Albuquerque - here and there

Albuquerque is a fascinating city even without Old Town. At its outskirts are petroglyphs, volcanoes and wild horses. And I'm sure more that I've yet to discover.

Take a look here at the Petroglyphs National Park; the Albuquerque Volcanoes, also called the Three Sisters; and Placitas, a suburb of Albuquerque where it's said wild horses can be seen roaming the streets. We found a few.

To the west of Albuquerque lie the Albuquerque Volcanoes, a series of volcanoes that erupted 200,000 years ago. In that sense, they are relatively young volcanoes. They are the result of a volcanic fissure, meaning, in the simplest terms that I can understand, a long crack under the surface of the earth. Fissures don't usually explode which may explain why they are more like hills than huge cones. These "Three Sisters," as they are called are named Vulcan, Black and JA. They are extinct. The area in which they are located is part of the Petroglyph National Monument. The lava left by the volcanoes created the escarpment of the Petroglyphs Natl Monument.

The Petroglyph National Monument comprises three separate areas, not including the site of the Visitor Center. The petroglyphs are considered to be 400 to 700 years old, carved by native Indians of that era. Under the PNM are .some 24,000 petroglyphs. The Rinconada section is an easy one-mile trail that parallels the escarpment caused by the Albuquerque Volcanoes. Though I didn't go that far, I think the trail continues into a canyon. The other two locations are Boca Negra and Piedras Marcadas. One must drive from one location to the other.

Located in the vast open land of high desert, tumbleweeds are common, and on this particulary windy day that I visited with a friend, we were watching them speed across the volcano cones in every which direction, depending on the gusts. However, this fence became the end of many a tumbleweed's journey.

Though no petrglyphs can be seen on these two rocks in the foreground, the photo shows the extent of the area in which the petroglyphs lie at the Rinconada location. The picture to the right shows the escarpment created by the Albuquerque Volcano fissure.

This and the remaining images were taken at the Boca Negra field.