We check out the town of Aztec too.  The Aztec Museum and Pioneer Village is a fun stop.  Outdoors we found a mix of replica and historic pioneer buildings: Dr Office, Sheriff Office, School, Bank, Jail, a print shop, blacksmith shop, dirt floor farmhouse and in-town house and more, each full of related (or not exactly related) relics.  Scattered across the grounds we find tractors and other farm equipment.  Indoors are clothing exhibits from various decades plus old-time toys and music instruments. They have a cyclorama of the Old West probably 20 feet in diameter.  It’s fun just to wander through.

There is a lot of oil drilling stuff.  We are in the San Juan Basin and it is one of the largest gas areas in the US.  I would have guessed that.  Stand anywhere out here and you can see multiple pumpjacks with piping between and rough dirt roads crisscrossing everywhere.  It is not pretty.

Did you know:  Back in the 1920s fracking was accomplished by exploding nitroglycerine in the wells.   This museum exhibit claims that one enterprising sole even detonated a thermal nuclear device to create the required force.  Yikes.

Even bigger did you know:  Ever hear of Project Plowshare; the sanctioned Peaceful use of Nuclear Explosives in Cold War America.   How is it we have managed not to annihilate ourselves?

We can’t pass up the A&W for lunch.  Bummers, no frosted mugs!

The area’s other claim to fame is arches….I think they claim over 300 in the cliff and boulder remnants scattered across the scrub.  They publish a pamphlet that provides pretty specific directions to a dozen or so of them.    Armed with that, we head out on a sort of arch scavenger hunt.  We spend a fair amount of time bouncing along gas well access roads and do a bit of scrub land bush-whacking to find a total of 6 arches, one with a bonus of some rock art.  That’s enough fun for today.