Day 7: Mesa Verde > Santa Fe

Leaving Colorado felt like we were making a transition on our trip. All of the criss-crossing between Arizona and Utah was behind us. As was the high desert which had taken a toll on Adler's lips since we wasn't the most cooperative kid willing to apply Chapstick. Originally the driving route was going to take us through Albuquerque en route to Carlsbad Cavern. I asked my friend Jeff who is from Albuquerque what we should do there. His text back to me was influential, "Leave, immediately!" Instead he directed me to make a stop about 50 miles away in Santa Fe and recommended that we see Meow Wolf. I trust my friends and made the adjustment to our travel route and hotel.

This left us driving south from Colorado into New Mexico. Eventually the lush green dissipated and we ended up back in the desert but at a much lower elevation. We didn't have much planned this day other than to get from point A to point B. Adler decided that he wanted to eat around noon that day. So the plan was to stop somewhere and have a picnic with our leftover camping food. As luck would have it we pulled into another national park at 11:55 am called the Echo Amphitheater in northern New Mexico. Perfect!

You can see the "blood" at the top and left of the amphitheater

While there isn't a morbid tale baked into the place name like we'd seen at Dead Horse Point there is a similarly gruesome story about how the rocks became colored with red streaks. When two families of white settlers descended on the area many years ago the Indians took them to the top of the natural amphitheater and slaughtered them. Their blood forever stained the rocks. Years later more settlers arrived at the area and, hearing the story, took revenge upon the Indians by executing them in simliar fashion. When you look up at the top of the amphitheater there are two distinct regions with curious red veins that crawl through the rock. Hearing this story it was influential in affecting your perception about the place. But there also isn't any evidence to back up the legend. Once again, Adler got to her an unfiltered story about how a place got its name.

Not sure who this is.

After our picnic we hiked up to the amphitheater and Adler had fun listening to his echo. It was the unexpected stop on our very long trip that left us with some great memories. I'm glad that he wanted to stop at noon otherwise we would have just continued driving past it. We would have missed a great story, fun with echoes and even seeing New Mexico's state reptile--the whiptail lizard. And if you're knowledge about reptiles is a little hazy these guys run upright like dinosaurs whipping their tail for speed. And most interesting...they're ALL female.

New Mexico's State Reptile - Whiptail Lizard

Adler's deeply philosophical inquiry the day before about the first mother wasn't his only curious line of questioning. Perhaps he'd been planning this trip more than I had because he unleashed two additional theological questions on today's drive. His first heavyweight question came out of nowhere without a segue or introduction, "Dad, do you believe in god?" At least I was driving so I was seated for this question. This was immediately followed up with, "Do you believe in Jesus." I'm not entirely certain where these questions originated from. Could the kids at a school talk about this? I gave him my answers and then told him that Lisa and I would let him decide whatever he wanted to believe and we would support that choice. As with the previous day, this seemed to satisfy him and the inquiry stopped there. But I found it easier to talk about dead horses and executed settlers with my six-year-old son that deeply philosophical and complex idea. Oy vey!

The perfect Adler dinner

After a fun day exploring a new and unexpected place we arrived at the first hotel in a number of days. We quickly changed into swim suits and enjoyed the indoor pool and hot tub for a few hours. I was thankful that the pool was indoors because it was so hot outside that it wouldn't have been comfortable. We also found ourselves going to our first restaurant for dinner that night. I chose a BBQ restaurant within a nine mile walk and Adler was so excited that we could "walk" to dinner. We shared a queso dip with smoked cheese and diced hatch chilies. It was served with tortilla chips for dipping. Adler liked it so much that he asked me if I could make it when we got home. I encouraged him to have restraint and not eat it all so that when his macaroni and cheese entree arrived we could pour the last bit of queso on top and then we crushed the remaining tortilla chips for texture. He was in heaven!

Today's Miles: 258
Total Miles: 2375