Today we drove to Chaco Canyon and back.
The sky was pretty scary this morning. We did not want to be in the canyon if there was going to be a flash flood.
The drive down from Farmington started with a nice paved highway. When we were about 13 miles from the canyon, the the paving stopped. The road turned into a washboard. Once we entered the park, we had paving again.
The road traversed multiple washes. There were several where the road was down where it would be under water if there were heavy rain.
Here is the visitor center.
We stopped at the visitor center and got a map that we followed to the various grerat houses. The ranger told us to leave the canyon if it started raining, which was expected later in the afternoon. We decided to explore the following great houses.
On the eastern side of the canyon, almost all great houses were built close to the canyon wall.
All of the great houses have at least one wall that is due east/west to align with the sun on the solstices.
Click here to see more of Hungo Pavi
Click here to see even more of Hungo Pavi
Pueblo Bonito is the most excavated in this park. Here is a picture from above. Notice the huge rockfall in the foreground. This occurred in 1941 and destroyed around 30 rooms in the Pueblo.The rockfall weighed approximately 30,000 tons.
Pueblo Bonito is so large that we need multiple images to show you its extent. Notice the multiple kivas (deep round rooms).
There were rooms at multiple levels. The archeologists were able to preserve a very tall wall.
That wall was so tall (and no longer attached to connecting walls) that it had to be supported from the rear.
Like all of the great houses, there is a long straight wall. Dick used the compass of his iPhone to see its orientation.
The orientation was dead on east/west.
Here is a kiva. It was big enough that it took three pictures to capture it.
Click here for more picture from Pueblo Bonito
Click here for even more picture from Pueblo Bonito
Click here for even more picture from Pueblo Bonito
Click here for even more picture from Pueblo Bonito
We didn't walk down to Pueblo del Arroyo, but here is a picture taken from near the road.
The walls of one of Casa Rinconada's villages appears near the center of this picture.
Casa Rinconada is best known for its great kiva. This is one of two closed entrances to the kiva.
Here is a video to illustrate the kiva.
When we arrived at the visitor center, there was a Navajo potter selling his wares while he was painting a new pot. He will take it back and fire it.
This is a picture of Bruce with the pottery designer, Cynthia Yazzie.
At the end of the day we had travelled 169 miles for a current total of 2917. Some 26 of them on unpaved roads. When we got back to Farmington, we found a self service car wash and spent some time there.
