Last week was spring break. Only one of my collage age siblings, went somewhere or did something fun for the vacation. So, I came up with a road trip idea. I did some research and made a phone call. We decided to stay in Oklahoma (mostly) and go look at some petroglyphs and dinosaur tracks in the tip of the pan handle.
I found the Hitching Post Bed and Breakfast/Ranch online. The owners give historical tours of the area and take you to see the petroglyphs, dinosaur tracks, petrified tree and the tri-state marker. They recommended that for the tour you wear jeans and socks. They should have recommended hiking boots (not that I have any). I did not realize until we were on the tour that the petroglyphs are: 1. all on private property and 2. scattered in caves all across the black mesa region. There are quite a few petroglyphs on the Apple’s (the owners of the Hitching Post ranch) land. So its alot of driving, walking and we did not see them all. Jane Apple doesn’t know were all of them are and she and her family have been hiking these hills since the 1800’s. She said her son found some more writing in caves around Mummy’s Cave. But she did not know exactly were. A person, or even a team, could easily spend a whole summer exploring the caves in the area looking for cave writings. One thing that upset Mrs Apple, was that people like to write their names on the rock wall. There is recent writing over/on top of the really old stuff. And by recent I mean a few from the 1800:’s and turn of the century, but after the 70’s the number of “recent dates” dates skyrockets. Its kind of cool, but they should have picked a different spot.
Our first stop was Coronada’s Signature. Which didn’t mean anything to me until she started speaking of a Spaniard searching for the 7 cities of gold. Yes! Then I remembered. Cibola. The fabled city of gold that the Spaniards had gone on expeditions to find. They came through the pan handle and carved Coronatta 15_7 into the rock wall. I was a little distracted when when Jane said the specific date, and I had trouble reading the 3rd number of the date. It was either a 0, a 6 or a 4. But she’ll tell you when you go. This location is the most easily accessed place we went to, other than the dinosaur quarry.
On the other side of the rock there were some Celtic petroglyphs. Wait, did I say that right? Native American? Nope, not Native America. People who know what they are talking about came out and took a look at the writings and said that they were Celtic. There are several universities who have come out to study geology, fossils and to look at the writings. Mrs Apple said that they are in the process of preparing a place so that Universities can bring groups to study the area. Actually, most of the petroglyphs in the area are said to be Celtic. I did hesitate to believe this. But they’re there. There are theories to explain them that involve land bridges, peninsulas and the theory that alot of this area was at one point underwater and the Celtics sailed over.
Here is a side note. If you like rock climbing, you will love this place. It is a rock climbing playground. Its great for kids and anyone who likes adventure.
Our next stop was Mummy Cave. It was about a mile walk one way. This is when I realized I should have worn boots, the cacti were hard to avoid. On the way, I asked how it got its name. In the mid 1900’s (its scary that we can say that now) some local kids were hiking and came across a mummy in one of the caves. It was a Native American woman and her baby. Being curious I asked a few questions about the mummy. The description that I got sounded very similar to the burial practices of the Inca and Nazca of South America. A burial jar and the body buried in a fetal position. The mummy might have been Anasazi. This cave had petroglyphs as well, but they were Anasazi, not Celtic. The Anasazi cave writings were red. And in this cave they were right above were the body had been buried.
On our walk back we stopped by some corrals to get a drink of water. Windmills were invented to pump water from the ground, but this pump uses a solar panel. It made me realize that in Oklahoma, it is very windy, but its even more sunny. The water was really good. It was clear, cold, and tasted really good.
The next cave we went to was Pidgeon Cave (guess why). This cave was covered with lines. There are rows of tally marks lining the ridges of the cave walls. It is thought that it was a calendar of some sort. Or that someone was keeping track of something. Jane Apple doesn’t usually bring people to see Pidgeon Cave. She took us to see them because we were interested, and were in good enough shape to add it into the tour. And she thought that we would like to see a variety. After seeing Pidgeon Cave, I started to recognize the tally lines in the other petroglyphs as well.
The Historical tour took us 6 hours. Now, we did go to more places than she normally takes people. But its alot to write down. So, I’m going to end this for now and continue on in another blog post.
kreature of travel 