July 13 Leaving New Mexico

Our two vans left the Stargazer Lodge by 9:30 for the airport, with a detour to visit Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos, the site where the atomic bomb was first created. We walked in the grooves formed by the footsteps of the Anasazi, a Navajo word for "the enemy's ancestors", referring to the Pueblo people's fore bearers. The Anasazi lived in fertile river valleys in the Southwest until continual attacks on their communities forced them to relocate in the upper reaches of the mesas, carving cave-like homes in the soft tufa rock or forming secure  communities of mud brick mesa-top dwellings. They created permanent foot paths from the heights of the mesas down to the valley where their crops grew. We took these ancient footpaths up to where the ruins of their homes remain. We had come full circle in our journey to meeting the people of the Pueblo.