Monumental Valleys

We were going to stop at 4 corners on the way to Monument Valley, Utah, but it was closed for renovation. We arrived at the campground amidst high winds, blowing red sand and light sprinkles. The sandstorm got so intense that we couldn’t see a block, much less the monuments. By the next morning we had a light dusting of sand inside and the outside of the RV was caked with red. A hard rain would be welcome now. Bob loves this campground which is surrounded by huge red rocks.

Monument Valley is awesome! We drove the 17-mile dirt road in the Navajo Tribal Park among huge monoliths rising up from the desert floor. The scenery is stunning and we enjoyed visiting with local dogs that come begging at the cars. It was cool though – only 42 degrees!

Who would have guessed that after a 25-year love affair with the ocean and marine mammals that Mary would be loving the desert! But it's true and we find that the desert is a lot like the ocean. Many of the deserts in the southwest are in fact old seabeds. The oceans have receded and the land has been uplifted exposing former reef systems. The desert plants often look like coral or waving sea fans. If you squint just a little, you could be snorkeling rather than sitting on a rock in the sun. The silence in the desert is also like being under the sea. The wind is comparable to wave surges and gives you that feeling of rocking back and forth in the surf. Yesterday we were sitting among the monoliths in Monument Valley, Utah. The peaceful calm energy of these enormous rocks reminded Mary of floating in the water with Humpback whales. They were powerful, huge, and so sweet.

We also took a drive through Valley of the Gods park, a smaller more compact Monument Valley. The rocks weren’t as tall or massive, but interesting all the same. We found a really great spring gushing water out of a hole in the rocks and followed it down the wash for a few blocks.

This morning we also made a quick stop at Gooseneck State Park where the San Juan river makes some crazy bends in a deep canyon. Mary really gets a kick out of all the San Juans we are encountering. There is a San Juan county in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, the San Juan Mountains, the San Juan River, and of course many San Juan’s this and that everywhere.

Albuquerque & Mesa Verde

        We met with several of Mary’s friends who live in Albuquerque. Had a couple of great dinners, much needed and much appreciated chiropractic adjustments and Mary got a very stylish and short hair cut. We visited old town Albuquerque which dates back to the 1600’s, and hiked around Petroglyph National Monument just outside the city limits. Also drove up to Sandia Crest – the 10,000+ foot mountain top just east of town. Albuquerque has a very nice eclectic mix of cultures, geography, climates, architecture and vegetation.

We then drove to southwestern Colorado to see Mesa Verde and Durango. On the way, we passed by Shiprock a very, very large monolith in the Northwestern corner of New Mexico. We stayed just outside the entrance to Mesa Verde National Park at about 7,000 feet elevation. We were about 40 minutes from Durango and 10 minutes from Cortez. Durango is a great town - big enough to have all the amenities and small and original enough to have interesting architecture and great access to the mountains. The area between Durango and Mesa Verde was also gorgeous with snow capped peaks framing alpine meadows and high pastures.

Mesa Verde is just mind boggling. We’ve all seen the photos of the famous Cliff Palace, but there are over 400 archeological sites in the park spread over several canyons. From some of the canyon overlooks you can see several small and medium sized cliff dwellings, some of which are hard to imagine a way in or out.

The views in this part of the country are amazing. Whether you’re on a mountaintop lookout or just driving down the road, you can see forever. It is possible to see rock formations 40 - 50 miles away and mountain ranges 80 - 100 miles away. That is unless you’re in a sand storm and then it’s like a thick dry fog that leaves residue almost everywhere.

Which brings us to the weather. We have had some great days, but just like everywhere, the weather is still trying to decide if it is early spring or late winter. We get a few warm sunny days, and then it gets cloudy, windy and cold. We haven’t gotten a lot of rain in the specific places we have been, just some light showers every now and then. Sometimes, we can see rain falling from the clouds, but it is so dry that the rain doesn’t actually hit the ground.

We are experiencing a wide variety of landscapes, cityscapes, weather patterns, and cultures - just what we had hoped for. Not a lot of lazing around in the sun by the pool yet, but summer is just around the corner.

Santa Fe

Santa Fe is such a great town – compact, great shops and restaurants, and easy to get around (except on the old streets where our huge pickup takes up the whole street). We visited several of the old churches in the city and sampled the red and green chili. Green was our favorite. The afternoon we spent at 10,000 waves Japanese Spa was the highlight of our visit.

The high road to Taos was a gorgeous drive. There was still snow along the road and shining on the mountains above Santa Fe and Taos. Up in the forest we were surrounded by Ponderosa Pines. The Taos Pueblo was closed to visitors that day, so we had time to drive to Bandelier National Monument and explore the ruins there. We also made a stop at El Santuario de Chimayo, known as the ‘Lourdes of America.” This church and shrine was built around 1814 and people come here for healings. Photo.

