4 Wheels 4 Girls

On April 6th, we went to an Acoma (a native American tribe) pueblo, or village. We got a ride up to the village on top of a mesa with our tour guide, Gary, and another man in our tour group. Gary was an Acoma native American who lives in the pueblo. He showed us an old church, a cemetery, and lots of houses and kivas, or places where the men pray and do ceremonial things, and he taught us a lot about his culture and his people. I loved learning about all the legends and stories; I talked about it with my family all day!

On the road there were lots of vendors selling jewelry, pottery, and even food! One very kind man gave us each a handmade bluebird, and we bought six pies and some delicious pumpkin cookies from a woman. (We each got our own pie! 😀 )

When the tour was over I was disappointed.

There was a very cool little path made to climb down the mesa, and we took it! It was awesome. Here is a picture of me climbing down:

This steep stairway down from the top of the mesa has been used for a thousand years by the villagers.

I loved the tour, and the pies were delicious! Mine was blueberry, and the other yummy flavors were cherry, peach, and apple. You should all see the pueblo!

On April 7, we went to the Acoma Sky City Pueblo, on top of a mesa. It is called the Sky City because it is so close to the sky.

Look close, and you can see some square buildings along the top of the mesa. The path up to the top is a dark line on the right side.

Mesa means table, in Spanish.

I met a guy. His name was gary. He was very very funny. He was our tour guide to the Acoma city on the top of a mesa. It was very fun.

The Acoma people in Sky City were trading pottery. Much of the pottery was handmade, and I wondered how they made it. On the pottery there were different animals that meant different things. I think the bunny meant that everyone was happy. Or the dog. The lizard was for the lizard clan, which is not around anymore. I got some pottery. I got a blue bird. Their art was very amazing.

I learned a lot from Gary about the Acoma people. I learned that the women own the houses. If a woman divorces her husband, she takes his clothes and saddle and sets them outside the door.

Gary told us about a race a long long time ago. There was a woman with a pot of water on her head and a man with a sheep on his back. They raced down from the top of the mesa, along one of the steep, rocky paths, and the man tripped and fell on the woman and they both fell and died. The Acoma people believe the man and the woman are still racing together on the path.

I learned that the Acoma had ovens. They looked like igloos sitting outside the buildings. The Acoma use the ovens to bake bread and cook corn. Not everybody had an oven, so they had to use other peoples ovens. They would pay with part of what they cooked in the oven.

It was very windy and sandy up on the mesa. Sand flew in my face. It was still fun. We walked down from the mesa. It was cool and amazing going down. Also, I was scared, but that didn’t ruin it. It was still cool.

Now I am sleeping at a campgroud. I am really writing in my journal. It might be confusing.

Geez! So many strange, hard-to-pronounce names! El Malpais is a great monument where you can hike and see the remnants of an old volcano as well as the lava rock and little caves formed by the rock. The visitor center taught us a lot about the different volcanoes throughout the park and about the animals that live there.

We found this lizard, who has spines down its sides

After the visitor center and lunch, we went for a three mile hike into the volcano. On the way we saw lots of animal scat, which Ellie has been interested in learning about. 😀 We saw the poop of a coyote, a deer, a bunny, and maybe even a mountain lion. Also, we saw several caves formed by the lava rock crushing into the ground. It was really neat, and there was one called Bat Cave that Stella really wanted to explore (but no one is allowed).

This cave is actually part of a long lava tube

At the top of the volcano it was super cool ’cause you could look down into the volcano!

Behind my sisters is a lava trench, which is a collapsed lava tube

We hiked back down a mile and a half back to our RV, then left the park. It was a great day!

White Sands was REALLY cool. We rode into the dunes in our camper and the road was super bumpy. When we got there we tried to find a nice sledding place on the dunes, and when we found one, Ana was very eager to try sledding down the dunes after me. Here is a picture we took of her starting off:

Sledding on the Dunes

After sledding for awhile, we got tired of having sand-filled shoes and we decided to take a barefoot hike. It felt amazing to have the wind blowing on my face and to feel the cold sand on my feet. At one point my parents tried to take a picture of just them, but I snuck in behind them. Can you see me? Look close in the picture below:

See me back there? Hahaha!

After sledding, we went back to the visitor center and met a really nice ranger named Kathy. We was really nice and she seemed to know a lot about the park. She taught us so much and she was kind.

The White Sands national monument was really fun and neat. I enjoyed it almost as much as Carlsbad Caverns! 🙂

Thursday, March 24, we drove to White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, prepared for a day of fun.

Well, at least Dad was; I really wasn’t too excited about it. But that all changed when Jean and Dad returned from the visitor center with sleds. And guess what they said? They said we were going sledding on the sand dunes. I brightened up a bit after that.

We all went into the visitor center to get our junior ranger packets. We worked on those and then drove about eight miles into the dunes. We found a place to park where dunes surrounded us, and spotted a tall, steep dune that looked perfect for sledding. We hauled our sleds up the dune, and I realized how hard it is to walk up the sand. If I stepped up two feet, my foot would slide down one. We finally made it to the top.

