Ramah

(My grandparents Cecil and Lila Lewis, 1943)
Our first real stop on this grand adventure was Ramah, New Mexico. A small town about an hour east of Gallup. My grandfather, Cecil Lewis, grew up there and my mom lived there for about 12 years. My mother had not been to Ramah for some time and she wanted to see some of her aunts and uncles that still live there. She wanted to show her grandkids where she lived and tell them of the things she did there. First stop was the Ramah Museum. It is only open on Fridays and Saturdays for 4 hours each day. We had a nice man gives us a tour and he and my mom got to talking about family. What you have to realize is that we are related to half the town and my grandfather's family has lived there for a long time!! The kids enjoyed checking out all the old things and looking at the native American room that had actual Indian pottery from a very long time ago. Ayden found a picture of Padad (what we called my grandfather) in the military room. It had pictures of all the men or women who were from Ramah and served in any of the wars from WWI through the current war in the middle east. My Padad served in WWII on the USS Enterprise. Ayden and Padad share a birthday and Ayden feels a connection to him because of that. He was pretty excited to find a picture of someone he knew in a museum.

Papa Chip (my dad) explaining how the horse drawn plow and planter worked.

All the yawhoos except for one or two of the babies. They were actually really good about not touching anything while in the museum. I am amazed that we made it out of the that small house without something breaking!!

There are vultures that live in the really tall trees around the museum and the kids had fun finding the feathers. Meysa sure knows how to pose already!!

Wyatt liked having Papa Chip's hat on. It kept the sun of of his bald head!! JD was Wyatt's buddy too!!

After the museum my mom wanted to show us where she lived while in Ramah as a kid. The kids thought it was pretty cool to see where their grandma lived when she was their age. Ramah is so small the house number is just 04. Yup just the number four!!

This old house was built by one of my great or great-great grandfathers. It is a really nice house for the area and it seems so large compared to most of the other homes too. As a kid my mom took piano lessons from the lady whose family lived in it. I got out of my car to take this picture so I could closer to it. Just as I got back into my car the homeowner came out I think to find out what the heck I was doing. But by the time I saw him I was already on down the road!!

This is the old Indian trading post owned originally by two brothers. Right now though it is owned by my mom's cousin Tami. They have town dances and other community functions there. She lives in the little house attached to it on the side.

El Morro

We wanted to do something with the kids in the afternoon so we first went to check out the ice caves that are just about 20 miles from where we camped. Sadly once we got there we found out that the cost to get in for a tribe like ours was way too much. So we decided to check out the national monument named El Morro that was on the other side of our camp ground. El Morro is kind of what Chimney Rock is to the Oregon Trail. El Morro was a place that explorers, settlers and the native people left there mark on. The puebloans that lived there over 2000 years left petroglyphs of animals, suns, mountains and such. The Spansih explorers left inscriptions as early as the 1500's. Then the American's who were traveling to California left their mark as well. There were also ruins found in the 1950's that were from the early Puebloans. It is thought that the Zuni Indians are decedents of those people. It was fascinating to see what the people left behind. Some of the inscriptions were ornate calligraphy and some were mere scratches in the rock. Also because of the how the rock formed, there were run offs from the rain water so there were oasis' in the midst of deserts and they saved many people from dying of thirst. It was a beautiful place. The kids loved looking at all the inscriptions and petroglyphs.

A very cool thing was that you can hike all the way to the top of El Morro and see the ruins. I don't think we quite knew what we were getting ourselves into when we decide to hike to the top. It was a steep trail and once on top you were looking out over a cliff. I kept calling it a mountain but it was really a cliff. Now imagine having 12 kids, 9 of who were under the age of 8, climbing a cliff. Once on top you had to stay on the trail that was cut into the rock for us to follow. We had to stagger the adults so that no child could just run off by themselves, and miraculously we all made it down alive. The kids were so proud of themselves for accomplishing that. It was truly beautiful from the top and I am really glad that we did the hike!! The kids are still talking about it. Meysa wanted to go and hike it the next day!!

This is the troop making their way to the inscription trail. It took us around to see all the inscriptions on the face of the cliff. The park has a booklet to share with you the stories of the people that left their mark there. It made it really interesting.

It is starting to get a little bit more steep as we head up to the trail head to take us to the top. After visiting with my great uncle Rankin, we learned that my grandfather, two of his brothers and I believe a cousin built the trail that we hiked on. They cut stairs and cut lines for a trail so you walk on the safest part of the cliff. Pretty cool to have a family connection to the wonderful place.

Here is a petroglyph of a big horn sheep or something of that sort. (click on the picture to see it larger)

This is looking up from the trail floor to the top of the cliff. Water runs off the edge and collects into a pool. I wish we could have seen the water falls after a good rain!!

We hiked across the top of that cliff. Once on top we had to cross the top and come down the other side. Now you can see why we were a bit nervous with all the kids on top.

This was coming around the corner before we headed up the switch backs to get us to the top!! I thought the rock just looked cool. It looks like it is barely hanging on and could fall at any moment.

The whole troop before the hike really starts to get hard. There was another large family that was wanting us to take their picture so we traded cameras and recorded that we were in fact there!!

This is the top of the cliff. We are looking out across this open area. Imagine kind of a horse shoe and we had to walk around the open area before heading back down.

This was a rock standing in the middle of the horse shoe. Pretty amazing scenery.

This is that rock that is barely hanging on but from the top of the cliff. We are pretty high at this point!!

This one of the ruins left behind by the Puebloans. It was really neat to see rooms built down into the rock like they were. I am guessing they chose to build their homes on a cliff to be able to see their enemy coming better. It didn't last long. They eventually moved off the rock and onto flat land.

We made it!! I wish I had taken more pictures at the top with all of us walking across this rock but I was a tad busy keeping kids alive. I think my mom took some, so if I get those I'll post them later. Papa Chip has Wyatt on his shoulders and Quiara at his side. We got down off the cliff just in time for the park to close!!

This is the gang a we were heading out of town a few days later. We just wanted to give a different perspective of the size of that thing. It was so much fun and a unique experience for all of those kids.