JUST AN UPDATE

Just to let you know, everything is OK. We have been up in the Copper Canyon area and without internet access for a while. We are able to blog now, but we have been kept very busy. It takes a bit of time to get pictures and narrative together. So, since I am sure you have all heard about the swine flu being here in Mexico, and that the schools here are closed until May 6th, I thought I had better find the time to let you all know that we are fine. All of our trip we have been taking precautions. Hopefully they will continue to work.

I left the group here in El Fuerte, the fort, at the fort, to get out of the hot sun and do this update. So tomorrow we ride to Guaymas, on the Gulf of California coast. We will be there for 3 nites, so I plan to find some time to update. It may take longer than I expect since we just downloaded 284 pictures from the last 3 days. :) So until later...

4/23 NUEVO CASAS GRANDE

This morning was easier than the last. We did not have to load our luggage since we will be spending another night here. Our first stop this morning was a lapidary workshop where they cut and polish local stones. It looks like it should take weeks to do, but we were told an expert can go from cutting to finishing in 45 minutes. Amazing.

Look at this polished rock. What does it look like to you? We think they might still be trying to follow us. We thought we left them behind in Roswell. Then we thought we left them behind in Deming.....Now here they are again in Casas Grandes !!!!! Duane went to play with the Great Danes that are the watchdogs for the lapidary. I think she was playing with him (and he seems to be liking it.)

We then drove to Colonia Juarez. This is were Mormons settled after the US congress and the mormon church outlawed poligamy. It is a neat, well organized and productive community which is 1/2 decendents of the original US settlers and 1/2 Mexicans. (tho they are all Mexicans now). The US decendents still speak English at home and have lots of ties to the US.

This is Mata Ortiz. It still has dirt streets and adobe houses. A village of potters. One man, Juan Quasada, taught himself how to make pottery that looked like the pot chards and ancient pots he found around his town. He became very skilled at it. Spencer Mc Callum, from the US saw a couple of his pots in Deming, NM. He searched until he found Juan. He has helped Juan to create his own art and in so doing has saved the dying town of Mata Ortiz. Juan's pots sell for more than $ 4,000 each. Now, Juan and his siblings and offsprings of the extended family are all potters. We visited his daughter's workshop, where she showed us how she makes her pots. She started from taking the clay dirt and making workable clay to the firing of the pots and finished product.

When we first arrived, they had 3 pots ready for firing. They put the puts under a flower pot
and covered the whole thing with cedar bark.

They lit the bark and let it burn out. The entire filing only took 45 minutes.

While the pots were cooking, 3 of us got to work with the clay. Of course, Arleen volunteered.
Here she is working very hard on a pot that would be crushed back to a ball of clay when the demonstation was over. Poor thing :(

After the fire burned out, the flower pot was exposed. And then the great reveal.

Even tho the pots were still hot, they were beautiful. They will turn redder as they cool. We
wanted to buy the one in the back, but someone beat us to it. Not too bad, tho, since Marilez, the artist, agreed to make us one like it. Not exact of course, but one especially for us. She will
ship it to us after we get home. We are really excited about commissioning an artwork pot.

Mata Ortiz used to be called Pearson. This building is the only one left with that name.

Then we had lunch at the Hacienda de San Diego. This old hacienda was owned by Luis Terezas.
He was very rich, having 14 haciendas. This one, tho, was his favorite since there was a river nearby, a railroad nearby and hotsprings nearby. When asked if his Hacienda (ranch)was in Chihuahua, Luis said "Son, Chihuahua is in my Hacienda". The family that lived there for 4 generations is trying to save it and restore it. As you can see in the pictures, it really needs
a lot of restoration. Lunch was prepared on a wood burning stove, and tasted like it. We got a
tour of the building from the daughter of the newest generation.

Spencer Mc Callum, the man who discovered Juan Quasadas, who is now a resident of Casas Grandes met us at the hacienda. He showed us his town, including a new church made in the samn style as a 1600 church. We visited his "motel". Which is actually a bunch of guest houses made of restored adobe houses.

We returned to our hotel and Arleen collapsed. (not really, don't worry....it was just a long day.)

FIRST DAY OF MEXICO TRIP

Wednesday April 22

Arrived Tuesday evening and had a short orientation meeting. There are 20 people on our tour. Our tour guide, Teresa, said that this small a tour is very unusual. We walked to a Bosnian restaurant for dinner. Very interesting and good.

Wednesday morning we had to have our luggage out at 6:30am. Breakfast was at 7 and on the bus by 8. Long day on the bus. We drove BACK TO DEMING. Yes, that's right. We went back the way we came. It turned out we missed something really neat in Deming. There is this museum that looks like an old town hall or something. We stopped there and found an amazing collection of stuff. I have never seen so many different kinds of geodes, from all over (and I have seen a lot of geodes). There is also a collection of whiskey bottles that look like ceramic sculptures. From Elvis to an eagle, to a chainsaw, cowboys.....and on. See some pictures above. There was also a braille version of Playboy magazine. Who knew?