Greta was the first to sled, so she would make a good path for the rest of us. Sledding was really fun for me, and I went pretty fast, but Ellie, on her first try, spun around backwards and flipped over in the sand. I thought she would chicken out and stop sledding, but surprisingly she kept sledding.

We got tons of sand in our shoes and it was really uncomfortable. We only went on our sleds a couple more times before we abandoned them and went on a long hike, barefoot. We took the compass that one of Dad’s friends gave us for our trip. I spotted a huge dune, and I was sure it was the biggest, but when I made it up to the top, I looked around and discovered I was very wrong. From the top of this one, it looked like all the others were bigger, but I also felt amazing. I spread my arms as the wind whipped my hair back. I was having an awesome time until sand got in my eyes and it stung REAL BAD. It was still fun, though.

Greta and Ana catching up to Me and Ellie on top of a huge dune

When we decided our hike was over, we tried to follow our compass back to the RV. But, we got way off. We made it back to the road we had driven in on, but the RV wasn’t there. Dad asked Ellie and Ana to be scouts, to climb the dune to our left, and see if the RV was on the other side. If the RV wasn’t there, they would come back; if it was, they were supposed to jump up and wave their arms in the air. They came back. And, I started to worry. We all walked over the dune to our right. It wasn’t there, either. So, we continued down the other side, and Ellie and Ana climbed the next dune. No RV in sight. So, we went down to the winding road and followed it back the other way. Four dunes later, Ellie climbed to the top of the next. I waited for her to come back again, but also, I somehow knew this would be when she spotted it. I stared up at her in anticipation as she peaked over the top of the dune and, suddenly, she jumped up and down and swung her arms over her head! I was so excited that I ran up the dune myself, and sprinted down the other side.

We made it back to the visitor center. We finished up our junior ranger packets and turned them in. We had a great time at White Sands National Monument. 🙂

Family, dunes, and the surrounding mountains.

Just a couple more notes:

Along the road to Carlsbad, we stopped for lunch in a very nice little town in SE New Mexico called Artesia. It was striking because there were bronze and iron statues at almost every intersection in the center of the town; of cowboys, horses, cattle, oil workers… It is always fun to stumble upon cool towns as we travel, but Artesia came with a nice surprise: The following day, my Mom mentioned that my Grandfather, Carson, lived with his family in Artesia as a young man.

Carlsbad Caverns was fantastic, unlike any cave I have ever visited. The initial descent was incredible, falling from the natural entrance all the way down to the Big Room hundreds of feet below. The Big Room reminded me of the unending caverns in Arabian fables packed full of gold and jewels, where every turn yields a new treasure to take your breath away. Unfortunately, we missed the bats’ grand exit from the cave at dusk–too early in the Spring for them–so that will have to be our excuse to come back to visit the Caverns again some day.

On Wednesday, March 23rd, we went to Carlsbad Caverns national park. It was the most amazing natural wonder I had ever seen. Mammoth Cave and Ruby Falls were both super cool, but this one really blew them both out of the water. When we walked down into the cave, I just couldn’t stop taking pictures even though the light was bad. There was just so much to see, and I would like to share some of it with you. Here is a great picture I took of a cool jellyfish-looking rock formation:

A naturally made sculpture

After we walked around the big room and finished our walk, my sisters were exhausted, but I wouldn’t have minded walking all the way back up just to see everything again. It is definitely my favorite national park so far. I know I’ve said this before, but if you’re ever in the area, check it out!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

March 23rd, I went to a national park. I did a junior ranger booklet. Then we went to a talk given by a ranger. He was nice. He talked about bats and the cactus-thingy. He show us a dead bat and a knife made out of a rock and an animal horn. The ranger told us there was a guy, long ago, and he saw a black cloud. He went to discover where it came from and he realized they were bats and he found the cave.

We hiked down into the cave. I felt sort of like a bat going down into the cave. The cave opening was very cool. There were loop-de-loops down through the cave.

Going down into Carlsbad Caverns

There was a big room in the cave. It was very big and the path was twisty. We went in a circle around the big room. We went to part of the big room called Fairyland. It was very small. There was a big stone in the big room. My mom told me it looks like a fat cat and my dad said it looks like a guy. I thought it looks like a rock.

We went up to the top in an elevator.

A tank in New Mexico

I took a picture of this tank just for you, Granddad. Hope you like it! 🙂

After the memorials in Oklahoma City, we drove all day out of Oklahoma and we finally made it to Texas around dinnertime. We ate at a Texas steakhouse and, while the rest of my family had barbequed beef, I had a chicken sandwich. It was SO good. We kept driving all night until I woke up the next morning And there was huge mesa out my window! We had made it to New Mexico! I took a picture of it:

A mesa on a New Mexico morning

My parents had totally missed the mesas as they were driving by, so it was a nice surprise to see them there. The drive was beautiful after that and I took countless videos of the road trying to see a tumbleweed for my friend Zoe. I did actually see a few but I’m not sure if i caught any on camera. I’ll try again.

It was fun!