Falling asleep to the faint sound of rhythmic drums should be a patented sleep aide because we both slept amazingly well. We took advantage of another opportunity to eat at the Cultural Center for breakfast, and Mike had yet another helping of fry bread with his breakfast, this time made with blue corn. Tami accompanied her breakfast with blue corn pancakes and we were both ready to hit the road again.

Off we went in our little under-powered SUV, a Dodge Journey. We don’t know what the actual 0 to 60 time might be, but suspicions are in the 20 to 30 second range. Trying to pass a slowpoke on the highway certainly requires an unseemly distance to accomplish, but at least much of our route includes long stretches of straight highway.

Today we put some miles in. Our first real stop was in Gallup, where we knew there were some native american jewelry shops. They were all mostly along old Route 66, but we soon realized that since it was Sunday absolutely nothing was open. There weren’t even any people out! This town was buttoned up tight. So back on the highway, and we feared that our next stop would be a big disappointment.

Our hope was to stop in Zuni in the middle of Zuni Land. We never made it there on our previous trip and we really enjoy their style of jewelry. So we took the side highway heading to Zuni and kept our fingers crossed.

Mesa view from Zuni

The first good sign was that there were actually people out and about in Zuni as we drove into the Pueblo, and sure enough, several of the shops were open! So we made some stops and educated ourselves on what is currently being made by the Zuni. It was interesting to learn that 80% of the Zuni are actively involved in producing arts for sale. We certainly saw some beautiful work and learned more about some of the distinctions between Navajo and Zuni jewelry.

The afternoon was progressing rapidly, hastened by the time change to Mountain Daylight Time. This has been confusing because Arizona does not observe Daylight Savings Time, but the Navajo, located within Arizona, do. So figuring out what time it is can be challenging, but once we entered New Mexico we finally knew what time it really was, and we entered El Morro National Monument with just an hour to explore it.

We didn’t really know anything about El Morro, but could certainly see the geological feature as we approached. There is a small portion of an excavated ruin on the site, but the other feature of the monument is the Inscriptions. These are basically a series  of graffiti carved into the base of the dramatic base of El Morro rock, starting with local tribes going back thousands of years through the Spanish explorers and on to early pioneers and the US army troops from the 1800’s.

There is a large rain-fed pool at the base of the rock formation that made a welcome oasis for travelers in the area and everyone wanted to make their mark. It was truly fascinating.

Back on the road again towards Albuquerque and we were traveling through beautiful pine forests on the top of a plateau. As we finally descended a plateau that would eventually lead to Albuquerque we saw one humongous thunderstorm ahead of us expanding across the sky.

We drove miles and miles, all the time trying to decide after each turn of the highway whether or not we would find ourselves pounded by rain and lightening. We seemed to just stay on the edge of it and did get some good rain showers as we were nearly to Albuquerque, but we managed to avoid the worst of it. Then we spotted another big storm cell at the other end of town. My but those were some dark clouds! We were seeing lightening now, too, but finally pulled into the hotel parking lot before the skies opened. Phew!

Mike is busy researching what there is to do around here, as we have reserved our room for three nights. First thing tomorrow, however, is we have to run payroll for the office. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the remote access program will work properly to enable us to do that!