DESTINATION: Gallup, New Mexico
Leaving our one night in Albuquerque, we made a trip to the Petroglyphs National Monument Visitors Center where they gave us three choices of areas to drive to in order to see some ancient petroglyphs. We chose the Piedras Marcadas Canyon just west of Albuquerque. About 200,000 years ago lava flowed from a large crack in the earth’s crust. Once people settled in this area, they discovered that chipping away the rocks’ thin desert varnish revealed a lighter gray and left a lasting mark about 400 to 700 years ago. Some images may be 2,000 to 3,000 years old.
There is a little road runner bird in this next photo…pretty well camouflaged!
It is between the two large rocks in the foreground.
Back in the 1970s the outskirts of Albuquerque were stretching further and further west but some active folks got the spread to stop before they built over these sacred grounds of the native Americans. Housing came pretty darn close to the area as you can see in these two photos. I’m glad these special grounds and the petroglyphs were preserved.
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