Homeward Bound

It's roughly 1600 mile from Albuquerque to home.  We are dividing that into four days of driving.  The first day was the last of the mountains, desert, and treeless plain.  New Mexico and the Texas panhandle are pretty bleak. Vega, Texas now must have 100 large wind turbines. I don't think they were there five years ago. Night one was spent at the Double D outside Texola, Oklahoma. A nice small park on the state line, maybe 12 sites, and only four guests. Pretty solitary for even a country boy. The 380Auto stayed closer than usual tonight.


Day two we started with Okie prairie, another 50 wind turbines, 25mph crosswinds, cattle trucks, and things finally start greening up  after Tulsa and the $20 Turnpike. Back to heavier traffic and morons charging out in front of you at on ramps. Night two is the Red Barn in Carthage, Missouri; home of Precious Moments. Another nice park.  Tommorrow is the first day of fall plus a full moon tonight makes it a Super Fall Moon I believe.

New Mexico Sunset

We spent a laid back day as Tent Rocks National Monument doesn't have the road paving completed. The day was spent relaxing and prepping for the four day, 1600 mile trip home.  Evening had the potential for a great sunset but distant storms changed the sky. Still a neat sunset for Easterners.

Santia Tram

Albuquerque is home to one of the longest trams in the world. The tram is 2-1/2 mile long and a 3,000' gain in height. Squirrel and I don't like heights and 13 year old cables so Karen took the trip to get away from us.

Pecos National Monument and Santa Fe

This morning was a trip to Santa Fe's  Governor's Palace and Plaza Center.  Dating back to the 1500's and the oldest non-native complex in North America, it is now a tourist trap but of historical interest. The whole town appears to be brown adobe.  Definitely different than Charleston and Savannah.

Pecos is located a little farther north and is close to the last set of hills before the Great Plains. The Pecos Indians must have been fairly smart as in the 1500s they suggested the Spanish go east and visit the Apache and Comanches for gold.  That took care of the Spanish for awhile. Unfortunately they returned and by 1700 had pretty much destroyed the Pecos Indian tribe and by 1838 the tribe essentially disappeared due to war and disease.

Albuquerque Botanical Garden, Zoo, Aquarium

This morning was shot getting the oil changed in the Moose.  The afternoon was pretty nice at the Zoo, Garden, Aquarium.  Extra nice was the Butterfly House and 14th century Ming statue collection.

Cortez to Albuquerque

Today was a 250 mile road trip. The Moose choose the desert and mostly flat road through Shiprock and the Indian reservation versus the foothills of the southern Rockies. Not a bad ride overall and gas for $2.65.  After arriving in Albuquerque at American RV Park (a real nice park) we decided to go the the Convention Center downtown where Bodies is being presented. A unique display and very interesting but somewhat gross, not to mention the ethics of how the Chinese got the bodies.

Silverton

An 1880 mining ghost town turned tourist trap. They do make a good Pina Colada and hot dog.

Durango-Silverton Train

The day was spent (7 hours), traveling from Durango to Silverton and back.  About 60 miles each way plus several hours in the old mining town.  A unique high elevation trip on an old steam locomotive. Actually a tiring day swaying back and forth on old narrow gauge rail, but a great experience and fantastic views. Lots of rocks, trees, rapids, 4,000' peaks overhead, 500' shear cliffs, and steam, smoke, and cinder.

San Juan Byway - Cortez- Dolores- Rico

From Cortez, a valley extends northeast toward the 14,000' peaks of the San Juan Mountains.  This scenic drive is only 60 miles, or so, each way and while not prime fall leaf weather, it is getting closer. Highlights were the Dolores historic Galloping Goose #5 (combo Buick engine, bus, rail car), the Dolores River, the forest, the pass, and Rico.  Rico was an 1880's mining camp; ore with 20% lead, 20% zinc, plus silver. Rather rustic today with maybe 100 people, at it's prime it hosted 5,000 miners, 23 saloons, 88 mines, and three blocks of bordellos.

Today, at 65F, it was about 10-15F cooler than Cortez. In the winter 14 feet of snow is common. Telluride is just on the other side of the pass.

Anasazi Cultural Center

This was a laid back morning with no alarm set. For breakfast we had Walmart donut holes (our first Walmart since Upper Sandusky). In 1984 the BLM created McPhee dam in the Dolores Canyon. Prior to flooding the canyon a rush effort was made to excavate sites of importance from the valley. This resulted in a very well stocked, new museum.  They have a very nice display of artifacts which engulfed the remainder of our morning. Most of these are in excellent condition and 700 to 1300 years old. They even had a section removed from a 1,000 year old burnt kiva which contained identifiable pottery, cloth, and corn kernels.

Mesa Verde

Today was another sunshiny day in the Southwest.  At Mesa Verde, you drive twenty miles on switchbacks to get to the top of the mesa which is at 7,000' versus the valley at 6200'.  The ruins are on the mesa and the canyon walls, about 150' down from the top edge. It looks like fire has killed the majority of the mesa top cedars over the last 20 years.  The cliff houses are as unique as ever plus the September visit reduces the crowds and is mainly old codgers with a few foreigners mixed in.  We hit the main attractions and were pretty well worn out after 8+ hours. An interesting park but definitely not our favorite. The big change in the last twenty years is that this world heritage site is now about the great Ancestral Pueblo Culture instead of the Anasazi.  Anasazi meant evil or warlike ancient peoples where these were good Indians that ran out of water and food during the late 1280AD droughts caused by climate change. Politics, government never changes, history will continue to be rewritten depending on who is in control and what money can be made.  I wonder who got the contract to change all the signs and literature and how much the Congresspersons stuck in their pockets to correct this politically incorrect, diversity challenged "error".

Cortez Colorado- Hovenweep

We had a nice sunset at Monticello last  night. This morning we moved down the road 60 miles to Cortez, Colorado and Sundance RV Park. This is the largest town we have seen since Flagstaff, several weeks ago. It has more than one street, wow.  This afternoon we settled in then headed for Hovenweep National Monument.  This was not on our itinerary  but turned out to be a little jewel. The two mile hike circled a rock  canyon which had a number of unique 700 year old Pueblo ruins. The 42 mile road in from the north was all irrigated and growing lots of hay, pinto beans, wheat, barley, & sunflowers. The first real crops we have seen for awhile.  The 42 mile road out was basically rock canyons with irrigated hay.

Four Corners Area

Today we explored the Four Corners area.  Stops at Natural Bridges National Monument, Goosenecks Utah State Reserve, Mexican Hat, and Monument Valley rounded out the day. Our preference, Goosenecks where you are 1,000' above the San Juan River and it weaves six miles in two miles.

Canyonlands and Newspaper Rock

This morning we moved 50 mile south to Mountain View RV Park in Monticello, Utah. This nice small park will be home for two nights. The afternoon was spent traveling to Newspaper Rock, definitely the best petroglyphs we have seen.  We then continued on to Canyonlands National Park - Needles.  They had several interesting hikes through the Needles including an Anasazi grain bin.  On the 18 mile way back home we took the forestry road over Manti-Lasal Mountain, probably a 2,000' elevation gain as the temperature dropped from 78F to 63F. Most of this is also open range.  It was nice to see pine, spruce, and aspen.  We have seen just about enough red and brown rock.