I hope you enjoyed Bandelier.
My family had an interesting experience there one spring when we were living in Los Alamos. My wife, 10 month old baby and I went in at the head of Frijoles Canyon, camping in the bottom. That night an unexpected storm rolled in and dumped about a foot of snow, making the climb back up the switchbacked trail to the trailhead impractical.
So we hiked out the 12 or so miles to the park headquarters. When we got there a search and rescue team was mobilizing in the parking lot. I went over and talked to them. After about half an hour I got around to asking who they were looking for.
Turned out there was a young couple with a baby trapped in upper Frijoles Canyon...
A friend of ours had called it in, assuming we were in serious trouble. Kind of funny. There we were standing and talking to the rescue team setting out to look for us.
BTW, where’s El Rito? Used to know all the holes in the wall around there, but that was a couple decades ago.
Take US84 nw of Santa Fe, and turn ne on 554. Just a few miles to El Rito. What a funky place! You’d never eat in this little shotgun house restaurant without a recommendation, lemme tellya! Can’t even remember the name (El somethingorother), but it was FABULOUS! The only restaurant in town-you can’t miss it. Just don’t call it Mexican-they bristle a little at that. It’s Northern New Mexico cuisine. Well worth the side trip.
Didn’t get to take the Frijoles Canyon hike (next time), but I did take the Falls Trail and the Main Loop. Fell in love with Bandelier.