Bandelier

I made it to my final Santa Fe destination - Bandelier National Monument. It's a canyon surrounded by mesas that has been visited/occupied by humans for 10,000 years. I enjoyed the scenery, being on the canyon floor with a creek and all the greenery, but I have to say I prefer Mesa Verde for the cliff dwellings. The ones at Bandelier are mostly gone, so you only get a hint of what it must have been like. Still, seeing all the caves in the cliffs and knowing that a good portion of them were someone's home is surreal.

The geology around here is one of the most fascinating things. When you drive thru on the interstate, it looks like nothing but barren desert with the occasional tumbleweed. But if you get off that path and out into the country, you find almost-alien landscapes everywhere. I would love to know what it was like to be the first white man to find Slot Canyon or to look down into Frijoles Canyon at Bandelier - and then to try and explain to others what it was you'd found. Then again, with the West being new, maybe fantastic discoveries were the norm. Either way, it would truly suck to come up to one of those canyons in your covered wagon and have to find your way to the other side.