brad's blog
Too old for Tik-Tok. Too lazy for YouTube.
Bandelier National Monument
05/10/24 - Bandelier National Monument is located northwest of Santa Fe. It is an extensive series of pueblos, rooms, and trails that lets you explore the incredible life that people once had here. It was occupied from 1150 to 1550 (approx). The houses were literally just carved into the sides of the mountains. Of course you can't just have a place to crash so they farmed, gathered local plants, hunted, and domesticated animals too. When the area could no longer support them, they moved to other areas. The great thing is, that the land is preserved for us to explore now and to see this fascinating history basically as it was left behind. The park has over 70 miles of trails, but if you want to see the most with the least effort, the Pueblo Loop Trail is the one to see. It's about 1 1/2 miles long with 21 numbered stops along the way. There are some stairs, and they have handrails and it's not fully accessible for the full loop. I'd allocate about an hour for this trail, depending on how crowded it is.
In addition to the cliff dwellings, there is also the massive Tyuonyi structure which had over 400 rooms. It was most likely used to store food according to the parks website. Renderings of it in the museum support this as the individual rooms were accessible through the roofs, so it did not support moving about from unit to unit as one might expect in a dwelling set up for humans. Another structure in the park is the Long House. It was a series of homes built along the base of the cliff that is simply massive. You can only see the foundations but that in it self is enough to appreciate the enormity of the dwellings that were once there. There are a lot of petroglyphs there too, so stop along the way and pay attention to the detail.
If you are in or near Santa Fe, and this kind of history is your thing, I highly recommend this National Monument. I'm rocking the Senior Lifetime pass so it cost me nothing. If you are a single vehicle, it's $25.00. You can buy an annual pass to this site for $45.00, but if you go to more than one National Park per year, I recommend the America the Beautiful - National Park and Federal Recreation Lands Pass for $80. Granted, the pass has a little more juice out west than back east so you have to do what is right for you. I'm just saying if you went to this site (25), the Grand Canyon (35) and Yosemite (35) you can save some $. Plan accordingly. Would I go back again? Sure. We left a lot or trails unexplored and even without the incredible history, it was a beautiful site. Also, they had a cafe and a pretty decent gift shop with some pretty good and atypical merch.
https://nps.gov/band/index.htm
Meow Wolf
05/03/24 - Driving into Santa Fe, we saw a couple billboards for Meow Wolf. They had no indication of what it was. (I incorrectly guessed a cannabis shop). Once we got settled, we went online to discover that they billed themselves as an immersive art experience that "...opens portals of possibility." and "redefine(s) the paradigm of art and storytelling to make a positive difference in the world." There is a video on their web page that gave a hint of what we were in for so we decided to give it a shot. I'm always up for something random, new, or weird and this looked like it checked all of the boxes. We did a drive by and saw a few large sculptures in the parking lot so we decided to give it a go.
When you enter the building, there is a reception area, a gift shop, and a cafe. When you go inside, your first stop is what looks like an old Victorian house. Inside, the rooms are filled with random weirdness, like a dining room table with an oscilloscope and what may or may not be someone's manifesto. Each successive room got a little weirder and you can see that the randomness is purposful. This is art, just not your father's art. (Unless your father was really cool. Oh, and that thing that looks like a fridge, it's a door to somewhere else. Follow it and see where you end up. It took us to a larger area, ostensibly outside o f the house, but still in the building where there were a series of different areas with more random and seemingly unrelated artwork. One area was a black and white room covered in illustrations. One area was an office which looked like a conspiracy theorist's lair, with a working computer that you could launch the files on the desktop to see those images. And another area was a sea of day glow trees with fish hanging from the ceiling.
As always, art is in the eye of the beholder, but this was what I can best characterize as 2020's pop art. It was a truly immersive experience. It is an unguided tour. You just walk around and observe and intake the creativity. It is hard to know where you have been and what is left to see, but I think that adds to the experience. It's creative, random, and different. There is so much detail in all of the displays, that I'd go back again, next time I am in the area and I'd go to the other 4 locations if I am ever in those towns. I'd recommend it if you are at all interested in what I can best call "non-traditional" art. Not sure if that is offensive to the artists, but it's not meant to be. They had a stage as part of the display and it seems that they host musical events there too. I'd not heard of any of the bands, but I'd see a show there just based on the vibe of the space. Two thumbs up and my recommendation to see Meow Wolf if you ever get the chance.
Meow Wolf