4 Wheels 4 Girls

On April 7th, we went to a KOA campground near Albuquerque. When we got to the campground, I liked it already. It had a playground, pool, and a volleyball court. When we got there we ran right to the playground. It had two swings, a seesaw, and a spin-y thing. We played until we had dinner and went to bed. In the morning we got free pancakes at the KOA’s “Winter Kafe.” When we looked out the window of the Kafe, we saw Sandia mountain.

Sandia Peak is out our breakfast window.

After free pancakes we did some school work. After that we went to go play volleyball. We played and then my mom came and played with us. She tought us how to play. When we had to go get the ball we got thorns in our feet. It reaily hurt our feet. Me and Ana played horses while my mom and Stella played volleyball. It was an awesome campground. The next day we meet a boy. He became our friend. We played with him for along time. Most of the days were nice. There was a lot of sun. We stayed there three whole days.

After the Acoma pueblo, we ate tortilla soup and our pies for lunch, (yum!) we drove to Albuquerque to camp for awhile and to shop and explore. On the way to our campground, we saw the most spectacular house I had ever seen! It was made of old parts; plane, car, boat parts; and it looked like an automobile of the future. It was concealed by trees on most sides, so we couldn’t get a very good picture, but we took pictures anyway. Here are two pictures we took of it: (You would have loved it, Granddad!)

There's the long, winding staircase on the side of the house.

Ana really liked the house!

There was another similar, awesome one next to it with a big statue in front of it that looked like a huge human molecule. (with lots of soccer balls attached to it!) My favorite part about it was that there was a huge dinosaur in front of the first house, and my friend Alanna (Hey Alanna! Miss ya!) got me hooked on them. Dad took my picture in front of it:

The downfall of humanity wouldn't have happened if the dinosaurs still existed!

After the house, we headed to our awesome campground. Read Ellie’s post to find out more about it!!!

We saw neat houses made out of mud and water. The Acoma people learned how to make Adobe houses from the spanish. We walked until we came to a cemetary. Gary told us that the men made the walls to keep the spirits of the dead people inside and the women brought all the dirt and coved the dead people with dirt that they carried up the cliffs from the valley below. Then we went into the church. It was big and tall. Gary told us stories. Then we came out and saw people selling pottery. We walked and learned about sky city. To our surprise, a guy who was selling blue birds gave us each one for free. That made us all so happy. After that we said thank you and then left. Later on the walk we saw people selling pies and cookies. We got blue berry pie and apple pie. Then we saw another person selling pie. We got more pies. We got peach and cherry.

This is near the top of the stairway down from the mesa

At the end of the tour, we could either take the bus down our walk down. We walked until we finally got to the bottom. When we got to the bottom it started to rain. We all ran to the RV and got back on the road.

Thursday, April 6, we visited the Sky City Pueblo. The Sky City is the coolest Pueblo I’ve ever seen, and it’s located on the very top of a 374 foot tall mesa. The Acoma people still live in this amazing town today. You might think the Acoma people just live up there part time, only so people can say it’s the oldest continually inhabited city in the USA. But no, people still live there, even a few kids, and I met quite a few men and women selling jewelry and clay pots with beautiful paintings and designs on them. Here’s a picture of an Acoma woman’s amazing pots. She was selling them on the top of the mesa, right outside her house.

Here's the pots. Aren't they beautiful?

Our tour-guide, Gary, who was an awesome tour-guide, by the way, lead us all around Sky City. As we walked around, we stopped at a man’s little sale set-up. Gary said, “Look at his great bluebirds!” And that attracted our attention. Well, I would have looked at them anyway, but these bluebirds were so cute! I stared at the four sizes of bluebirds, the biggest ones, about the size of golfballs, were five dollars, the next size down, four dollars, next size, three, and the smallest, which I thought were the cutest, were two dollars. I kept eyeing the tiny bluebirds and thought about asking Jean if I could get one, and I finally asked. Guess what she said? No. So I asked again. She still said no. Then Ellie said, “Please momma can we get one?” And I said, “Just the little ones? Please, can we each get a little one? There’s four! And they’re only two dollars!” She still said no. But I couldn’t let her say no! They were so cute and I felt bad looking at the man’s artwork without buying anything. During all this, the man was listening and could tell we really loved them. I couldn’t believe what he did next. He picked up the four little bluebirds and handed one to each of us! Oh my gosh, I wanted to give him something in return really bad! He was basically giving us eight dollars! Actually, more! With all the hard work he put into all those adorable birds, I think they were worth at least twelve dollars, at least I think. I didn’t know the man’s name, so I couldn’t name my bluebird that, so I named him after the tribe he came from, the Acoma tribe.

This is Acoma! Isn't he so cute?!

As we finished our tour, Gary gave us a choice:
Take the bus back down
Or walk back down
You might think I’m joking, but I am being completely serious. Look at the pictures in my sisters’ posts to see that I’m not lying.
We made it back to the RV with all six people, my bluebird, Acoma, Ellie, Ana, and Greta’s bluebirds, a bag of four cookies, and six pies!!!
Even though it was rainy, we had a great day at Sky City.

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!

On Tuesday, April 5th, my family went to Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. There were hardly any real wood trees there- all the trees were petrified, meaning they had turned to stone! The logs looked just like they were still made of wood, with the same texture of the bark and everything! The logs had beautiful colors-black, brown, pink, orange, red, purple, yellow, and even grey. There was a little hike we did where we walked through hundreds of petrified wood logs. Here are Stella and Ellie doing their Junior Ranger packets by one of the logs:

Stella and Ellie working hard!

At the visitor center, there was a place where kids could dig up fossils in a big tray. I buried the fossils so my sisters could dig them up. Here is a picture of them digging:

Dig dig dig! 😀

After the visitor center, we went on a mile hike into the Blue Mesa, still part of Petrified Forest. It was a fabulous day to hike; warm and windy. We took lots of pictures, and here is one of me with the blue mesas behind me:

There I am with the mesas in the background. Beautiful, huh?

We saw even more petrified wood on our hike, and here we are in front of another log:

Doesn't the rock look just like wood!?

Petrified Forest National Park was amazing. I really loved it!!! 😀

We learned lots of facts about the Navajo from Kenneth. We learned that each Navajo has four clans, one from each grandparent. He said that when Navajo get married, they have to marry outside their four clans. We learned that the Canyon de Chelly has to branches. The south branch is called the Canyon de Chelly. The north branch is called the Canyon de Muerte, which means the canyon of death. It got that name because a spanish priest and soldiers killed more than 500 Navajo women and children there.

We learned that the Navajo still live and farm in the canyon. Land is passed down from mother to oldest daughter. If a Navajo wants to own and farm land in the canyon, they have to ask three neighbors for land and permission. If one of the three says no, the Navajo is not allowed.

In the canyon, they plant corn, beans, squash, watermelon, cantaloup, and tomatoes. They also plant peach, apricot, cherry, and pear trees. We learned that horses are very important to the Navajo people. I saw lots of horses in the canyon. I even saw two foals. The navajo horses were smaller and had bigger heads than other horses I have seen.

Navajo houses were called hogans. They are round and made out of sticks and mud. Hey Nell, isn’t that neat that the Navajo live in hogans?

Anasazi houses on the ground and up on the cliff

The Anasazi ruins in the cliffs had doors that looked more like windows than doors. The did that so the kids wouldn’t get out and fall. They built their houses up on cliffs so if it flooded it would not reach them.