Petroglyph National Monument

I was very excited to get to see the petroglyphs today. Brock and I compared schedules and he thought he could take a break from work around 1 pm and we could go explore for a couple of hours and then come back and he could finish up his work day. The kids and I would just get as much school out of the way before and then we'd finish up when we got back too.

At one point this morning, I was cleaning up some emails and I saw that I had a 20% offer from JCPenney. I thought I'd look on their website really quick to see if they had a duvet cover that would work for us. I had looked at a Penneys in Houston and they at least had duvet covers, but they only had solid colors and they were priced at $110. Not what I was looking for. As I pulled up JCP's website, I saw that they had several duvets AND I found one that was the right tones to fit in with the trailer's decor AND I liked it AND it wasn't too expensive AND it had great customer reviews online. I was guarded as I used the option where you can see if it is in stock in your local store. Lo and behold it was!! I was so excited, but I was still cautious about getting my hopes up too high just in case they really didn't have it and just in case they wouldn't honor the 20% off since I couldn't print out the coupon. I wrote down the store's address so that we could plug it in and see where it was. We decided to head to the store after our hike among the petroglyphs. It seems so strange that there is such a cool historical/cultural treasure and it is right in the middle of civilization here in Albuquerque. It was literally under 3 miles from the parking lot for the trail to the JCP parking lot!

Once Brock got to an ok stopping point and we had all eaten lunch, we headed to the Petroglyph National Monument Visitor Center where we could pick up a little info about the park's trails and specifically the more remote one that we wanted to see.

The outside of the visitor's center

From there we drove about 6 miles to the Piedras Marcadas Canyon Trail. We'd read a google user review that said that trail was less traveled and there were lots of petroglyphs. We were not disappointed. From the literature that we picked up at the visitor center, we learned that most of the glyphs are thought to be between 400-700 years old and made by ancestors of today's Pueblo people. Some of the images could be 2000-3000 years old. Starting in the 1600s, Spanish settlers also carved crosses and livestock brands into the rocks.

Look above us for some of the first petroglyphs we saw.

Kind of like a treasure hunt searching them out.

There was some information about common symbols, but part of the fun of the day
was trying to guess what we were looking at or what story they were telling.

The only snake we saw today. Phew.

The literature says the images were made by carefully pecking
away at the rock with stone tools.

Bryn and I decided this face was angry.

One of my favorites, this looks like people dancing
around the fire, under the moon.

I don't know what this one is about, but it is more
than a little intimidating to me.

Dumping the dirt out of our shoes when we got back to the car.

It turned out we were in the canyon for a little longer than anticipated (it was so cool) and so we ended up heading to JCPenneys right about 5 o'clock rush hour, but we got there without too much trouble and Bryn and I headed in while the guys opted to stay in the car. This would not be any leisurely shopping trip. We bee-lined it straight for the Home section and found the duvet cover that I'd seen online for the same price I'd seen online AND I found a nice pair of microfiber sheets to go with it and then we hurried to the shoe section to see if we could find Bryn a new pair because her tennies had really been looking pretty rough lately. We happened to find her her first pair of Converses on the clearance rack. They are brown and white and have sparkly gold accents. I'm sure we'll get a picture in the next day or two. We went to the check stand and I asked about using my coupon just by showing the code from the email and the clerk said "sure, no problem." I love it when they do that. The bedding rang up just as I expected and then Bryn's shoes rang up about $10 cheaper than expected and then the extra 20% came off. Woohoo!

On the drive back to the trailer, we took the scenic route to avoid the main interstate at a busy time and I snapped this picture through the window of the moving car.

It's a volcanic peak on the mesa on the back side of the Petroglyph National Monument.