Lost in the Land of Enchantment | Friday – Saturday, November 15-16, 2024
After leaving the Three Rivers Petroglyphs Site, we made a quick stop at Pistachioland for Diane and then headed over to Carrizozo to visit the family of one of her friends who live there. When we were packing for this trip we decided to bring along a tent that we had not used for a while and accidentally forgot to bring the stakes for it. While this wasn’t a problem when we were camped at Gleatherland in Texas because it was a very calm evening, it had been very windy all day while we were searching for petroglyphs at Three Rivers and it was supposed to stay pretty windy all night, so we were a bit concerned. Thankfully, we were able to borrow some tent stakes from Diane’s friends while we were visiting which would help us out quite a bit. After our visit we ate dinner in town and then drove just a few miles northeast to the Valley of Fires Recreation Area where I had reserved a campsite next to the lava flow for the night. We got our tent set up shortly before sunset and then read for a while before going to bed early.
Welcome to the Valley of Fires.
It was a nice evening out, so I got out the tripod to take a photo of the tent under the moonlight.
Here’s a photo of our campsite in the morning since I really liked this spot right next to the lava flow.
We went for a short hike at sunrise along the Lava Flow Nature Trail.
Lone Mountain
Here’s an overview of the Carrizozo Lava Flow with Salinas Peak on the horizon.
After packing up camp and dropping off our borrowed tent stakes, we continued north so we could visit the three separate units of the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument which are located around the edges of the Estancia Basin and Manzano Mountains.
Our first stop was at the Gran Quivira Ruins.
We walked through the ruins of the church of San Buenaventura.
Gran Quivira was the largest pueblo of the three the park units and at its peak it was home to 1,500-3,000 eastern Tompiro/Jumano people.
Gran Quivira Kiva
Our next stop was to the Abo Ruins, right after we visited the park’s headquarters in Mountainair.
Here we walked through the ruins of the church of San Gregorio de Abó II.
Abo Kiva
Our final stop was at the Quarai Ruins.
Ruins of the Church of Quarai.
Rock Art of the Manzano Mountains
While we were out exploring the ruins of the Salinas Pueblo Missions, we went on a short detour to visit a nearby petroglyph site. These photos are from that interesting site.
Once we had visited all three of the Salinas Pueblo Missions it was time to start heading back home. After driving around the Manzano Mountains we stopped for dinner in Albuquerque and then continued north into Colorado. I was hoping to finish the drive home later in the evening, but by the time we reached Durango I wasn’t feeling like continuing on through the San Juan Mountains so we booked one more hotel room and stayed the night. Then on Sunday morning we finished the drive and were back home before noon. Although the winter weather early in the week altered our plans at the beginning of the trip, we still had a pretty great week Lost in the Land of Enchantment!
>> Valley of Fires and the Salinas Pueblo Missions Photo Gallery