Happy Birthday, USA!

Second day of my fun vacation was July 4.  We celebrated with a little history and then went to dinner at my brothers friend’s house where we were able to view the Albuquerque skyline and various fireworks shows.

A little history...  Before the Declaration of Independence was ever signed, before there was a Constitution of the United States, there were the independent sovereign nations of the various Native American tribes.  We visited the visually stunning ruins of the Quarai Villiage of the Tiwa Pueblo Indians at Salinas National Monument.

If you ever get a chance to be in this area, I highly recommend taking the time to visit this little bit of history!  I had no idea that such ruins existed outside of the cliff dwellings that are more common in my native state.  I’ve read about the construction of such village and seen sketches of how the cisterns and other structure “would have” looked. 

Mesa Verde (Mancos, CO) has some well preserved structure and I’ve seen some of these things at some time in my past.  But that was 20 years ago...

It was fun to see the architecture as an adult, since I have a much better appreciation for the level of work and engineering that had to occur in, by our standards, very primitive times.  To see that their work that is still standing 600-800 years later is impressive.