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| In the fall of 2016 Sandra and I had the opportunity to "dog sit" my sister's dogs while she and her husband took a vacation. Which meant we got a vacation with free boarding! I thought I had failed to save my pictures of the trip but I realized I didn't take pictures. I took videos! Sandra did take some pictures so the stills you see are hers or off the web. I have learned how to link to YouTube videos so you can choose to watch the videos by clicking on the YouTube Icon, the video will play in a seperate window and then stop with a still picture for 10 seconds, giving you a chance to exit that window. If you don't exit, it will stop and show other videos available which should not interest you at all. Exit that window (click on the x in the YouTube label tab, not the x on the far right (if you click on the x on the far right you'll close the whole web site)). Do it properly and you'll be back at this page where you left off. I'll indicate the length of each video so you can decide if it's worth your time. But first I want to introduce you to the dogs, Freddie and Blanche. |
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 Our first expedition was to Pecos National Historic Park. The script on the entrance reads "Humans have inhabited the Pecos Valley for at least 12,000 years. The fifteenth century Towa-speaking trading pueblo, Cicuye, had over 2,000 inhabitants. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Franciscan churches were built and rebuilt here under the direction of the Spanish. By the 1780's disease, raids and drought had decimated the population and in 1835 the last 17 inhabitants moved to Jemez to live with their Towa-speaking relatives." A marker read "after years of oppression, and epidemics and droughts that killed many, the people of Pecos rebelled against the Spanish authority in 1680. Here they destroyed the mission church, the symbol of Spanish power. The revolt united pueblos across the region in a coordinated strike that drove the Spaniards out of New Mexico. The Puebloan people regained their independence, but it was short lived. And now we're ready for the first video. Click on the YouTube icon and enjoy my home moveie(s).
Pecos |
 Our next trek was to Bandelier National Monument, an excavated and explorable ancient pueblo. We had been there many years ago and much more of it has been opened to the public. It was windy that day so I adjusted some of the audio to decrease the sound of the wind against the camera microphone.
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 We really enjoyed our visit to Ghost Ranch. It's history dates back to a man winning the deed in a poker game and his wife having the deed registered in her name, and then divorcing him. She ran it as a Dude ranch for years, then sold it to Arthur Pack, who, as he aged, became concerned with it's future and offered it to the Boy Scouts, who who turned it down because they had just purchased Philmont in northeastern New Mexico. He offered it to the Catholic church, the YMCA, the Church of the Brethren, none of them were able to accept the gift. Fortunately, the Presbyterians could and did. It is now a Presbyterian Retreat Center that offers tourist trap aminities to registrants and vistors alike. |
 Ghost
Ranch is probably most famous as the residence of Georgia O'Keeffe and
the site of many of the landscapes she painted. This has not been
lost on many artists. These are some who were there when we
arrived. (The property is also know for the prehistoric fossil
deposits discovered there. I visited the exhibit that showed some
fossils and described the process of uncovering them. I have no
pictures of that process.)In case you didn't notice the banner at the top of this site, I had a ball riding horseback to the various O'Keeffe landscape sites. I took my video camera. Following are short videos of the sites. The horse was not a steady tripod so you might get a case of motion sickness watching them. I paused the video when it showed one of the sites. |
 We'll start the trail ride and view the mesa that O'Keeffe painted. She painted it so often she said it was God's gift to her.
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 The next scene was what she called the Lavender Hills.
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 Her depiction of the red hills is much better than the real thing. So much so I had trouble trying to decide which hills she was painting.
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 We stopped for an unnecessary rest to view the chimneys. The guide got off and used the rider's cameras to take pictures. He wasn't real sure about my movie camera but he got it done, so in this video you get to see the chimneys and the Dude!
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 After the chimneys we headed back to Ghost Ranch and passed what O'Keeffe called the New Mexico Hill.
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 She called this her backyard. As we journeyed back we were able to take in her backyard. I couldn't quite figure out what part of the formations this is because if it's the end of the formation, I think it is there should be some chimneys to the left.
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 The last thing on the tour was this dead tree she called Gerald's Tree. The guide announced it, I'm not sure I've got the right one and if I do, it's from a view from the other side than this is depicting. The guide said it's stood for so long because the arid climate keeps things like this from rotting.
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 I've forgotten how we found out about this place, but it is supposedly a location for filming some of the scences in Star Wars, episode VII. I was unable to find a scene online that looked anything like this area, but it is a bit interesting, and worth a short video.
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 Sandra cannot go to Santa Fe without visiting Taos (the pueblo, that is). But on this trip we actually went to the town of Taos and discovered Kit Carson's home. |
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some fairly famous frescoes at the Historic County Courthouse.
They were funded by the Public Works of Art Project in 1934. It
was part of the Works Progress Administration, a government project to
get people back to work during the Great Depression. The one pictured to the right is entitled "The Lawgiver" and depicts Moses. ( I wonder if the artist might not have been up much on the Bible stories because there's a rainbow behind Moses and that goes with the story of Noah.) Below are the other three: |
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 On the way back from Taos we stopped at the Rio Grande River Gorge Bridge. Sandra took this picture and I put it at the end of the video so you'd know the video had ended.
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 I
can't remember how we found out about this place but it was a most
interesting afternoon and it's only a mile and a half past the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge so I imagine we saw a sign or someone mentioned it to us while we were at the bridge. It's one of the longer short videos, but if you've never visited Earthship, it's worth the watch.
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And that does it for this personal journal of our wonderful dog sitting chore. To return to My Bucket List home page, Click on the Coffee Can! |
