This is the last post in a series of posts about our southwest trip during Winter ’22 with our 6-week-old daughter. The rest of the posts can be found in order below:
Hole in the Rock and National Park Foibles
“Are you really going to make this old cowboy put his pants on?” I lumbered out of the tent, hatchet in hand. The moon shone brightly across the flat shrub land as I tried to peer amongst the shadows and find where they were. It was 2 am and we were camped at a trailhead on De-Na-Zin Wilderness area. The coyotes had been yipping and howling around the tent, one coming as close to run just past the entrance. We presumed they were after Taiga, so we brought her into the tent with us and I went out to yell into the dark, banging on some nearby fence posts with the hatchet. I’m sure I was quite the sight, yelling, shirtless and waving a hatchet around. Anywhere else, I’m sure I’d end up in an asylum.
We spent the morning hiking around the badlands after being disturbed a few more times by the coyotes. They were gone as far as we could tell come daylight and we wondered how they found water in such a dry land. Continuing on through the Navajo reservation, our hobbled together plan had us headed towards Chaco Canyon, of which was supposedly “neater than a hat pin” as told to us by some guy at a construction stop in Colorado. The roughest road of the entire trip and a few stray dogs led us into the park, where we set up camp in the campground for the next 2 nights. Over the course of the next day and a half we hiked nearly all the trails within the monument (there aren’t many), and checking out the ruins along the way. The buildings were a stark reminder of the depth of thought and design that is possible when constructing buildings, and the dearth of it that exists today. The Chacoans oriented their buildings in relation to the sun, the moon and the stars. To the solstices and towards special celestial events. In our society, most homes aren’t even oriented south to the sun.
Snowy roads and big ponderosa pines led us over the hills and into the heart of the Santa Fe National Forest, where we found camp above Los Almos. During the day we made our way to Bandelier National Monument, seeing yet another example of indigenous design. Here, the Puebloans had carved into the rock, creating what appeared to be apartment style complexes among the many cliffs within the area. With bright blue skies, big trees and a creek running down the center of the valley, the area seemed like utopia. There was much that we wished to wander, but snow and winter weather warnings forced us on once more after a couple days.
The wind brought us the rest of the way east. Pushing us out of the mountains and onto the expansive flat plains of western Oklahoma and Kansas. Heat lightning and the sound of distant coyotes welcomed us to Cimmaron Grasslands, our final stop of the trip. We had the place to ourselves, hiking among the grasslands in more temperate weather of the day and enjoying the endless display of stars at night.
Two more days of travel brought us northeast to Chicago and the end of our trip. It was a bit different than we had planned, but we were left with a list of even more places that we wished to explore and others that we wished to return. And we had done it as a family nonetheless, giving little 3 month old Din quite the introduction to the world. We can only hope for many more to come.
