Day 101 - South to New Mexico

Day 101 - Wednesday - South to New Mexico

A relatively lazy morning packing gets us ready to leave the campground around 11:30.  Our site had water and electricity but no sewer connection so we circumnavigate the park to get to the dump station and clear out our tanks.  We have 3 nights coming up without hookups!

Leaving the park we follow the (gravel) side streets of Del Norte and turn right on US 160.  The 30 or so miles to Alamosa is retracing our journey from May.  We stop at the Walmart on the west side of town, finding it difficult to park as the parking lot is quite full and the RV with the car in tow takes up a lot of space.  We do find a spot and go inside to find out new, lightweight Keurig coffee maker.  It comes in Black, Red or Turquoise and they have it in all 3 colors.  We quickly rule out the turquoise as our RV decor bears no resemblance to Art Deco, and Vicky  rules out the red as "too screaming".

So we now have a black coffee maker matching our other appliances.  I've set it up but tomorrow morning we'll see what kind of coffee it makes.

Getting out of the parking lot is easier than getting in, and a mile or so down the road we take a detour that avoids the center of own and soon find ourselves heading south on US285 again.  It's about 30 miles to Antonito, terminus of the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad, on which we traveled a few years back, taking a "botany train" and learning about the flora of the area.  If you ever get the chance, ride this train.  They also do a geology special as well as regular day trips.  At that time we were staying in Taos and drove up and parked in the station lot, then drove back to the hotel, so we didn't get to see the town, which is cute in a small-railroad-depot-town sort of way.

We don't stop, but continue south on 285 and five miles later we're in New Mexico.  We're traveling through sagebrush country and apart from the occasional mountain it's rolling country and a dead straight road.  There are very few towns and we're glad we put some gas into the car in Colorado.  I'm also glad we didn't fill it since when we do see a gas station later in the day it's 45 cents a gallon cheaper than in Colorado, and RVs drink a lot of gas.

Along the road frequent signs warn us to beware of cows and elk.  We see a few cows but not a single elk (nor even a married one!).  The road also drops in altitude and we start to see Juniper trees too.  After about 60 miles we're at an even lower altitude and the temperature has risen into the 90's.  Most of the early part of the journey was through National Forest lands and Vicky had picked out several places where we could camp overnight.  However, we decide to keep going.

Eventually we come to the village of Ojo Caliente, home of a spa with hot spring pools of varying temperatures and mineral content.  We've spent relaxing days there in previous years and plan on coming out one day when we're in Santa Fe next week, but for today we just keep going.  US285 would take us into Santa Fe but at the town of Espanola we change to NM30, signposted for Los Alamos.

We've never made it there but have come close.  In particular we've visited Bandelier National Monument, home of cliff dwellings for the ancestral Pueblo people from about 1300-1500AD.   The Juniper campground in Bandelier is our destination for the next 3 nights.  The sites are first come first served and after a close encounter with a tree that caused a lot of distress but no damage to the RV or the tree, we find a vacant drive through campsite and set up shop.

We pay our fee (a big $6 per night with our Senior Parks Pass) and build a fire.  Dinner is grilled sausages with salad, followed by smores.  There are warnings of bears in the vicinity (we should be so lucky) so we make sure we pack all the food and even put the tablecloth away.  The cats, surprisingly, have shown no inclination to get out.  Maybe they know about the bears.

After dinner we walk the short distance to the outdoor amphitheater (one of the nicest we've seen) for the 9pm ranger talk.  Unfortunately there is no 9pm ranger talk and nobody else in sight.  So I give Vicky a short talk on black footed ferrets from the ferrets' point of view, and she gives me a short talk on bighorn sheep from the sheeps' point of view.  Not as deep as the ranger might have been, but a lot of fun.

We walk back to the RV, discover that Vicky's repair job on the front grilles survived 170 miles of 60mph driving, and that the cats are sleeping, so we decide to follow their example.  We talk about options for the next 2 days - probably one in Los Alamos and the other here checking out the trails in the National Monument, and decide to make no decision until we get up tomorrow.

I forgot to mention the story we heard from the Florida couple we met earlier this week.  On their first trip to Arizona they stayed near Quartzsite, and decided to build a fire.  They'd never seen tumbleweed but found lots of it around and were delighted at how easily they could light it.  Once it was burning well they found out why it's called tumbleweed as they chased the burning bush around the campground.  That's one adventure we haven't had!