This morning I took pictures of the ruins alongside the camp ground (first things first), then went after the wiring for the alternator.
There were two ruins close together, one appeared to be a family cluster of rooms and the other a single family house
The walls of these structures is one dressed block thick and a lot simpler construction that was used to build the great houses.
Of course everything checked out OK but I cleaned connections as I went along. Nothing was out of order. The right voltage & resistance, or lack there of, was where it should be. But the problem still remained. Fire the engine up, it charges just fine then stops charging after a couple minutes & runs off the battery. Which reminded me. One of my fuses is a 10 year old relay fuse. If it goes over current, it turns off until it cools down then automatically kicks in again. Back when I had a carb it provided power to my coil & alternator sense wire. I replaced it with a 10 AMP fuse & the problem appears to have gone away. That hopefully solved, I did my weekly on a trip check fluids & things then went out to tour the ruins at Chaco until dusk. Very impressive 3, 4 and 5 story ruins!
Chaco was perhaps THE major trade and cultural and administrative centre for the Anasazi in the entire San Juan basin for about 300 years through the late 1200's (remember a long life span is about 35 years). Toward the end of the 1200's it appears that the Mesa Verde area eclipsed Chaco's influence in the Northern basin area. The Great houses appear to be build primarily as administrative & trade centres with a high number of kivas, great kivas and storage rooms for the number of living rooms. The great houses were planned cities built into a 'D' shape, some 4 or 5 stories high at the outside wall. I had scheduled a day to see the park but I suspect that it would take 3 or more days to start to get a good perspective of the area. And that's after reading a book about the culture before hand. I had time to visit 3 great houses:
Chetro Keti
occupied 850's - 1250's
Pueblo Alto
These two pictures of a G\great kiva plainly show the standard features of the antechamber, the 4 sockets for holding the roof poles,the aprons around the sockets, the Sipapu and the 2 vaults. In this case the vaults are incorporated into two of the socket aprons and the Sipapu is a rectangular walled pit. The fire screen (by the antechamber) seems to be fallen over and obscuring the fire pit. The rectangular holes in the wall are common features in kivas. It is possible that they held sacred objects needed for different rituals.
Pueblo Bonito
occupied 850 - 1250's
This is the largest of the great houses. The rounded side of it's 'D' shape was near the cliff and was 4 stories high, The structure was divided by a wall slicing through the middle of the 'D' perpendicular to the flat side. The flat side row of buildings was a single story high and walled off central plazas, one on each side of the dividing wall.
Pueblo Bonito is the largest of the Chaco great houses. There is no way to get the feel for the whole without climbing up to the mesa above the ruins, stand out on the edge and take a picture. There's no way I'm ever going to do that. So I've just settled for pictures that will give some details but alas no sense of the overall size and shape
In the early 1940's a section of cliff fell down here and destroyed about 30 rooms.
Pueblo del Arroyo
occupied 1075 - 1250's
I'm somewhere just off interstate 40 in Western New Mexico. The day started off really good. A quick cuppa tea, the packed then off to revisit some of the Chaco ruins I wanted to spend more time with. The Green Rover was running fine & the alternator was doing its charging thing. Later, I left the park heading for Albuquerque. There are about 20 miles of washboard dirt road leading out of the park. I kept an eye on the voltmeter and it the rattling didn't phase the charging system. Yeah!
I wanted to check out Albuquerque as a possible future place to live. It failed my test. Take the San Francisco South Bay Area in it entirety and drop it out onto a hot desert and you have my first impression of the area. There is a Petroglyph monument on the West edge of the city that I wanted to check out. Working my way through traffic lights my old friend vapor lock reappeared and kept reappearing until I stopped for fuel & groceries at #40's 108 exit. I got to cool down on the side of a gradual hill so got a good look at the city from above. Much bigger than anything I would consider living in. And it was hot. I started looking at the neighborhoods that I was driving through. All the houses were brownish with a occasional gray one. They ranged from beige though medium brown with most variations of sandstone. My eyes would have been delighted to see a blue or green house. Is there a city ordinance that said every house must be painted in a sand stone colour? And most houses were a variation of pseudo pueblo shape. Even the stores. And most all of them had cinder block fences textured and painted to look like adobe walls. Have I found the place where all the Stepford folks happily live? I fled Albuquerque as fast as the vapor lock would allow. When I restarted my engine after my first of 3 vapor lock stops on #40 I heard the fan belt scream for a second (it is tight) there the alternator stopped charging. So I ran on battery until it was dusk then stopped at the nearest campground so I can plug the car in. 3 wires! How complicated can it get??? I hope I can fix it in the morning. I'm getting real tired of this.
