Santa Fe Part 3

I'm almost one year out from my total thyroidectomy. I'm feeling okay thyroid-wise, but found out from my endocrinologist that my thyroid level is still too low, so he bumped up the dose again. I'm ready to feel 100% again. Some days are good days where I feel really close to that 100%, and some feel like I've fallen into a pit of mud. I'm sure I'll get there.



My American Gladiator friend, Shannon Hall, is opening her new gym, New Smyrna Fight Club, at the end of the month, and it's located close to my work, and me and the kids have free lifetime memberships. So, I'm excited to get in some boxing and cardio workouts after work.



Okay, so on to Part 3 of the trip to James and I took to New Mexico in September!



We drove away from the Glorieta Retreat Center and headed west. We wanted to drive around San Lazaro and check out the scenery there. From GE, it looked like the entrance to San Lazaro was protected by a large electric gate. When we drove by, the gate was open, and there were cryptic looking signs posted along the road leading up to the gate. Some were upside down. I looked online to see if I could find any events that might be happening there, but there was nothing on the Internet. I also couldn't find anything that would tell me whether this actually was the entrance to San Lazaro.



But, since an event was clearly going on, and the gate was open, James and I decided to drive down the road a little bit. There weren't any "No Trespassing" signs or "Private Property" signs, so we drove a short way before finding the sign that convinced us to turn around. It said "Restricted Area; Prepare to Show Identification Ahead."



I asked James if we should go on and show our identification, thinking the worst they would do is tell us to leave, but James thought we should probably turn around, and since he's right most of the time, I decided to follow his advice.



We turned around, and headed further down the road, hoping to drive around the roads surrounding the pueblo and maybe find a place to park and hike. I knew there was a bike trail around somewhere, but that country is hard to navigate, especially by someone like me who is terrible at navigation (remember my choice of the wrong path earlier in the day). Lol.



The country in this part of New Mexico was more open than some of the other places we visited, with a lot of pasture land.

We came to a dirt county road, which looked like it headed straight into pueblo territory. We took that road, and finally reached the end of county maintenance, which meant it went from pleasantly passable in our little Ford Mustang to unpleasantly treacherous in less than ten seconds. But we drove on, carefully navigating the pits and other obstacles. Then we came to what looked like a small parking area, and a place where a fence began.



We parked and decided to hike the area not protected by the severely dilapidated barbed wire fence. Again, there were no signs saying we couldn't. A guy in a four wheel drive, who apparently lived in the house on the hill behind the fence drove up, looking like he'd just come home from a hard day's work. We asked if it was okay to hike here. In a friendly, carefree way, he said, "Have at it. Just be careful. Lots of rocks and steep drops."



I asked, "Okay, but if we find an arrowhead, can we keep it?"



He laughed and said, "Sure."



We agreed to his terms of being careful and gleefully escaped the car.

It was an amazing hike. We found a few obsidian arrowheads. And a ton of neat geography. We hiked around the curiously shaped boulders and in narrow little canyons. We were constantly bending down to sift through pebbles and chips of obsidian. We found an odd small pebble that , James, who used to own a jewelry shop that made items from stones, thinks is amber.



The hike was pretty easy, although there were places we had to climb. Nothing too treacherous, though. I saw no signs that humans had been in the area for a VERY long time. A curious feeling of awe washing over me as I thought about the people who lived here and walked these rocks centuries before. What did they do every day? How did they survive? What did their children do for fun on such rocky terrain? I could easily imagine games of hide n' seek, because James and I got separated more than a few times while wandering around.

Intently interested on the ground, I'd say, "Hey, look at this," and I'd get no answer. Looking up and glancing around, I'd find that James was no where in sight.



"Where are you?" I'd call out with a laugh.



"Over here," he'd call back from somewhere. In such a place, where there were hollows of rocks, dry arroyos, and odd sand formations that looked like giant anthills, sound could mislead you.

James had sounded as though he was far away, but was really just around the next boulder. Lol.

We found some interesting rock formations that appeared man-made. I haven't researched the geology of the area yet, so I still don't know if they were or not. If someone knows, please feel free to leave me info in the comments.



For example, this rock was quite large and the arcs and edges seemed different that the more natural looking rocks in the area:

And then there was this round one with a flat top:

And James took some pics of flowers...so pretty...

And James found the official "Cool Thing of the Day," which made a great photo:

Here are some more pics we took of the seemingly remote area:

After a whole lot of exploring, the sun finally began to set, and we decided to head back toward the car. We followed a dry arroyo, and soon discovered something very large had been there not long before us...



I couldn't help but feel that the mountain lion was crouched low to the ground, silent...watching us.

We finally arrived back at the car, satisfied with our jam-packed day of exploration. Although we weren't searching for golden treasure on our Gallisteo hike, we found it nonetheless...