Bandelier National Park

Thursday, August 27, 2018

Today we plan a bus ride to Bandelier National Park with Rux. He is such a joy to do things with!!

Riding the bus was exciting for Rux until we actually started rolling. Then he sat so seriously. 

 This was the best smile I could get out of him. The bus ride was about 30 minutes long.

 We finally made it to the Visitors Center.

 You can see lots of cave dwellings in the distance. We will get much closer soon.

We found a bridge, Rux's favorites. We had to see what we could see.

 And we found several lizards. This is the best picture.

 We are getting closer to the cave dwellings. This is zoomed.

 There were several kivas along our hike.

This is the path leading up to the cave dwellings.

 We walked right buy this beautiful alcove.

From up at the cliff dwellings, we could look back down at the village that once existed.

This rock formation reminded us of 2 people hugging and kissing.

 Rux wanted to climb into the cave so up Nana Dusty went up with him. 

Look how serious he looks. He doesn't want to climb down. So I carried him a couple of steps until I could put him in Tic's outstretched arms.

The next 3 pictures are of more unique rock formations we enjoyed.

We did get someone to take a picture of the 3 of us.

 Rux wanted to climb the next ladder into cave. Before we would let him we had him go up 4 rungs and back down. Now he knew he could do it himself...supposedly.

 Look at that serious face. Again he was too high and afraid to come down on his own. This time Tic went up and carried him all the way down.

After we cameback down out of the cliff dwellings, Rux and I stopped under a shade tree for lunch. Tic decided to go on to the "Long House" and get some pictures.

This was the start of the Long House ruins.

Notice the holes for the roof poles and the rocks in the entrance to a cave room. 

 This is where Rux and I stopped for lunch and the trail to the Long House goes on.

On the way back to the visitors center, Tic got more Cliff Dwelling pictures.

This is just outside the back of the visitors center.

This is one tired boy. Shortly after the bus took off, Rux decided to sit in my lap and he rested deeply all the way back. We all had a great time!!