We only had a 3 1/2 hour drive from our Taos hotel to our Farmington hotel so we decided to take side trips to a couple of historical sites. Our first stop was Chaco Culture National Historical Site which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was about 3 1/2 hours from Taos but in a different direction than if we had gone from hotel to hotel.
On the way we stopped at the beautiful Lake Abiquiu. It was a state park so we couldn’t access the lake without paying a fee but we found a pretty overlook.
It was an uneventful drive to Chaco until we got about 12 miles away when we ran out of paved road. The first half of those last miles was unimproved but relatively smooth and pot-hole free. The last 6 miles was another story. Peter grit his teeth for the next 15 minutes as I dodged bomb-sized holes. We finally made it to the site and were glad we made the trip. The site has the most expansive ancient ruins north of Mexico. The most impressive building was Pueblo Bonita. In it’s time it was the Great House where groups gathered for meetings, ceremonies, etc. It was pretty impressive.
The bad news was that after we finished touring the ruins, we had to go back the way we came to get to our next stop. This time Peter insisted on driving. I leave it to your imagination how long it took to get back to the main highway. Anyway, we finally made it to Aztec Ruins National Historical Site, about 90 minutes north of Chaco. As challenging as it was to get to Chaco, it was super simple to get to Aztec as it’s right in the town of Aztec NM. The site was much smaller but still quite nice.
The ruins were basically identical to Chaco as it was built by the same Pueblo tribes that build Chaco. At this site we saw a reconstructed Kiva, which is a room used for meetings and ceremonial rites.
We had the chance to walk through some of the rooms of the other buildings.
After about an hour at Aztec, we headed to our hotel in Farmington, only about 25 minutes away. Tomorrow we head back into AZ, going a bit out of our way to visit Canyon De Chelly (pronounced D’Shay) before settling into our Home2Suites in Page for our last 3 nights on the road. Not sure what we’ll do at Lake Powell (other than laundry) but I’m sure we’ll find something to keep us busy.