The Best Laid Plans or Petroglyph National Monument

of middle aged tree huggers often go awry. I had set aside Tuesday before Thanksgiving to drive out to Chaco Canyon. If you read my blog you remember reading that unfortunately due to a bit of an accident with a tire rim the day before that I didn't get on the road early enough for that so I opted for the Petroglyph National monument there in Albequerque. Hiking, ancient peoples and volcanoes what more could a girl want? This first photo is of the huge lava flows that created the box canyon that you wander through at one of the three sites to look at the "glyphs". Not very artsy but that is pretty much what this place looked like. I hiked around 7 miles here that day. My traveling buddy was worn out after going to Taos with me the day before. Here's another view of this canyon, hard to tell how enormous this thing is. I would put this on the must visit list though if you go to Albequerque. Ah well, it is those glyphs though that you are putting up with my blog here to see, so on with it. Not sure what the glyphs on the left are I think the spiral represents how connected everything is. The one on the right here looks like a scorpion to me though. The one with the circle divided??? The second one here on the right is a cat I believe the sign said, and this one to the left looks like a turtle and a chicken to me but I really don't know. This other one to the right below looks like a masked figure on the left, maybe a turtle, bird and snake thrown in for fun and balance?

There are dozens and dozens of these glyphs around the canyon but you do have to do some hiking to get back and sometimes up the lava flows to see them.

What we have here are masked figures, a macaw, a macaw in a cage and a represented yucca plant. Now don't ask about the two here because I haven't a real clue. After about 4 hours in the lava fields I moved on to the volcanoes. No glyphs there but still mighty fascinating. This is the first of the 3 major cone volcanoes just West of Albeq. NM. I had to hike in then a half mile access road then hike up and down. Great fun. Here's a couple of photos of me at PNM and the volcanoes. It was warmer in the box canyons than it was on top of the volcano I can tell you!! For me and my love of odd rocks, hiking and volcanoes, this was a spectacular day even though it did not start out that way.