Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country, Day 14

Monday, September 23

Long drive but maybe not as long as we were expecting. Actually in distance it wasn't that bad, but the slowdowns and all the shitty little towns with speed limits pushed our drive time up to a little over four hours.  We ended up not taking a lunch break because there were no rest areas expect the little one way back in the Ute Mountain Indian Reservation.

Always mountains ahead and in the distance, but the only significant elevation change we experienced was at the beginning, getting down out of the Canyonlands and Moab rocky scenery. We went alongside El Sal Mountains, but not close enough to have to do their ups-and-downs.

And so we arrived at Ruins Road RV Park. It's smack dab in the middle of the little town of Aztec; it has no view; not great as far as amenities and lot spacing, and it's 99% permanent dwellers so it feels like you're in someone's back yard.  But it backs right up to the Animas River and has a tent area there, somewhat private from the RV sites.  Molly and I will go walk back there in the evening.

The river:

 

After getting set up, I tried to go jogging with Molly on down Ruins Road to the Aztec National Monument Site.  Note right now: although it's called "Aztec", it was not built by the Aztec peoples of South America, nor did they ever come anywhere near this area.  Apparently that term was indiscriminately applied by the Spanish explorers to cover all native sites.  It was built by ancestral Puebloans, the same ones who created Chaco Canyon.

(Apparently the modern day tribes don't like their ancestors being called "Anasazi"; it's somehow a deragatory term.  So the correct term is "ancestral Puebloans")

Molly and I jogged cautiously down the city streets and onto the monument, where we found prairie dogs galore. They had a town just outside the visitor center and another over by the picnic area.  A nice park employee told us it was okay to have dogs in the Picnic area and parking lot, and also--I think--on the bike trail. But we only went a little way on the bike trail before I got worried that we should be there and turned back.  There were interpretive plaques alongside the trail and it was clear that we were on the monument's grounds.

But as we went back, I was able to see over the fence to the Archaeological/Restoration site--it was huge and looked really cool. So we jogged back to the RV, avoiding getting attacked by a home dweller's loose dog who fortunately responded well to the word "NO" and never left his yard. Maybe he was on a shock collar or maybe just well-trained, but whatever the reason, it was a nightmare to see an unleashed dog running right toward us. The owner came out of the house, but I ignored her and went on with a snarl.

In any event, we won't be going back to that RV park again. Leaving Molly behind, Ed and I walked the 1/3 mile stretch back to the monument.  Great place. Some of it was recreated by the archeologist Earl H Morris in 1916, who spent seven seasons excavating Aztec West and the great Kiva. In the 1930s he returned to supervise reconstruction of the great Kiva. It looks much like they think it did originally. Most of the (many) other rooms are pretty much in their original state or else the restoration was so skillful I couldn't tell old from new.

Great place and I'm incredibly happy we went to see the ruins.