We took a wonderful day trip on Sunday. It started with me being woken by my Dear Husband (DH) saying we should take the bike out for breakfast and a ride up to the Pecos. Hummm..........sure sounds better than any plans I had. So I got out of bed and put on my riding clothes and we headed out the scenic way up the Turquoise Trial to the San Marcos Cafe. They have wonderful New Mexican food. Not much of that is Paleo but my eggs and ham with some fruit was very good. DH not being paleo had a blue corn enchilada which he said was quite tasty. We headed out after breakfast and hit I-25 at Santa Fe and took off East. We got off at the exit for the Pecos National Historical Park. We have lived here since 2001 and have driven by many times going other places and have never stopped. The park is just south of the small town of Pecos.
The trail thru the ruins was beautiful. The scenery was awesome with beautiful mountains and mesas all around.
The restored Kiva was very cool. How could one resist going down the ladder to see what it looks like inside.
I was amazed at how much room there was inside the Kiva. It was also nice and cool inside. Kivas are special places to Puebloan peoples. They are the ceremonial and social spaces located between the underworld, where the people had their origin, and the world above, where they live now.
This sign shows what the pueblo looked like in its heyday. It was four to five stories high and had about 2000 residents. This site was occupied for over 10,000 years and saw many changes. The photo was an artist rendition from about 1625 when this was a trading center for the Pains Indians coming from the plains to the East, the Pueblo Indians coming from the West and the Spanish.
Next we headed up the road to the North. If you are a Longmire fan then we think that there were some scenes from the series filmed along this road. At Cowles is the trail head for many trails giving access to the Pecos Wilderness. We are panning a future trip backpacking up in that area and may go up this very trail...............very tempting.
The Pecos headwaters are just upriver from Cowles and this is a great fishing spot.
The flowers were out everywhere in a profusion of colors. With all the rain we have had this year it is very green and lush.
