Sunset bound

The first dawn of the New Year warmed our faces in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Turning into it, and climbing precipitously, we headed for our first adventure of the New Year. We were going to Sandia Crest. Sandia Crest is the highest point of the Sandia Mountains, which crowd Albuquerque's north-eastern limits. There's a plowed road that leads right to the top, past a ski area, at a dizzying 10,600'. During the icy winter, all three species of Rosy Finch flock together for a few months, bringing with them birders with binoculars and field guides in their wake.

Usually, Rosy Finches live in out of the way places. We saw lots of Gray-crowned Rosy Finches on our backpack trip this last summer because we were in their ideal habitat - talus slopes and alpine meadows. The other two species are less widespread than their Gray-crowned cousin. Black Rosy Finches are restricted to the high mountains of the central United States - high mountains in states like Montana, Nevada, Wyoming and Idaho. Brown-capped Rosy Finches have an even smaller range, occupying high mountain areas of Colorado south into northern New Mexico. During winter, though, the birds spread out a lot more to find food as it becomes more scarce. Interestingly, though, some also stay in their breeding areas all year, making a meager living on bugs blown up into the mountains that die in the snow. Which is pretty amazing.

Libby watches the Rosy Finch flock.
Flickr

Sandia Crest is great because the birds wintering there are concentrated by the feeding stations put out by a local cafe on the mountain top. Not only can you see all three of these species in one place, but you can do in comfort through a window over a cup of steaming coffee. Normally. Not so for us! When we arrived, we found the cafe closed because it was New Years. Thankfully, though, there was still seed in the feeders, and it wasn't more than a minute before a big flock of Rosy Finches settled in the branches of some nearby trees. We were able to watch them feed from an overlook and soon picked out all three species. Gray-headed Juncos, Steller's Jays, and Mountain Chickadees filled out the experience. We were able to enjoy good views of the birds to our heart's content and were pretty happy despite the constant and steady wind and subfreezing temperatures.

Soon enough, though, we were back on the road and heading west. We were really heading toward home, now, though we were still planning on stopping to see the Grand Canyon. The rest of the day was involved in driving into and through the classic country of the southwest. Buttes and plateaus with sparse vegetation from sage to junipers zipped by on either side. Occasionally, there would be snow on the ground, and we passed into the Navajo Nation right at the Arizona border.

Our next big stop for the day was the auto tour of the Petrified Forest National Park. We hadn't made up our mind whether or not to stop there (it would take us a little bit out of our way), but we decided to a few miles before we got there and turned off to have lunch at the northern visitor's center. Then we paid our fee, jumped on the tour road and headed off to see the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest.

Petrified Forest
Flickr

Both were really cool, but one of our favorite stops was at the Puerco Pueblo mid-way between the two areas in the park. It's the ruins of a pueblo built way back in the 1200s and abandoned in the 1300s used by the people who farmed the valley long before the Spanish conquered Mexico. There were also some interesting petroglyphs. It's always fun to try to imagine what those mean, but I also feel a connection to their authors looking at the ancient scratches on the stone. It helps put humanity in context. The scratchings of any one human being will be meaningless some day, but the rocks they're put on will last much longer. Which author's work is worth the greatest consideration?

As it got dark, we pulled into very snowy Flagstaff, where we had dinner at a Cracker Barrel and I tried turnip greens and Libby had fried apple slices. I think she liked her apples better than I liked my greasy spinach-like side. Still, I like to try the foods of other cultures (and the south is a very different culture than California). Not long after dinner, we pulled into Tusayan and our hotel for the night, where I was unpleasantly surprised to find large crowds of people trying to find rooms for the night. We had reservations, and it wasn't any trouble, but it was annoying after the relative solitude of our trip to be among the hustle and bustle of humanity again.

Pictures on Flickr: Albuquerque to Tusayan.