Sky City, NM

Sky City.  Ever heard of it?  I hadn't until we started planning this summer's travels.  Sky City is a pueblo village perched atop a mesa, 365' above the high desert floor.  It is home to the Acoma tribe of Native Americans.  The Acoma are said to be descendants of the Anasazi and to have established their separate identity circa 1300.  They've lived in the area 800+ years, possibly as long as 2000 years, making Sky City one of, if not the, oldest continuously inhabited communities in the USA.

The Acoma have a casino/hotel/RV park just off I-40, 60 miles west of Albuquerque (ABQ) and that's where we're camped.  Trish suggested stopping here and touring the Pueblo.  She, wearing her housing consultant hat, worked with the Acoma several years back.  We toured the Pueblo and museum yesterday.

The impressive museum is

located just below Sky City.

Making a 180 degree turn from where the above picture was taken,

there's this memorial to the Acoma who served in the US military.

The Acoma have a zero tolerance policy on alcohol: the casino doesn't have a bar and no alcoholic beverages are served anywhere on the premises.  I assume this policy extends to the Pueblo itself.  Good on 'em say I!  Native Americans have low firewater tolerance, something in the genes or chemical makeup, I don't recall exactly.  Regardless, it's common knowledge that booze messes them up, so banning it is definitely good policy.  BTW, the Acoma are matriarchal: women are head of household and owners of the homes in which they live.

The Sky City mission dates back to 1640.  Walls are 10' thick at the base, narrower towards the top.  Those walls contain Acoma bodies, planted there by the Spaniards so the Acoma wouldn't destroy the building.  Also,  they located the altar directly over the village kiva, the Puebloan place of worship.  Finally, further endearing themselves to the natives, the Spaniards cut off the right hands of those who refused to acknowledge Catholicism.  The treatment of natives in the new world was similar to the Spanish Inquisition in the old world  - spreading the fine Christian principles of peace, love, good will and tolerance far and wide.

My camera batteries died before I could get a shot of the Sky City mesa.  If you're interested in seeing more pictures, google: sky city nm images.

City in the Sky

Jerome, AZ is nicknamed The City in the Sky.  It's a mile high and clings to the steep slopes of Cleopatra Hill.  Its roots are copper mining, a typical boomtown of the early 1900s; population was 15,000 in the 30s, less than 100 in 1960.  It was a ghost town for many years before it was rediscovered by the artsy-craftsy crowd and various historians.  It now boasts a population of 444.  If you want to make it 445, there are still plenty of vacant buildings to choose from.  

Jerome from state historic park mansion.

Tourists doing squat exercises in foreground.

The town is only about 7 miles from Dead Horse SP so we toured the 'City' and had lunch there.  We also toured the state historic park, which is housed in the 8700 SF mansion built by one of the early mine owners in 1916.  The mansion is adobe, built from materials found onsite and was thought to be the largest adobe structure in the country at one time.

Mansion/historic park from 'downtown' Jerome

Mansion facade.

Don't even think about taking an RV through Jerome: narrow streets and extremely tight switchbacks are enough to make a VW Bug driver wet his pants.  A 40' Class A motorhome?  Upgrade the wet BVDs to full scale heart attack.

2700 pounds of azurite and malachite.

Closeup of the rock that's at bottom center in first picture above.