Bandelier National Monument

I met my dad on Friday, March 6 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He'd flown out from Wisconsin. I'd driven up from Texas to spend spring break in the Four Corners region, one of my favorite parts of the country.

Our journey began by heading north through Jemez (pronounced hay-mez) Springs, New Mexico stopping at various landmarks and lookouts on the way to Bandelier National Monument, what ended up being our first destination.

Bandelier is named after the anthropologist who studied the collection of Frijoles Canyon cliff dwellings for over a decade in the late 1800s. Puebloan Indians built homes and villages as far back as a thousand years ago in caves made of "tuff" or hardened volcanic ash.

My dad and I hiked out to (and climbed inside one of) the smaller dwellings and then ascended the ladders leading up to Alcove House, a pueblo built high on a rock ledge. Bandelier is located just outside Los Alamos, New Mexico where we spent the night.

Los Alamos is a nerdy little city high on the Pajarito Plateau. It's filled with expensive, secretive Energy Department laboratories and atomically named streets like Bikini Atoll Road and Oppenheimer Drive. We dined that night at one of the few open restaurants in town called The Manhattan Project.