Summer Adventures Recap Part XII: Jarido Wandering

Just to keep the record straight because I have posted some this month on things right when they happened. Since we went from Cuba - Espanola we had our ward campout and then it was our backcamping trip. Last weekend we did a weekend here in Albuquerque with a delicious date to Thai food on Friday night and dinner in the desert with a group of friends on Saturday night. Neither of which I have pictures but they did happen!

That brings us to yesterday! (It feels so good to be catching up!)

The last time we went to this area was in January when I was 7 months pregnant. We have enjoyed the lonely desert and decided that we would try yet again to see if we couldn't find some ranch ruins that Stan read about on the internet but we hadn't found yet. It was yet another lonely day as we saw NO souls whatsoever.

On our way out to the car drop off spot...I just don't understand why no one else was out here...

Scott and I getting ready to go. He tolerated those glass for about as long as it took to take this picture.

Following the leader through the sagebrush. There was a TON of it.

There were lots of these beautiful purple flowers. They had pods growing on them as well. Who knows what they were?

As we walked alone we found this old can of Spam. If you really know Stan, you would understand why we had to document this picture. If you want to know a funny story about Stan and Spam, feel free to ask me.

Our first spot was a cemetery that was on an old map. There was one lone grave marker. The fence around the cemetery was on the ground. 

The only thing we could read on the marker was the name of the mortuary. Makes you wonder about this person and their life.

Enjoying the shade of a tree, the lone marker is the white thing on the left of me.

We kept walking along and found this old oil rig.

At first, from afar and just seeing the propane, we thought that maybe someone was living out here. But nope, just this rig.

And these two containers

And the view from the hill they were on. It was a beautiful day!

If you recall the super green place we went a year ago and hiked along a river and fished...oh that could be a lot of places...but it was in San Pedro Parks. The mountains back in the distance is that place.

We kept walking along and were headed toward a canyon where there were supposed to be some ruins and natural springs (in New Mexico? yes, in New Mexico).

It was a super warm day, so we stopped to rest in the shade of this tree in an arroyo.

I LOVE this picture of these two. Scott sure appreciated getting out of the Ergo for a few.

As we were getting ready to climb out of the arroyo, I looked over and saw these in the wall of the arroyo. Who knows how old they were, but that jar was set pretty good in the dirt. It was probably buried and then slowly the water has exposed it.

More junk in that spot.

This wasn't on the map, but we could tell it had been some kind of dwelling. There were quite a few metal pieces around.

We came across this huge corral that they used the large boulders as part of the fence.

We finally arrived at our first spring. It had a well to contain most of the water. It amazing to see the difference in vegetation when there is a little water out in the desert.

More of those purple flowers with the pods and some beautiful orange flowers next to them.

We found this awesome rock that had clearly been chiseled on both sides. Stan is certain it was Indian. That was a fun find. Don't worry, it is still where we found it.

There were aspens outside of the little cave of the spring, this one decided to grow right in the middle of the "cave" all by itself.

A view of one side of the cave.

Looking out from the cave.

A spot for the cows to drink.

Stan went on a quick scramble up on top of the cave mesa.

A little aspen forest he saw on his way up.

Stan on top of the mesa. The sun was SO bright!

His view from the top.

We kept hiking and were so pleased to finally find the rancher ruins we had read about! It made us so curious about the lives of these people. There were quite a few buildings.

This one looks like it got totally demolished by the tree. It looked more like a shed of some kind.

This one was HUGE. It looked like it hadn't quite gotten finished or something because the base was there but there weren't any other remnants of it.

It was made out of very large Ponderosa's.

The doorway

This was the cave/spring close by all of the buildings.

This one appeared to have had a fire

This one just looked all caved in

These were interesting. It almost looked like three houses all connected, but then as we looked closer it was probably two with a little covered space between them.

A closer look

Stan by it...notice the funny wood pattern on the left of the door. I thought it was just bad planning until...

Stan noticed looking in from the back that they were shelves! What a smart plan.

A view in from the side.

We climbed up and out of the canyon to the top of the mesa to head back to our car.

And found potsherds!

Walking through the desert. Despite what his face shows, Scott was having a blast. Actually we were singing a song and he was laughing as I bounced him up and down, he is so much fun to have around.

One last view of the desert.

We came home and made the most delicious dinner of grilled salmon, rice pilaf, tomato/mozzarella/basil salad, watermelon, and asparagus. After five miles in the hot sun, we were starving!