Chaco Canyon and Tovakwa/Amoxiumqua

My second trip to Chaco. Like the dodo that I am, I forgot my boots and went hiking around Chaco Canyon in Tevas. Tevas + bad ankles = estúpida. I spent the next week limping around Tovakwa/Amoxiumqua trying to accomplish archaeology but succeeding in RICE-ing (rest, ice, compress, elevate) the ankle instead. :(

For the limited amount of time we were able to do fieldwork, I'd say we got a lot accomplished. We surveyed using an RTK (radio working and all) and found its strengths and limitations. Portions of the site were also surveyed using GPR. We brought in a total station to map in a few of our problem areas and did artifact collection with a few people from Jemez on the last couple days. Finally, some productive field time! I didn't mind the long days (or the bumpy-as-hell two hour ride in to the site) as long as we were hauling ass in the field.

If there is anything I've learned, it's that loud classic rock makes the day go by much, much faster.

On the last day of fieldwork, we were pretty tuckered out -- especially Archaeology Pup, who undoubtedly worked the hardest out of any of us.

I love Albuquerque.

I really, really do. It was like driving into Rancho Cucamonga. There was a Panda Express and a P.F. Chang's off the I-40, and the Southwestern-motif-ed overpasses looked like they'd just been built in the past few years. So, heck yeah, I could live in Albuquerque for two months. I could live in Albuquerque for a long, long time, I think.

I watched the transformation of the changing landscape go from green to yellow to brown and to red and then there was Jemez Pueblo. After picking up groceries for the forty minute drive into the pueblo, I headed up, up up in altitude -- Jemez Pueblo sits at over a mile high in elevation. When I got in, it was dark, and a fire in Arizona had flooded the Rio Grande Valley with smoke. I could hardly see to the left or the right of me. The house sits at the top of a steep hill, and I could make out very little of the road. I was exhausted and fell dead asleep.

Waking up the next morning, I felt just like Frodo waking up in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring -- you know, after he totally just got his ass kicked by the Nazgûl and he miraculously wakes up in Rivendell. I'd gotten my ass kicked by the road trip, but I woke up healed and in beautiful, heavenly surroundings.

(okay. maybe not just like frodo. i'll post pictures of the house later.)

My first Friday in was my day to relax and to check out the area. I journeyed out with the other project members to Jemez Springs to check out the area. First was Giusewa, the Jemez State Monument.

Oscar Wilbur Hammer (a.k.a. "archaeology puppy"), who is a Boston terrier and comprises 1/2 of the Jemez Pueblo Student House Zoo (Sonny the Sun Conure being the second half), did well for being out in the sun (as could be expected of a puppy); although, truth be told, at the end of the short walk through the monument, he had to be airlifted out (i.e., carried out) by his momma.

archy pup fail

Next was Soda Dam. Oscar did much better and proved himself to be quite the brave rock climber.

We went to Battleship Rock next. Yup. Looked like a battleship ... if you used a healthy helping of imagination. Little did we know that it held warm springs on a mile-long hike in, and there was even a waterfall at the end of two miles. Well, we'll save that for another day.

My advisor came by and took us out for dinner out in the big city of Jemez Springs. The Los Ojos Restaurant and Saloon was bustling and it had lots more character than I thought it would have. I wasn't thrilled with their eponymous house special, but I like to remain optimistic. I'm sure there's something else on the menu that will rock my socks, 'cause NM is the land of enchantment. I wouldn't want to accuse them of false advertising.

Notes Photos from the road

I love Intercourse. (PA)

I'm blogging from my cell phone by sending an MMS message to Blogger Mobile. Seems to work all right after a little finagling.

I stopped off at a gas station a couple days ago ($3.85 a gallon? Sheesh. Well, beats $4.50 the summer of 2008....) and walked into the convenience store to grab some water. What's the first thing I see when I walk inside? T-shirts that read "I <3 Intercourse" in big bold letters; then, in small letters, PA.

