October 1, 2007

October 1, 2007

Not far from the RV park, on the west side of Albuquerque, NM is Petroglyph National Monument. Another of the probably several dozen ancient Anasazi Indian National Parks in the Southwest US. If it weren’t so close and we weren’t trying to kill time we might not have gone to see it. At the visitor center we get oriented and then we head a few miles north to the Boca Negra canyon. There are several extinct volcanoes on Albuquerque’s west side. As a result the west side is full of black lava rocks and the Anasazi carved drawings into many of them. Aimee and I find them only mildly interesting. One problem is trying to differentiate this old graffiti from the more recent variety. After an hour of looking at rocks we head to a similar area just south of the visitor center.

After a few hundred yards, we get bored and head back but not before spotting dozens of giant Desert millipedes all over the trail. These dark brown bugs are about the size of a 5-inch long pencil with the requisite 1000 legs. Supposedly nocturnal, they are only seen during the daytime in mornings following overnight rain.

On the way back to the RV park we stop at Camping World to buy a few RV luxury items. On a whim I ask their service department how busy they are. I am shocked to find they have time to change the gasket on our leaky AC unit. The service guy takes one look under the hood and tells me all that is needed is some screw tightening. He does it for free and luckily just in time for another evening rain burst. Albuquerque has only 55 cloudy days per year and somehow we are getting lucky enough to experience one of them.