Tsankawi and the Act of Burglary

    The adventures I've had in Santa Fe have been so memorable. From my first day arriving in Santa Fe to the infamous llama treks. Everything has been so remarkable. As I start my last day in Santa Fe, I look back at all the memories. The first night staying in the house, Chad and I couldn't sleep because there were no shades on the windows and there was an evil looking zebra head mounted on the wall. There was the time Eliah and I fought as the Native Americans and Indians on one of our hikes. There also was the constant Words With Friends battles Chad and I had. There are many more memories, but I don't ave time to say the whole innumerable amount of them. For our last hike in Santa Fe, we chose to go to the Tsankawi section of Bandelier. Instead of being 2 hours away, it was actually 45 minutes away. As we edged closer and closer to Tsankawi, I started to see petroglyphs and ladders. I thought maybe Tsankawi could have an ancient civilization within it's area. 

The infamous Words With Friends
game when I had an amazing
 comeback to beat Chad

    When we got to Tsankawi, I immediately saw what seemed like the Scooby-Doo mystery van parked outside. When I got closer, I saw a man sleeping in the passenger seat so I quickly ran back to keep my distance. After we loaded our water bottles and laced up our shoes, we embarked on our journey through Tsankawi. We walked about half a mile until we got to a 10 foot ladder. We climbed up that and walked  a little more than a mile until we came to another ladder. This one was crammed in a small passage and very skinny and long. We climbed to the top of that and continued forward. On our way, we came across some really cool pottery. Apparently, there had been some sort of house up there and it burnt down but little shards of pottery were left. I personally think that the government got some old looking pottery and sent someone to go to the top and smash it with a hammer. There were just crushed pieces everywhere. We also saw many petroglyphs. There were some weird shaped ones that had smiling faces but Mrs. Kamen kept on saying they were a special kind of petroglyph after we said that they were fake. On our way up, we saw many small caves. They must have been shelters because they couldn't of fit more then three small people inside. There seemed to be no houses that had been left until we got to the very top and saw the remains of what had been a castle.

    At the very top, Avi (my little brother), spotted a house. They were actually remains of a castle. It definitely did not look like a castle. So we journeyed on until we reached the bottom of Tsankawi and walked to our car. We drove about 25 minutes to the Treehouse Cafe. What do you know, the Treehouse Cafe is completely organic and there is one more problem. They served no meat. So I ate a cheese and bean quesadilla and slurped it down with my organic root beer. I was thrilled that I had finally finished my last organic meal in Santa Fe. Although my hikes were done, there was still the trip home. The trip started off on a very bad deed. This was done by Chad Kamen. I am well aware of the false statement Chad has blogged about his predicament that he didn't have any movies. This is the real story. Chad's plane took off from Albuquerque before mine did. This meant that he had to get up before me.  The night before, I remembered I packed my bag with 2 movies, Night At The Museum for Avi and The International for myself. I magnanimously thought of Chad and left out 2 movies for him, Iron Man 2 and Tropic Thunder. We had watched half of Tropic Thunder during the trip so I would think that Chad would want to finish it. Then i thought, how could Chad watch a movie if he had no movie player with him, only his iPad. Anyway, I still left the movies for him sitting right on the table. Apparently, Mrs. Kamen had allowed Chad to deliberately search through my own private bag to get a movie he couldn't watch on the flight. I was very angry but kept it in. If Chad is reading this, you will regret this heinous act of burglary. Anyway, after a bad start, we had a nice trip back home and arrived at our house safe and sound. This was definitely one of the most memorable Spring Break trips I have ever taken.

     I have been around many geographical themes this past week. Since I rode home on a plane, there was Movement. Santa Fe does not have any airports. So we had to drive to Albuquerque to get on a plane. There were no airports because Santa Fe is a small town with few residents. Back in the day, people had to take carriages or ride horses or maybe even walk to a destination far away. Luckily, we invented the plane so traveling to far away places is much easier. Being on a plane also benefits people's sense of direction. Since the pilot has already mapped out your destination and has a GPS system, people who travel on planes won't get lost or have a hard time finding where they want to go. This was a big problem a while ago since people were sometimes just following a dirt trail that could be misleading. When we were on top of Tsankawi, we noticed shards of pottery. Apparently, these were left after a fire burnt down the house that it was in. This form of HEI was very common among Native Americans. Since the weather conditions include vast open areas, hot and sunny days, and very heavy wind, it is not unusual for this type of thing to happen. The fires have lead us to many discoveries and we continue to research and find cool things like very old pottery. I have really enjoyed my stay in Santa Fe and plane to come back in the near future.

                           Until I blog again,

                           This is Asa Hiken signing off and,

                           Goodnight Louisville, Kentucky!