ROTFLMAO

Places and town names all just kind of run together when you're zipping through on the interstate (it's still weird to call it the "interstate;" I just grew up out west calling it a "freeway") at 65 mph. But boy, oh, boy, am I glad I stopped in here. I have a half-heartedly cultivated taste for road kitsch. Convenience stores at gasoline stations, travel plazas, and truck stops sell some really great stuff, and if you're lucky (or plan a visit well enough in advance, like I did out in Beaver, UT), you'll get a t-shirt commemorating your 15 minute stop at Intercourse, PA, or some other unfortunately-named city -- just like me.

Anyway. The road is getting longer and the weather's getting hotter and more humid the further I get from New England. The radio blurts out severe weather warnings every so often -- about thunderstorms, mostly -- but the closer I get to Joplin, MO, the more wary I get of hearing a tornado watch warning over the airwaves. On top of the fact that I already watch too many horror movies for my own good, I also unfortunately watch too many disaster movies, just like -- yes, Twister. Last thing I want to have happen is a tornado sucking me up and spitting me out somewhere in the middle of a densely populated cow pasture.

Yes, the road is getting longer and the sacroiliac is not happy. Little Sonny has gotten used to the journey and sits half-asleep in his cage most of the time. Sometimes when I turn around to check on him, he'll open his eyes and let out a scratchy "Hi." before going back to sleep. When he comes out at rest stops, he chirps, takes baths, and draws a crowd of parrot lovers and children. That's when the beak flashes open and the eyes slit and he goes into defense mode momentarily, all before diving for cover underneath my hair to hide from the crowd out of shyness.

I'm in Collinsville, IL now, just a little outside St. Louis. This is my second time in Collinsville, and I realized sometime today (while roasting my limbs and getting that authentic "road warrior" driver's tan) that I was lucky to be able to say I'm driving across the country. I've always wanted to. Next time, though, I'll have to put in more time to get in some of the roadside attractions I would have liked to see (like Jesse James' cave hideout).

Ugh, next time...? By the time I'm done with this time, I'll probably want to fly next time. My poor sacroiliac....

Countdown

I'm preparing to head out on a very long drive to New Mexico. Once upon a time (when I was younger, probably), I probably would have been very excited to leave and see the country. Now I feel the need to just get out there and do it. But it's never the destination, so they say -- whoever they are. Whoever they are, they're probably younger than I am, and so are excited to sit in a car for hours on end.

This summer is the first summer after I started the Ph.D. program at Harvard University in the Anthropology program. I will be doing some mapping around Jemez Pueblo, about an hour away from Albuquerque. I haven't been to New Mexico in awhile -- well, just last year I was in New Mexico, but around the Four Corners area and at Aztec and Chaco Canyon. That's just a tiny bit of New Mexico. I'm talking about the belly of New Mexico -- Fort Sumner and Billy the Kid's grave and Las Cruces and Santa Fe and the desert and Taos and everything in between. The West is great, and I haven't been out west for almost a year now.

Despite my excitement, I still have to sit in a car for days.... I'll be sure to pack my copy of Roadfood.

So I'm making my preparations to leave home like I do every summer since I became an archaeologist -- finding babysitters for the pets and new homes for my plants, putting away the school clothes and breaking out the fieldwork clothes, unearthing the Camelbak from all the camping gear, reorganizing the camping gear, and making sure that most of the academic albatrosses that have been circling my head have been hunted down and destroyed. I sent off the ferrets to the babysitter out in Boston the other day, and am now missing them very much. But the good news (and bad news) is that Sonny the sun conure gets to come out to New Mexico. There was the option to board him to spare him the cross-country trip, but he's so bonded to me. It won't be his first cross country trip, anyway, and he's endured the past trips like a champ.

Blogging will be interesting, given that I won't have internet access, although I'll have 3G and wifi access in town somewhere, I suspect. So I'll see how it works out. In the meantime, I'll continue packing and shoot for a Saturday departure. In celebration of my escape from the 02138, I might grill up a lion steak before my departure. If I consume the lion, will I get the lion's strength?