Then we turned south to cross the border at Palamos. We made a point of pointing out the blimp. The guide didn't think it was important. So we told her it was. No problem crossing over to Mexico. We had lunch on the south side of the border while our guide finished the formalities.

We drove on for some more hours and ended up in Nuevo Casas Grandes. We stayed in a hotel that is just fine. (these hotels are not like the ones we stayed in in China, which were 5 star US hotels)

ROCKHOUNDING

The rockhounding area. Lots of prickleypear cactus. Very sharp. Barrel Cactus flower.

Yesterday, the 20th, we visited the Rockhound State Park. We were able to find it, even tho the directions we got were a little off. The park is on the side of a large hill (or small mt) and the area is covered with jasper, agate, parlite, rhyolite and other stuff including occasionally geodes and thunder eggs (like geodes, but solid inside). We spend about 1 1/2 hours walking and looking for rocks. We found lots. The whole idea is to figure out which rocks to take, since the ground is covered with them. Duane would have taken them all if he could (or I would have let him). He loves to have them in our front yard. We did find some pretty ones and 3 that might have been thunder eggs. So, after we sorted thru our find, and chose the best to keep, we drove to a rock shop to see about having the "thunder eggs" cut open and find out what kind of treasure lay in store inside.

Well, we found the rock shop, and found out that my 3 rocks were just that.....rocks. We also found about an abandoned florite mine in the area. Yes....off we went. We spent 1/2 hour to get there and at least an hour there and found NO florite. Duane found 2 beautiful pieces of copper pyrite.

Today, the 21st, we left Deming (and nothing nor noone followed us) and drove to Tucson and checked in to our hotel for the first day of our Mexico trip. Blog postings may be less often for while, depending on how much time we have free and if there is internet access.

SPEAKING OF ALIENS....

Speaking of aliens, the ones from outer space, we may be in trouble. After registering and leaving our names at the UFO museum in Roswell, they know who we are. Sunday nite, on the way into Deming, we saw a flying object over the mountains. No big thing. Except it didn't move. We moved and it stayed put. It was on the other side of the mountains, high up and big enough to be seen by the naked for an hour. Fortunely we seen the bumper sticker at the museum telling us to "fasten you seatbelt, it makes it harder for the aliens to suck you out of your car". So we tightened our seat belts. We had also been listening to a book on tape where the bad guy was wearing aluminum foil on his heat to keep the aliens from controlling his mind. As we drove down the highway, we must have looked strange as we kept an eye on the object while checking with other about feelings of being controlled.

We eventually made it to Deming. The people there "seemed" OK. We got a room for 2 nites. We asked at the front desk about the "flying object". The clerk looked at us very strangely. Then she said, "Oh, you mean the blimp?" We said "the what?" Well, the border patroll has this blimp that floats high above the desert and has many cameras on it, to keep surveilance on the border. So.....I guess we are OK, because the aliens we were worried about were the wrong kind.

WHITE SANDS NATIONAL MONUMENT

On the drive to the park, we were listening to old time radio shows, like Dragnet. That's fun, as are the commercials, when they leave them in.

This is White Sands, outside of Alamogordo, New Mexico. The sands are made of gypsum, which is made by rain washing the mineral down from the mountains. It settles in small lakes. When the lakes dry up, crystals are left. Then the wind blows and breaks up the fragile crystals and blows them into the dunes. We walked around on them for over an hour. We went barefoot and the sand is soft and cool, even tho the weather was in the high 70's.
After climbing up the dunes, we then slid and sort of walked down the dune faces. Quite a kick.

Notice we are carrying our shoes.
These 2 pictures are of sand waves. They were just beautiful and each area had different looking waves.

We left the park and decided to drive on all the way to Deming so we can go to the state park for rockhounds. We plan on staying here for 2 nites so we can get ready for our Mexico trip that starts on Tues. We need to do laundry and repack.

ROSWELL

This is a shop in downtown Roswell. It was surprising to see that the whole town is not full of shops like this. It looks like any other town, except for downtown. Back at the petroglyphs, we saw this glyph. Does it look like the alien in the next pictures?

This man is "planting" aliens. Maybe that is where they come from....you plant one and get 10?

This is the "fancy" alien museum. It is full of paper....stories and affidavits about the "crash" and the government "coverup". We weren't any more convinced after being there than we were before. Still not sure. Are you? Did the government collect a ship and bodies and cover it up??? What do you think?

See, Duane got a close look at a "real" alien.

HERE COME THE PICTURES

Well we stayed at our first couch surf house. Nice. Jim, our host, was wonderful to us. We enjoyed spending the evening with him after he finished his projects for the day. He had lots of stories to tell, and, of course, we added some of our own.

After a lovely breakfast at "home", we went to the Petroglyph National Monument right outside of ALB. The picture below is of one of the panels we saw. We walked about 2 1/2 to 3 miles alongside around the bottom of a canyon wall. The wall was made of volcanic rocks. Lava. The ancients, the Spanish and the natives all decided it was a great place to leave signs of their being there.

Ooops, this is out of order. This is the volcano called Volcan. It is one of 5 in a row that is part of the National Monument. We walked up 2 of them. They are very extinct. So old, in fact, that not much is left of their volcanic-ness (new word). Pretty, tho.

