Trip to New Mexico
-
Long Logs
Near the southern entrance to Petrified Forest National Park, we took a two-mile hike on the Long Logs trail past scenes like this of Triassic-era fossilized logs. Hard to picture this dry landscape as a tropical rainforest, but that’s why there are so many trees preserved here.
-
Petrified Wood
The southern half of the park is covered with chunks of petrified wood from the forest that covered this landscape over 200 million years ago. Soaking up groundwater with silica, over time they fossilized into quartz, with the vivid colors created by different minerals.
-
The Teepees
Several of these colorfully banded pyramids in Petrified Forest NP are called The Teepees. The park was established as a national monument by Teddy Roosevelt in 1906. After adding more acreage over the years, it was upgraded to a national park in 1962.
-
Petroglyphs
Halfway through Petrified Forest NP is an overlook where you can see Newspaper Rock, covered with over 650 petroglyphs carved into the rock by native residents and visitors, some over 2,000 years ago!
-
Nizhoni Point
Another view of the “Painted Desert” worth contemplating is this one from Nizhoni Point on the road through Petrified Forest NP. Nizhoni is the Navajo word for beautiful, and these rock formations certainly live up to their name.
-
Painted Desert
Our first weekend at Rehoboth, we drove an hour west to explore Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. The first view you get of the park is this panorama out over the “Painted Desert” – a 200 million-year old wilderness of sedimentary rocks full of colorful hues and tones.
-
Pot Trophies
Rehoboth hosts athletic tournaments against other schools from Navajo country and across New Mexico. In keeping with the local aesthetic, the winners receive a painted pot instead of a standard wood and metal trophy.
-
Code Talkers
Navajo “code talkers” helped the U.S. defeat Japan in WWII by using their language for coded communications. Thirty of the 400 total code talkers were Rehoboth students, and others, like James Nahkai Jr., were parents or grandparents of Rehoboth students.
-
Elevator
Rehoboth’s multi-cultural and multi-lingual student body is 3/4 Native American. Where else would you find signage that identifies everything in English, Navajo, Spanish, Zuni, and Braille?
-
Rehoboth
Rehoboth Christian School is a K-12 private school in the sagebrush near Gallup, New Mexico. Elaine and I spent a month volunteering there in Nov.-Dec. 2025, helping students and staff in a variety of ways. (Those are two small observatories in the foreground for night sky viewing.)
-
Adobe Walls
Inside the oldest house in America, there isn’t much space when you have 2-foot thick adobe brick walls. Santa Fe has history like no where else in the U.S.!
-
Oldest House
Across the street from the oldest church in America is the oldest house (foreground), built in 1646 as a private home by the Spanish and never really renovated.
-
Crucifiction
Painted in the 1630s on buffalo hide and now hanging on the walls of San Miguel Chapel, this compilation of images from the Passion of Christ was used as a visual aid for teaching Christianity to Pueblo Indians.
-
Layers of History
San Miguel chapel was damaged in 1640, burned in the 1680 Pueblo Revolt and rebuilt again in 1710. An anonymous local artist created the altar screen in 1798, highlighting Saints Teresa of Avila (upper left), Clare of Assisi (upper right) and Francis of Assisi (middle left).
-
Oldest Church
How old is Santa Fe? San Miguel Church in downtown is the oldest church in the continental U.S., built in about 1610, or a decade before the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts!
-
Harmonious Way
A detailed, two-panel painting by Douglas Johnson brings the natural elements of the Navajo and Pueblo tribes together to illustrate harmony. Johnson, who has lived with a Navajo weaver, is one of the New Mexico artists whose work is on display in the State Capitol building.
-
Quetzalcoatl & The Master Ants
This elaborate cut paper art by Catalina Delgado Trunk hangs in the state Capitol hallways. Aztec myth says Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent god who created humans, became an ant in order to enter the master ant’s mountain to steal corn for people to eat.
-
Woven Drawing
Local artist Carl Schuman uses colored pencils to create multi-layered drawing constructions like this one in the Capital building in Santa Fe. “Where All True Paths Meet” is part of the Capitol Art Foundation’s collection of New Mexico masterworks.
-
Hacienda
The Capitol Art Foundation’s collection includes “Hacienda Shadow Play” by Santa Fe artist Albert Handell. Known for his painting workshops, Handell was one of the first American artists to paint en plain air with pastels.
-
House Chamber
Big curves mark the layout of desks on the floor of the New Mexico House of Representatives and are mirrored in the overhead light fixtures. Of course, it is in a round building.
-
Rotunda
The center of New Mexico’s Capitol Building features the seal of the state on the floor and a beautiful skylight above that is reminiscent of the designs on native pottery from the state.
-
NM Capitol Building
Santa Fe is the capital of New Mexico, and this circular brown structure is the Capitol Building. Brown seems more appropriate than white marble in this city built of adobe and stone. And the sculptures outside are just the beginning of the artwork that can be found inside.
-
Tewa Tales of Suspense
The Tewa Country exhibit included edgy works like this take on a superhero story of a woman warrior surrounded by symbols of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 that burned down Catholic churches and drove the Spanish colonial forces out of New Mexico for 12 years.
-
Round Earth
Hopi artist Arlo Namingha sculpted natural materials into a timeline of the land. Titled “Tsi’ Pin (Pedernall),” it speaks to O’Keeffe’s statement of “owning” the Pedernal mountain, saying instead that we are stewards for a brief time of the locations we inhabit.
-
Prayer Making Its Way
Artist Eliza Naranjo Morse (Santa Clara Pueblo) painted “A Prayer Making Its Way” of a badger carrying Tewa creations up a snowy mountainside with pink rain clouds offering encouragement in the background. A different take on New Mexico’s landscape that caught my attention.
Words Are Inadequate 