October 27-28, 2022 Farmington, New Mexico

 High today of 49 , partly cloudy, very windy and some SNOW! The low tonight is predicted to be 23. 

Crossing the San Juan River as we leave Bluff. Roadside hoo doos seen through a dirty window. 

We passed through Arizona and the Navajo Nation to arrive in Farmington, New Mexico. Shiprock in the distance with SNOW through a dirty window. The snow did not stick to the ground, just blew around a little bit when we went through the city of Shiprock. 

The bus parked at the McGee Park, San Juan county fair grounds. We have a nice view of the San Juan river on one side and a RV parking lot on the other side, with a pond and fall cottonwoods. We are the only people here. It is very quiet, and we are far away from the street lights as we could get. We toured the Salmon Ruins today. It was a 250-300 room great house, 3 stories high in places. It was the largest of the outlier colonies of Chaco Canyon. Here is a map of the floor plan as it was in 1116 AD.

Some pots and a basket in the museum. The land was homesteaded by George Salmon. The ruins are named after him. He had an apple orchard, so the Salmon orchard. A cat visited us at the ruins.

John viewing some of the rooms on the first floor in the back. The roofs were built with first timbers across, then smaller pieces crosswise, some kind of bush over that and then adobe. You can see it in this window. The original walls were 3 feet thick, a veneer of smooth flat stones on each side, with smaller flat stones between and filled with rocks and rubble, a view looking down on a wall on the bottom. After the Chacoan people left, Mesa Verde people moved in. Their walls were more random stones with just adobe mortar in between. Next to the window shows the two different styles. And a larger view of the original Chacoan walls.  

Many of the square original rooms were rebuilt by the Mesa Verde people into round kivas. You can see the square corners with the round ones built inside with different masonry. 

This room has an alter at the end. The room has been partially filled in to preserve it, so the alter looks like a slab. On the solstice the light shines in exactly on the stone on the alter. This is the first floor is the huge 3 story tower kiva. 

The large grand kiva with the courtyard behind it. This kiva besides being a square room converted to a round kiva with different masonry styles also has some repair work on the bottom done at a later time with round river stones. 

An example of a trading post in the 'heritage area of the museum'. The insides of a Hogan and a pit house in the heritage area.

Sun in the cottonwoods in the outdoor exhibit area. After the ruin we visited Lauter Haus Brewing company. John with his IPA and my Cowboy Coffee- coffee stout in the background. The walls have pinball machines decorated for Halloween. 

Sunset with a setting sliver moon from our campsite.