Day 19 – Natural Bridges

Another work day plus.... When I was in graduate school at Michigan State in the early 70s, my advisor introduced me to archeoastronomy – the study of the understanding the ancients had of the sky: sun, moon, and stars. He was particularly interested in the American southwest, especially the Colorado Plateau. He had pictures of petroglyphs and pictographs showing stars and crescent moon that he took at Chaco Canyon New Mexico. I have kept a minor interest in this field but not done much with it. This week I met a team of archeoastronomers who are doing grunt-work field research on the ancient Puebloans, cliff dwellers. I expressed some interest and they invited me on a hike to visit this park's Horsecollar ruins. It is pretty warm here during the day and I am grossly out of shape. They promised to get me in and get me out. So I went. Very nice. It did stress me and I was winded whenever we climbed. The going down and even level walking was fine, of course. This took much of the day. I was able to get some good shots of the ruins and great shots of some petroglyphs and pictographs.
Part of Horsecollar Ruins
The Kiva
Inside the Kiva, shot through a crack in the roof.


Pictographs
Petroglyphs. These may be 800 years old.

At nine o’clock we had another dark sky program. The skies cooperated once more and it was well received. It was especially neat to see several meteors. They always excite the crowd. I am just soaking these views up, because I know it will be a long time before I get to see such a beautiful, clear sky after August 1.