Our favorite hike was at Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument. The trail wound through rock formations and a slot canyon before we ascended 630 feet to the top. We were rewarded with views of mountains in every direction and the rocks below.

White Sands and White's City

White Sands national monument between Las Cruces and Alamogordo New Mexico is a surreal place. 275 square miles of very white Gypsum Sand Dunes. Not as tall as the dunes in Death Valley but very white and relatively easy to walk on. The gypsum seems to stick together better than silica sand. We spent an afternoon wandering the dunes and trying to find places out of the wind where we could connect in with the very peaceful and kind energy of this place. A little odd considering it is in the middle of the Army’s main missile range and just south of the site of the world’s first atomic test blast.

White’s City is the small enclave just outside Carlsbad Caverns National Park. The cavern is not as “alive” as Kartchner Caverns (not as much actively dripping water), but it is very impressive and huge. You can walk around a lot of it by yourself on an extensive trail. You can even hike down a mile long trail through the natural entrance to the cave rather than take the 750’ deep elevator ride. Kartchner was warm and very humid, Carlsbad is cool and moist. The rooms are so large in Carlsbad Caverns that it is hard to remember you are so deep under the ground.

We also visited Guadalupe National Park just over the Texas Stateline. The Guadalupe Mountains Rise 3-4,000 feet above the desert floor (already at 5,000) and create woodland ecosystems along its canyons that you would not expect to see in the desert like Madrone and Maple trees. We had a wonderful hike up McKittrick Canyon to a homestead that was built totally of stone, even the roof, in the 1930s.

The Torrey yuccas are blooming along the highway and up the canyon to Carlsbad. Giant white flower heads sway in the breeze, reminding us of the Joshua Tree blossoms. They are a wonderful sight.

Cliff Dwellings and Hot Water

The Gila National Forest is a beautiful wilderness in the mountains around Silver City, NM. Deep in the wilderness (and up a windy, steep road and a three-mile hike) are the Gila Cliff Dwellings. We hiked out and explored the three caves that are open for public access into the interiors. What an amazing place. The stone dwellings were built inside caves that not only provided protection, but surprisingly efficient solar heating and cooling. The wood beams that were used in these dwellings are still intact, even though they were cut around 1270. The desert really preserves things that the Northwest weather rots in a few short years.

Our next stop was Truth or Consequences, NM, which is on the Rio Grande. Above a damn on the river is Elephant Butte Lake State Park. The lake is quite large with several marinas and the State Park facilities extend for several miles along the western shore. We got a great site in the park with a view of the lake. Unfortunately there isn’t any Internet in the State Parks which makes it harder to keep in touch and check out future places to stay.

Truth or Consequences was built over a geothermal aquifer and the town is full of hot springs hotels and spas. Most of them look like they have seen better days but a few have been renovated. Riverbend Hot Springs is right on the Rio Grande and we spent two afternoons soaking in their pools above the river. Several cement and rock pools have continuously flowing water running through them. They also have steps that go right down into the river and Bob went for a quick wade in the river between hot pools.

We are still having windy conditions but the weather is warm and sunny.

SE Arizona

We’ve spent the past five days exploring the SE section of Arizona. We didn’t visit any border towns though, as there were reports of shootings and drug wars. We see Border Patrol police on every little back road. It’s hard to imagine that they are apprehending people sometimes 50 miles north of the border. but we keep encountering check points.

If you get to this part of the country, be sure to see Kartchner Caverns. We did a tour into this living cave which has several huge rooms, lots of stalactites and stalagmites, and is 80 degrees and moist. They have a sweet State Park campground that has large sites and easy access hiking. We stayed there three nights.

Road tripped one day down to Tombstone, which is an “old-time” western town. The best thing there was the World’s Largest Rose Bush. Really, there is such a thing. It was giant and growing on a horizontal trellis. It has a few small white flowers starting, but it will be in full bloom in a few weeks. See the photo of it. We then went down to Bisbee, an old mining town turned artist colony that reminded us of Nevada City, CA. It’s a very cute town next to a giant open pit copper mine.

Hiking was great in the Chiricahua Mountains. We spent a day in the National Monument on the east side where the trails wind through hoodoos and caverns that were absolutely glorious. Today we went up Cave Creek on the western side by Portal , and it was just as beautiful. The rock outcroppings are awesome and the vegetation varied. We were amidst Ponderosa Pines and Sycamore, Oaks and Yucca, and the creeks were flowing hard. There is still snow on the peaks and we actually encountered some on the trail. We also encountered a rather testy bull on the trail, that charged us and we had to jump a fence. Then he jumped the fence and we had to jump back. Fortunately that’s where it ended. We also saw wild turkeys and a coyote.

The last three days were very windy. We pulled in our slides so the slide awnings would not get battered. The cold front finally came through last night. A lot of dark clouds but not a lot of rain. Today was absolutely gorgeous, but still a little cool. It is supposed to warm up from here on in.