Southwest Roadtrip Redux: |
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Three Rivers Petroglyph Site
Three Rivers
Bighorn Sheep Shot by Arrows
Birds and a Goblet
Hand and Snake
Spiral Eye Detail
Mogollon Tic Tac Toe?
Glyphs Everywhere
Rio Grande Action
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Leg 2: Southwest Roadtrip Music: reviews of new Nick Cave and Tom Waits > Leg 3: Native American Graffiti ................................ New
Mexico, November 23-24, 2004 Between White Sands and Albuquerque, we stopped at the Three Rivers Petroglyph site. Some crusty hillbilly troll hanging out in the gravel parking lot handed us a map and informed us that there was 21,407 petroglphys in the entire site as if this were the most important attribute--the quantity. I asked him if he was sure there wasn't 21,408 and he didn't think that was funny. But really, were they counting the little peckings where they were practicing? Reminds me of the Beatles line "4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire". Who is he to say to say what is a petroglyph and what isn't. Maybe its all one big story and these are just individual words. Regardless of exactly how many, there were definitely buttloads of glyphs carved into every flat outcrop and rock. I wonder if the Indians (the Jornada Mogollon, or at least that's what we call them) back then had any idea that we would be looking at their scratchings hundreds of years later and counting them and scratching our heads trying to figure out what the hell they mean. Were they trying to tell us something or were they just doodling like some sort of prehistoric graffiti artists? We'll never really know as there are no known descendents. The truth lies in the art of the petroglyphs themselves. Check them out. We also went back to the Petroglyph National Monument outside of Albuquerque. Since we were there last year, they have managed to plow a road right through the heart of the site, despite efforts to stop it. There was a small write-up on this in last month’s National Geographic or also here. It seems nothing can stop the Juggernaut of Albuquerque expansionism. It is shaping up to be the next Phoenix. If humans occupied apartment buildings in cities where they can take public transportation, instead of demanding their own big yards with big pools and big cars to sit in traffic, we wouldn't have these problems. We also took a day trip up to Santa Fe, and after eating pozole at the Plaza cafe we came across a railroad yard with some interesting graffiti on the boxcars.
................................ Petroglyph National Monument (Albuquerque) If You Build It They Will Come
Spiral and Bird that they actually allow you to touch
Railroad Car in Santa Fe
Boxcar Graffiti Detail
1¢ Stencil Meme along Route 66 (also displayed on the Street Memes Site) |
Onward to the last leg:
© 2004 by Derek White and Jessica Fanzo |