This glyph really interested me. There are many glyphs of snakes. Some are snakes and some may be rivers or trails. But this one is definitely a snake... a rattlesnake for sure. You can see the rattles at the end of the tail.

We haven't been able to decide whether this is a lizard or a rat or a weasel. What do you think?

This a small portion of the hillside. If you look closely you can see small glyph.

This man, or whatever he is, is up to you to decide......;)

This one is hard to see. It is a man with his hands on his hips. I like it a lot.

We think this one may be the architectural drawings for a pueblo.

Pretty bird .

We drove to Riodoso. On the way we stopped for lunch in Corona. When we got to Ruidoso I played and won $200 on a slot machine. Wow.

Then today we had breakfast at the hotel and were served by the "waffle lady". She entertained everyone all thru the meal. Great fun. We drove to Roswell. Your know "Roswell" !!! UFO's Aliens...wow....It turns out the "crash" of the UFO happened near Corona (where we ate lunch)and was reported to the Sherrif in Roswell. We went thru the "museum" and enjoyed it. (pictures next post)

We drove on to Carlsbad Caverns. (sorry no pictures, hurried to get in before they closed and left the camera in the car) We took the self guided tour and got lots of info on the cave from a lady who was cleaning off years of mud deposited before they put in the paved walkways. She was great. We went to a "Chinese and Mexican restaurant" Strange combination. The food was awful.... but the owner, Joe, was so entertaining that it was worth it. He collects "treasures" from abandoned houses. He sat and talked about his treasure hunting. We really enjoyed meeting him.

So, now for some sleep. Tomorrow we are off to White Sands.

WE ARE ON OUR WAY

Well, off we go. We left Montrose on Monday, the 13th. We drove to Ignacio and stayed at the new hotel there. It is connected to the new casino (Sky Ute Casino). We spent 2 nites there so Duane could relax and recover from Easter and Arleen could play.

We left on Wednesday and drove to Albuquerque and made our way to our first couch surfing stop. Jim met us at the door and was very welcoming and informative about couch surfing protocol. He told us that often he would check a person's id to make sure they were who they said they were. He trusted us and we enjoyed spending the first evening talking with him.

The next day, we went to the Petroglyph National Monument at the outskirts of ALB. We walked about 3 miles looking at tons of glyphs on lava boulders. Around home the glyphs are usually found on sandstone cliffs. This was very different. I will post some pictures on the next post. Then we drove to a different part of the park, the volcanoes. There are 5 of them. I have never seen such small volcanoes. The trail went up 3 of them, but we only had time to climb 2. They are very old, so there wasn't much trace of its active period. We did find a vent, where the lava came out, on one of the hills. That added another mile or so to our talley that day. It felt great to walk after spending hours in the car. We sort of got a little lost going back to Jim's house and ended up at another casino, Sandia, where Arleen actually won some money. More importantly, she had fun.

Today we left ALB for Roswell. It snowed..... I understand it snowed in Colorado, but we are in New Mexico, and not even Northern New Mexico. We were very surprised. It really wasn't much. We made it as far as Ruidoso, where the racecourse is. On the way we rode thru beautiful mountains, with lush pine forests. We stopped at the Inn of the Mountain Gods. And yes, they have a casino. It is a beautiful place, reminisent of the Peaks at Mountain Village in Telluride. The casino was awful. We didn't stay long. The rooms were very expensive. So we drove on to Ruidoso. I had heard of it, Ruidoso Downs Racetrack. So we stayed across the street from the racetrack and the Billy the Kid Casino. And Arleen did very well there. We may make this a habbit.

Anyway, tomorrow we head out to Roswell, to look for aliens and then on the Carlsbad to see the caverns and the bats. More later.

HOW TO MAKE A COMMENT

Several people have asked how to make a comment about a blog. So here is how:
At the end of each blog is a "comment" in lite green. It may say "0 comments" etc. Click on comment. You will get a screen showing the blog, all comments so far and an area to "post a comment" Type in your comment there. Make sure to include who you are. When you are done go to the "comment as" area. There is a pull-down arrow. When you click on the arrow, you will see different profiles you can use. Most of you should choose "anonymous". If you see some funny letters, you have to type those in the box below. (that may not be there, so don't worry about it if it is not there) Then just "Post Comment" That should do it and you should be able to see your comment as the last one listed.

We look forward to knowing that you are reading our blog, so feel free to comment.
We leave tomorrow after our dental appointments. We are heading to Ignacio, so Arleen can get her gambling fix.

TRYING OUT COUCH SURFING

Well, as one of the first steps in setting up our trip we sent out requests to 3 people in Albuquerque and 1 person in Tucson to ask if we could stay with them. So far one person said they were sorry, but they were unavailable. A second, in ABQ said yes. So we will get back in touch with him and set it up. It was not as easy as I had hoped. First, you must know when you are going to be there. That is not always easy for us. Second, people don't get right back to you. We found a couple who live near where we want to visit in ABQ, but we have not heard back from them. So we will see what happens.

More later.