Today was a travel day. We will miss the beauty of the Santa Fe area although we will not miss the businesses since the only place we really liked was Michael’s restaurant and it was in Taos. We got a pretty early start, for us, and headed west on I-25 and then turned south on US-285 through northern New Mexico. It is a very pretty drive but anybody taking this route should make sure their vehicle’s cooling system is hunky-dory because there is quite a bit of up-and-down and most of the road is at elevations over 6000′.
US-285 intersects I-40 where we turned west to Tijeras near Albuquerque, a city with a name requiring considerable spelling acumen. We pulled into our campground, RPI-affiliated Hidden Valley RV Mountain Resort, and set up our beloved Barbarian Invader in space 72. As usual, our timing was impeccable because they closed the pool yesterday. There also does not seem to be any “valley” here because we are perched on the side of a hill. The space is narrow but the scenery is good. No wi-fi or cable TV although we do have phone reception and internet access through our dreadful phone service provider. The campground is about 14 miles east and 1000 feet above Albuquerque, pretty close to I-40 and the views out our ample trailer windows are good.
We must have been pooped from our considerable lack of activity today because we both took long, luscious naps after we set up our traveling home. It was wonderful.

Santa Fe, NM, was the victim of our explorations today. We started by exploring the interweb for the best breakfast in town and found out that the interweb lies. Foolishly taking the advice of many satisfied but stupid contributors, we went to have breakfast at Tecolote. Tecolote means boring breakfast in Spanish. The food was nominal and the prices were okay but nothing to write home about.
After finishing our mundane breakfast we jumped back in Charlotte and headed for the downtown section of Santa Fe referred to as “The Plaza.” The streets of Santa Fe are very narrow and downtown parking near The Plaza is scarce. Driving around in this ‘hood is best performed with a little, fast car because drivers in this area seem to fit into two categories; those that go really slow because they are suffering from road dementia and those who go really fast nicely cutting off their road mates while running lights and stop signs.
We found an underground parking structure downtown and pulled into two nice spots with our enormous F-250. We emerged from the parking structure into what is touted as an authentic reproduction of the old Santa Fe city center plaza. There is a really pretty old church adjacent to the plaza and there are some old buildings but quite a few of the buildings are relatively new unless old buildings had electronic elevators and ADA accessibility features when built.
The Plaza is very pleasant with big shade trees, ample benches so you can relax in the shade and a variety of vendor stands or kiosks selling fajitas, carnitas, painted tiles, jewelry and lots of other crafts. These vendors have pretty good prices for their food and wares but beware if you go into one of the surrounding replicant buildings because you will not find good prices there. Turquoise earrings are $20-$40 in The Plaza but start at about $120 in the stores. Most of the buildings are single-story with Southwest / Pueblo architecture and the area is quite attractive if you like that kind of stuff. Beware of uneven pavement edges, steps up at door thresholds and very low lintels over doors. Head cracking opportunities abound because of the substandard, but authentic, openings for stupid, puny doors associated with this type of architecture. Walls are either made from adobe (a form of mud with straw in it) or modern materials made to look like adobe and walls are very thick because the building material is so flimsy. Adobe dissolves into its constituents if it gets wet.
We strolled through this area and, if you don’t have head wounds, it is quite attractive. We went into the local cathedral where they have magnificent stained glass windows surrounded by gorgeous frescoes. We also cruised through the La Fonda Hotel which has a very nice lobby area with great interior accents. We also went into one of the multiple Native American or politically incorrectly named Indian museums, this one entitled the Institute of American Indian Art Museum. I was looking for art created in the past by local indigenous persons and soon found this was not correct museum for this kind of stuff. The IAIAM was art created by some native folks and some whitey material in the Indian motif but mostly it was modern which wasn’t what I was trying to see.
We met a dog named Stella on the sidewalk who was a miniature bull terrier and she was not only gorgeous but extremely happy to be out in the world where everyone could love her. She stopped us for some time and her owner was nice enough to hang around while we adored her. I was tempted to steal her. I miss my dogs that are back in San Diego.
We left the downtown area crossing over a few one way and some very narrow roads and drove to an area called Museum Hill where there is a Native American Museum with cultural and art exhibits from the recent and distant past. Peggy and I wandered around in this place for a couple hours and had a great time. Unfortunately, the museum does not allow photography so I could only get a few illegal exposures of some of the great exhibits. I am brokenhearted that I am such a dreadful camera criminal and if I was a Catholic, I would go confess my sins. Fortunately, I am not constrained by such silliness so I may continue my behavior as a miscreant.

