After the July 4th holiday Paul and I headed back to El Paso for another 10 days or so, to finish up some projects for his mom. The 3 of us had one last outing, up to Las Cruces for lunch.Our first stop after leaving there was Albuquerque New Mexico, where we had a date for dinner with our friend Teresa. Of course, I forgot to take a picture. We didn’t hang around long, just one night- before heading to our destination- Cochiti Lake.
We used this COE campground as our base to do a little hiking and exploring. First up was Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument. We had tried to hike here before but it was barricaded when we tried- during the federal shut down in 2013. 
There was a lot to like about this hike. The tents, or hoodoos, are mostly comprised of tuff, or volcanic ash, spewed from numerous volcanos that erupted regularly 7 million years ago.
The tent-like shapes were really cool to see. Many of them started out as over 1000 feet thick.
We love hiking slot canyons and this trail features a little bit of that as we worked our way through the hoodoos and up to the ridge above them.
The view at the top was pretty nice- this picture doesn’t do it justice.
The trail was only about 3.5 miles long, with 750 ft of elevation gain.
In general, that would be pretty easy for us, however, it was 98* outside, and there was very little breeze, and very few clouds (whine, whine, whine).
By the time we were done, I wasn’t feeling that well, and I wasn’t at all surprised to see the buzzards circling!
Our exhaustion after that hike resulted in what we call a “down day”- a day when we don’t do anything exciting or physical. What we did do is get out the maps and try to do some long range planning. It’s not our favorite thing to do, but its necessary. Actually, its more necessary now that we have the house, because we already have a “bookend”- a date when we want to be back in Havasu- so we need to decide where we want to explore in the meantime.
I also took advantage of the free time to get out my good camera and get in some practice using it again. I believe this is a black chinned hummingbird, a variety that is common here, but one that we don’t see in Havasu.
After a full day of rest, we were totally ready for a long day of adventuring. Bandelier National Monument is about an hour or so from Cochiti Lake. There are two ways to get there- the highway, and the back way. Of course, Paul chose the back way.
Up and over the ridges we went, wending our way through the Santa Fe National Forest.
There was lots of evidence of previous forest fires, and the ranger confirmed that there was one as recently as last week. Still, you could see the new growth in some areas.
Bandelier National Monument protects some of the homes built here by the Ancestral Pueblo people. Built in about 1150 AD, they only lived here about 300 years before moving on to other locations.
Although some of the buildings seem typical of that time period, such as this one, which was built on the ground, using blocks of Tuff (hardened volcanic ash), others were more unique:
Many of the “rooms” are Cavates- rooms that are carved into the rock. 
Although some of the cavates are at floor level, many of them are up high enough to require a ladder.
Once inside, you could explore several of the rooms.
We hiked the extra mile to get to Alcove House, which sits 140 above the ground and is reached by a series of ladders and stairs. Paul made the trip all the way up the ladders, but I got caught up talking to several college students who were on a week long photography field trip. 
Once we got back to the visitor center, we saw that there were some telescopes set up. This not so great picture is of the sun, taken with a hydrogen filter. Pretty cool.
With temperatures still in the mid 90s, we decided it was time to continue our trek north.
