Laguna, New Mexico ......arches and petrogylphs

 Today, we are headed to a small town called Laguna, New Mexico.  It is about 30 miles west of Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Along the way to our next few nights, we stop to see some sights.  First, we stopped at a small Indian store to purchase a few items.  While there, we had bought “fry bread” for lunch.  This is a homemade bread kinda like a tortilla but so fluffy and soft like a pita.  It was filled with ground beef, rice and beans- topped with lettuce and salsa.  The picture doesn’t do justice to the taste.  They were $7 each, cash only, but we only had $11 on us.  I asked if I could get 1 regular size and maybe a small one!  The owner said:” don’t worry, then brought out to our car 2 wonderful fry bread meals and added a bag of his pecans, just because!

We visited “el malpais” national monument where we saw the second largest stone arch in New Mexico, La Ventura! The stone structures nearby were so beautiful.

The next day, we went for a hike in Rinconada Canyon at Petroglyph National Monument. Within this landscape there are 17 miles of volcanic basalt that was formed by a lava flow that occurred about 200,000 years ago.  It resulted in a steep slope of basalt boulders and fragments throughout the park. 

This formed the palate upon which most of the petrogylphs were etched during the time period of 1300-1800 AD. Here are a few pictures that I took.

Later that day, we drove into Albuquerque for a little sightseeing.  It was really strange because they were very few people downtown as New Mexico is just “opening up”.  They have one of the highest vaccination rates and are trying very hard to avoid another surge.  As I mentioned previously, they have add great losses of life in the Indian communities.  Anyway, we went to Old Town Albuquerque which was quite unique and purchased a few things such as a piece of Talavara pottery.