair in jest…the town is situated at an altitude of 6,519 feet above sea level.

     

The Shaffer Hotel was constructed by Clem (Pop) Shaffer in 1923.  Originally from Indiana, he’d moved to Mountainair with his new bride in 1908.  A true folk artist, he kept expanding the structure and embellishing it with his artistic creations.  One side of the front of the hotel is ornamented with Indian designs.  He also created ‘root monsters’.  Seven of these fanciful folk art pieces are housed at the Museum of International Folk Art.  About 25 other creatures are still in the hotel.  At the height of its popularity, as many as 12,000 people a year stopped in at the hotel to check out Pop Shaffer’s creatures. 

In 1931 Shaffer built an elaborate concrete fence enclosing the garden right along the street.  The horizontal elements of the fence were precast, the uprights cast in place and then the entire fence inlaid with dark rock representations of Pop Shaffer's 'animals." In the center of the fence, worked in dark rock, is the inscription, "Built by Pop Shaffer 1931".

The hotel’s dining room is the most distinctive room in the hotel.  It has stained glass panels above the two picture windows.  The ceiling of the room, was designed by Shaffer and is said to have been inspired by Indian rugs.  As you can see, it is brightly painted.  Those chandeliers were also specially designed for the room.

One other detail… If you are into ghosts and haunted places, the Shaffer Hotel is just what you’re looking for!  Many sightings and experiences have been reported.  See https://seeksghosts.blogspot.com/2011/04/haunted-hotels-shaffer.html.

Our next significant stop was at the Acoma Pueblo and the mesa that is home to Sky City, the traditional Acoma settlement that has been continuously occupied since prehistoric times…

The San Estevan del Rey Mission Church at the Sky City pueblo was built in 1629.  This large adobe building has extremely thick walls, (7 feet in one place), and they reach a height of 35 feet.  The roof masonry, which consists of about 6 inches of adobe and weighs several tons, is supported by large ponderosa pine vigas (beams) over which rough-hewn wooden planks are laid.  

The Acoma Pueblo is located about 60 miles west of Albuquerque New Mexico.  This is a view along one side of the mesa looking along the cliff's side. 

Spanish colonial explorers discovered Acoma in 1540.  Colonial authorities took control by force of arms after the 1599 Acoma massacre in which about 500 Acoma men were killed in a 3-day battle along with 300 women and children.  Of those who survived, many were sentenced to 20 years of enslavement and 24 suffered amputations as punishment.

This photo features a traditional mud adobe oven, called a ‘horno’.  Used by Native Americans and early settlers of North America, this type of oven was originally introduced to the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors of North Africa.  They are still used by many to bake bread, steam corn and even roast large cuts of meat.  A 21 lb. turkey will take 2.5 to 3 hours to cook in a properly stoked horno…

This photo shows some of the adobe structures on the mesa at Sky City with a cistern for catching and storing water in the foreground. 

The Acoma Pueblo is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in the USA, with the Acoma living here for over 2,000 years.  As per the 2010 census, the total number of tribal members is about 5,000 with a little more than half of them living on the reservation.  The Pueblo/mesa is located at the heart of the Acoma Indian Reservation which occupies parts of 3 New Mexican Counties.  The reservation covers 594,996 square miles.

This is probably one of the most photographed scenes in Sky City.  These exterior ladders are used to access the upper levels of the adobe buildings where the residents live.  Today, about 300 two and three level buildings stand on the mesa.  About 30 people live permanently on the mesa with the population increasing on the weekends as family members come to visit.  About 55,000 tourists visit the mesa and Sky City each year.

 

Access to the mesa is via a road that’s been blasted into the rock face of the cliffs.  That was done in the 1950s.  Note: Acoma Pueblo doesn’t have electricity, running water or sewage disposal. 

Looking down from the mesa, this is a view of a nearby home.

 

The tribe does operate a casino but tourism is also a major source of income for the pueblo.  In 2008, they opened Sky City Cultural Center and Haak’u Museum at the base of the mesa.  An earlier center had been destroyed by fire in 2000.  The center and museum seek to sustain and preserve Acoma culture.  Films on the people’s history are shown and the café serves traditional foods.  Traditional Acoma artwork is demonstrated and exhibited at the center.

Here is one more spectacular view of the area surrounding the Acoma Pueblo mesa. 

Acoma Pueblo is open to the public by guided tour from March through October, although in June and July there are periods of closure for Native cultural activities.  Visitors are advised to call ahead to confirm that the pueblo is open for tours.  Photography is restricted and permits are required.  

To learn more about visiting Acoma Pueblo and Sky City, go to https://www.newmexico.org/places-to-visit/native-culture/acoma-sky-city/.

Hey, we had to have a souvenir didn’t we!  A few of the Acoma crafters had tables set up in Sky City so they could sell their wares.  We purchased this small piece from Norma Jean Ortiz.  Pottery is one of their most notable art forms and Acoma pottery has been dated back to about 1,000 years ago.  Dense local clay is dug up at a nearby site.  It’s dried and strengthened by the addition of pulverized pottery shards.  The geometric designs are frequently applied using yucca spikes. 

To view more of Norma Jean Ortiz’s pottery designs, just go to https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=norma+jean+ortiz&id=EAC4B94197E3DBC084B481694C558EAA3E0474D3&FORM=IQFRBA. 

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for coming along on this pictorial trip from 2006!

Stay Safe and Take Care, Big Daddy Dave