Waking up in a park without your tent site flooded is already a great start to a day. Learning how to make your own coffee with a press and eating Frosted Shredded Wheat and collapsible cups is just bonus. We learned that you can probably press it twice maybe 3 times, but the 3rd or 4th time you try to reuse the coffee grounds it tastes pretty terrible. But we got our morning coffee, and that was a good start.
We made our way to the cave dwellings in Bandelier and somehow did it the best possible way we could have without knowing. We ended up hiking from our campsite across a little mountain path maybe 2 miles and down to the cave dwellings. From here, it's a short walk two the district Center area where you can take a shuttle back to where the campsite is. It ended up working really well. The caves were amazing. Little stone bubbles carved into a cliff side with ladders that people once lived in. Although all this is really great, I came back feeling deflated. Have you ever felt uninspired or worthless or basically just like you're never going to be good enough and you're never going to find that something that you're looking for? I think I was starting to feel this. It might be lack of sleep, it might be the past hectic 3 months catching up to me, but I'm usually left feeling like I suck at photography and I'll never be good at anything in my life. Not overreacting at all, I know. I'm very realistic. It left me with the sinking feeling that this trip that I'm on is going to end in a disappointment. We're not going to see anything cool, I'm not going to make any good pictures, and I'm not going to learn anything. Whomp whomp. Luckily we stumbled upon a glistening lake surrounded by Georgia O'Keeffe mountain muses and forgot all about my wallowing self pity.
This wasn't the original plan, mind you. We meant to go to a hand carved cave art studio and then see Ghost Ranch, a little getaway place dedicated to O'Keeffe. So we tried to get to this cave and somewhere along the way, my GPS decided to try to take us down a dirt road that had been overgrown with plants and bushes. In true Gabby and Alia style, naturally we tried to take the road. That is until the under side of my car started to bottom out every turn we made. But we did get to see some cute horses, and drove through a reservation, so that was worth it. And I was definitely feeling in better spirits. Finally, we got to the gates of the cave and of course, they're closed on Wednesdays. So on to Ghost Ranch.
Somewhere on the way to Ghost Ranch in our 110 degree weather, we saw a sign for a lake and decided to pull off and check it out. First excellent decision we've made. We stopped at Abiquiu Lake right near Ghost Ranch and the area where Georgia O'Keeffe once lived and painted. It ended up working really well. It's a beautiful man-made lake, surrounded by cliffs and rocks and interesting plant life. Skip the beach. If you walk past the beach and down a little Trail it takes you to your own private rocks away from the beach goers and their children. Mainly the children.
We even found a constructed spa type area where we lounged for a while eating goldfish and plumbs and it was perfect. On the way out we stopped to chat with two women that were also along the rocks. They were smart and sassy and filled with New Mexico suggestions. She told us she's been coming here for years and she doesn't tell anybody because she doesn't want people to find out about it. We told her that we were art teachers and that we were on a vacation trip together on the way to see Ghost Ranch but got distracted by the lake. She told us to turn around and look at one of the buttes sticking up from the horizon. She pointed out a few of the rocks faces including this one that were Georgia O'Keeffe paintings.
We were swimming in the middle of a Georgia O'Keeffe painting.
The lake was not constructed when she was painting here, but now a cool, relaxing escape exists where you can sit and marvel at the grandest of her subjects. At this time in the day, we weren't sure where we were camping for the night, so suggestions are always welcome. They said that we absolutely had to go to Chaco Canyon and see the old ruins and camp in the canyons. We still aren't sure if they were joking with us or not. The way in seems like it had to have been a practical joke, but the Canyons themselves are almost as insane as the entry and exit.
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