Break out the white shoes.

Today is memorial day, it seems to be quite a big thing now although apparently it used to be just the beginning of summer - you can were white shoes now, but not after labor day.

We drove past the National Cemetry in Santa Fe on our way off today, every headstone had an American flag and along the fence line large flags were every few metres. Lots of cars going in too. I'd noticed all these awful artifical wreaths and sprays at WAL-MART and K Mart when we were shopping for Liam's bike maybe this was what they were for.

Our intention was a visit to Bandilier National Monument. We didn't get off that early so it was about midday when we got to the gate. The sign, and the officers said there was a 45 minute wait for a carpark! Who waits for carparks, well not us we talked to the officers at the gate and established that the visitor centre carpark was not the only place to go. So we headed in an towards the campgrounds and ampitheatre carpark. They'd given us a map and we planned on walking the Frey Trail, about 1 1/2 miles to the ruins but some swithchbacks. We had a picnic with us which we took in our backpack and some water, Madeline was in the ergo and Liam was walking. The first part of the trail is across the mesa so mostly flat, slight undulations, very dry and plenty of dead trees, from fires and the drought New Mexico is currently experiencing.

We saw two dear sitting quitely in the shade very near the path, later signage allowed us to identify them as Mule dear, we had our picnic before decending into the canyon, with the switchbacks, excellent views of some very dramatic cliff faces and a good view over the ruins in the valley bottom. Once down we looked into a cliff dwelling and walked some of the main trail but decided not to look at the ceremonial cave and some other bits of ruin but head back up to the car, Liam was very keen on knowing what was written on every signboard, so we read about the trees, insects, animals, reptiles and birds of the area as we walked the main trail. By the cave dwellings there was a sign about the bats which after Richard has read a woman nearby said 'your from New Zealand aren't you' we admitted to it an it turns out a good friend of hers is Bill Drake (Drake Mountain Maps) former New Zealand Head Cartographer, he lives in Santa Fe now, apparently some of the best local maps too.

After a snack stop we started back up. The first bit of the return trip was going to be the worst, you gain about 400 feet zig zagging up a canyon side - hardwork and I had Madeline on. Liam did really well and walked the whole way himself. We saw our deer on the way back to, they'd moved but we still saw them.
The view over the ruins is spectacular and the cave dwellings are facinating they have one you can climb up to on a ladder they're very pleasant inside, dark and cool. No photos sorry the digital camera wasn't charged, so we'll have to go back.

The drive home was back through the dramatic canyons now we could see possible dwellings all over the place. The rock is reasonably easy to carve as its volcanic tuff, so the cliff was carved back and adobe built in front.