So this is once again late, but I'm getting better at updating...kinda. So in March I went on a class trip to the southwest - four corners region. The trip was ten day with my junior class. I had tons of fun.
Day One - Taos, New Mexico
So we left school around 9am and drove to Taos. Here we just met with a man named Miguel, the owner of Sol Feliz farms. We learned about different native farming methods and all that fun stuff.
Then we camped somewhere and it was freezing all night but I still slept outside of the tent just for the fun of it.
Day Two - Taos, New Mexico
We started out the day by packing up camp and heading to these homes called "earthships." These things are so cool. They are houses that utilize passive solar heating by having angled windows facing the south, the walls are also made with used tires to create thermal mass. You'd think that the places would look awful, but they actually look pretty nice. This one here isn't finished but it still looks nice, after going through pictures I actually didn't take any good ones. But if you're really interested you can look it up on your own.
Next we went to this hotel that claimed to be sustainable cause' they had a "living machine," but really this place was no where near sustainable, they imported huge petrified wood slabs to use as desks from who knows where, along with a whole bunch of other crap. But the hotel was pretty.
Last we went to some farm. Then we drove out to Bandelier, New Mexico.
Day Three - Bandelier, New Mexico
So here in Bandelier we camped across the street from the Los Alamos Science Research facility. Ya know, the place where the Atomic Bomb was invented and built and tested and all that jazz. But first we visited Bandelier National Park. This is in a canyon that was inhabited by Ancient Puebloan people around 1150 AD, so a long long time ago. This place was pretty cool. We got to go inside some ancient dwellings - or a kid in my class referred to them as - "sick dwells," most commonly used in a sentence as, "Hey guys come check out these sick dwells over here!"
We climbed ladders that were 140 feet tall. It was freaky to get up there but it was pretty. And they had turkey pens up there. Turkeys were a sacred animal back in the day.
Day Four - Bandelier/ Los Alamos. New Mexico
We started the day by hiking at Tsankawi, which was another location once inhabited by Native Americans. Instead of being in a canyon this place was on top of a mesa. We saw cool pectographs, some things kinda looked like aliens cause' they had weird things coming out of the head.
Next we went to a ton of museums about the history of Los Alamos, or "The City That Never Was," as they liked to call it. It was freaky learning about this place. I can't believe what it must have been like to live in that town. All of their mail was censored and sent back if it mentioned any geographic descriptions or names, even the word "physicist" was illegal cause' it gave away too much. No family was aloud to know where you moved all they knew was PO box 1663. I don't think I'd like living there.
Day Five and Six - Chaco Canyon, New Mexico
Chaco Canyon is most notorious for being the hub of Anasazi culture. Anasazi built all there building in line with astronomical happenings, so while we were there (over the spring equinox) we got to wake up early and see the sun rise in line with the entrances to a kiva. So we woke up at 5 in the morning and it was our 6th day without showers so a lot of us looked nasty, but anyways we hiked up to this kiva and were waiting for the park ranger to come and this old couple came hiking up like 10 minutes after us and the woman turns to the man and says, "Oh look, they brought the whole homeless shelter up here, how nice!" That was the best quote from the trip. Later that day we went on a super cool hike.
Day Six, Seven, Eight - Canyon De Chelly, Arizona
This was my favorite part of the trip. We went backpacking in the canyon with a Navajo tour guide. You aren't allowed in the canyon with out a guide so it was super cool cause' he knew the history of the canyon from personal experience and from family stories and what not. Our guide is also going to be in the 2012 Olympics for archery. Backpacking is one of my favorite things so I had tons of fun.
Day Nine - Hovenweep, Utah
There isn't much to say about this place. Two of my teachers got sick so they left and went to a hotel while we camped.
Day Ten, Eleven – Colorado
We were supposed to go to the sand dunes but it was supposed to snow and get nasty so we stayed in a hostel. This place was crazy they had every type of picture imaginable in this place and expected people to buy them. They had the mona lisa next to creepy fairy pictures next to scary crucifixes next to eagles next to trippy hippy pictures. On top of that they were all priced in the hundreds. They also opened just for us so the halls were cold with no lights on and the place was huge. It was fun though. We got to take showers. The next morning we packed up and left.
Now I'll just put a few pictures up that I find enjoyable.
Ta ta for now peasants,
Princess
