Tent Rocks

We took a Mother's Day hike at the Tent Rocks in Cochiti Pueblo on Sunday. This is one of the most amazing hikes I've been on. All those weird pointed rocks with layers of sediment that looked just like Dr. Seuss art. If God was a potter, this would be his stash of experiments. There were toadstool rocks halfway up the canyon wall. The canyon was so narrow that we could only see a sliver of the blue sky. Grooves in the wall; a racetrack for the wind. The rosy glow of the sun off the rocks and Quinn trying to explain how awesome everything looked through the lenses of his new sunglasses.

Calvin wouldn't wear a hat, even though it was 95 degrees outside and there was nothing between us and the sun. I slathered sunscreen on him so his hair stuck up like a crazy professor.

Toward the top the tent rocks looked like a gnomish village. We reached the top and could see every mountain within 100 miles (which is a lot). Calvin showed his appreciation by making a chorus of farting noises and saying "down", as if we'd just let him crawl off the edge of the cliff...I was a little tense, because of the sun I guess. My worry over Calvin's skin.

We headed down. There was one spot where there was a three foot drop that would be unsafe to do with the baby backpack. Quinn took off the pack, with Calvin inside, and I held it while Quinn got down. Then He just put the backpack on again when he was on the lower level.

We saw a man on the path who had a mustache, glasses and gray hair. Yeah, he looked like my dad, but he was a little less macho. Calvin saw him and said his famous, "JJJAck!" I don't know how I'm going to get used to this. I told the man that he looks like my dad and that's why the baby is calling him Jack. Quinn though the might be bothered by having a young lady tell him he looked like her dad. Tough shit, I say. I can't help it if (if) he is self conscious about his age. At least I didn't tell him he looked like someone who just died. I think that would give him a strange feeling all day.

When we got back to the canyon, in the shade and with the sandy bottom, we fed Calvin some carrots and ran out of water. Then we let him walk until he got fussy, and strapped him into the backpack so we could get going. It was getting late and there weren't any more hikers with us on the path. That seems like a bad sign. Even though Calvin was getting tired we calmed him down by singing "Are you sleeping?" and "Row, Row, Row your boat."