December 24-29, 2021

December 24-29, 2021

Aimee and I are driving to Amarillo, TX to celebrate the holiday with her family. While long, the drive is through some scenic stretches of New Mexico. The last section past the Pecos River, over the barren, treeless ultra-flat Llano Estacado is the most stark. Humorously because of the strong winds, we have to dodge hundreds of Tumbleweeds. This desert plant has developed the perfect method to disperse seeds in the blustery Great American Desert.

Following the Christmas festivities, Aimee feels she needs to stay longer and tend to her mother while she recovers from Covid and other medical issues. I start the long drive back on Wednesday. Driving alone, I seem to notice the terrain features more than normal.

Just outside Albuquerque, I stop to stretch my legs by visiting Coronado State Monument, now renamed a State Historic Site. It turned out to be a gem. I arrived just in time to join a guided tour. The docent explains archeologists excavated this site of the Kauau Pueblo hoping to find artifacts for the 400th anniversary celebration of the 1540 Coronado expedition. Instead they unearthed the only intact pre-contact painted Kiva (ceremonial chamber). To preserve the deteriorating murals, archeologists carefully peeled them off the wall only to find dozens of painted layers underneath. A few of the originals are on display in a Mural room. The most prominent figures are Kachinas (colorful masked dancers or spirits). Oddly my favorite is of a rabbit.

Our tour continued outside. The Kauau Pueblo consisted of over a thousand rooms surrounding three plazas. It is a beautiful site sitting alongside the Rio Grande with the Sandia Mountains in the distance. After excavation, the pueblo was reburied and a modern reconstruction built atop. All the adobe rooms were entered by ladder from above. We have to be escorted into the recreated painted Kiva. Here the Kachinas are brightly colored as they would have been centuries ago.

After the tour, I lingered watching the film, wandering the site, and running through the exhibits. After wintering twice here at Kauau and failing to find the legendary Cibola and the Seven Cities of Gold, Coronado returned to Mexico dejected. Unfortunately this Spanish Conquistador left behind a path of destruction. Kauau was never inhabited again.

Back on the road, I followed the Rio Grande Valley south, along the old Camino Real. This is the same route the Spanish retreated after the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. I arrive in Tucson after dark but not before watching an extended colorful sunset.