For many years we have heard reports about how fantastic Taos is and how the area has many creative artists and unique art forms. We decided to devote our day today to visiting the area.
We started by attempting to find cheap diesel in Santa Fe and we were successful. Then the long drive toward Taos began with about 20 miles of driving on non-limited access roads with signals that seem designed to make sure all traffic is required to stop at every light. Progress was slow until the budget for signals was exhausted and we were allowed to continue on highways through rural areas that have citizens bright enough to utilize roads without requiring traffic lights at every intersection.
After leaving Santa Fe, the rest of the route (US-285/84 and NM-68) was very scenic passing through prairie and canyon country unlike anywhere else. There are quite a few grubby little estates with extensive rusty car collections along the sides of the road but every so often there are beautiful houses with classic southwestern architecture of flat roofs, exposed ends of roof joists and earth tone paint. They look like they were deliberately designed to blend in with the surrounding terrain and, in most cases, they were successful.
We crested one ridge near Taos and were rewarded with an absolutely spectacular view of the Rio Grande River Gorge which is a giant, jagged gash through a basically flat high prairie. It is massive. We continued into Taos after agreeing to drive over to the Gorge once we got closer and could find an access road.
Upon entering Taos, we stopped at the visitor info center for town where the staff generously gave us two almost completely worthless maps that could have been useful if they were accurate, to scale or actually had the names and approximate locations of the city streets. Despite the crummy maps, we soon arrived at a restaurant called Michael’s where we had a superb breakfast and also took a cinnamon roll away that was only about the size of a mature desert tortoise. It was very tasty when we finally got down to eating it later in the day.
I am sure that Taos is a very historic area with many interesting attractions but we were not too successful at finding them. First, we didn’t find Kit Carson’s house. Then we went to the Governor Bent (was he?) house and museum which seemed to be one room and a gift shop. Maybe he wasn’t a very interesting guy. Then we took a stroll through the alleged “historic area” that had some dead giveaways about whether it is historic; all the buildings have contemporary construction with artificially spalled and repaired exterior plaster, continuously extruded rain gutters and concrete fountains with modern plumbing and pumps. This section of town must be modern historic. There were many upscale, Beverly Hills-type boutiques and shops with prices that may correlate with the high shop rents.
There are some free and cheap pay parking lots downtown so parking was not a problem for us. We left our paid parking spot and exited Taos going northwest on US-64 through stunning prairie and canyons again until we reached the bridge spanning the Rio Grande River. The bridge is a steel truss unit which crosses over the river at an elevation of about 600 or 700 feet (I’m guessing) and the walls of the gorge are so steep that you need to get right up to the edge to see the river at the bottom unless you could see it through the handrails on the bridge. This is a truly impressive gorge through flat land that you cannot see if you are a half mile away. We stopped in the rest area that NM has astutely placed right where the bridge crosses the gorge and ate some of the Michael’s cinnamon roll.
From the Gorge, we continued on US-64 and came across a large area where it appears there are a bunch of old cheap hippie types that have built solar houses and other sorts of sustainable technologies like buried stacked tires for house walls. The place had a cornball name like Utopia Quest or Biopolygon Acres but the variety of unfettered architectural styles were very interesting even if they did look structurally unsound. These free-thinking souls apparently do not think much of folks getting a close-up view of their creations because all the access roads are posted and gated. We continued northwest on 64 until we hit US-285 where we turned south back toward Santa Fe. The ride down 285 is also gorgeous with amazing rock formations and mountain ranges on both sides of the road. We made one side-trip to look at the Santa Fe Opera facility which is an architectural confection visible from the highway. We only got a look at the exterior because there is reconstruction in progress but the facility was impressive looking.

We hooked Charlotte to the Invader and pulled out of Storrie Lake SP and headed for I-25 south towards Santa Fe, NM. Our Garmin must be a learning computer because she took us on the newest of three ways to cross between Storrie Lake and I-25. We stupidly followed the directions given by the foul, vindictive device and were rewarded with a cruise through all the streets of Las Vegas that have bumps, potholes and red lights.
There are loads of uphill pulls and downhill runs on I-25 as you slowly climb from about 6100′ to 7200′ elevation in Santa Fe. We pulled off the interstate and checked into Rancheros de Santa Fe Campground. We have no discounts available to us here so it costs around $40 a night but they have cable TV and wi-fi. They also had the largest ad of all the local campgrounds in the Good Sam directory which means absolutely nothing.
We asked Mary at the desk where she would suggest for good Mexican food and ended up at a place called La Plancha de Eldorado close-by. Peggy and I were both ready for some great Mexican food because of unavailability in the locales we have passed through in the last six months. Regrettably, the food at this place was utterly disappointing but the service was good. We both had enchiladas, mine beef and Peg’s chicken. The almost microscopic beef component of my enchiladas seemed to consist of tiny cubic pieces of overcooked rubber augmented by two flat flour tortillas afloat in a sea of mild green chile sauce. Peggy had similar complaints about her chicken enchiladas. Peggy said she could easily find the chicken in her enchilada because it was the hard pieces while the other components were gooey. We agreed the rice had something red and slightly flavored covering it and the refried beans were uninspiring. They apparently do not serve chips when they give you beans as a side dish here which is unfortunate since the beans could use a borrowed taste from almost anything, including fried tortillas. While we always appreciate good service, lousy food has a tendency to reduce repeat customers and we will not be going back.
Today we were fortunate to travel in spectacular country with very agreeable weather but the skies are now starting to darken and we can occasionally hear the distinctive racket made when precipitation his the thin fiberglass shell of our travelling home. The skies here in Santa Fe are delightful to look at but right now they are making some ominous rumbling noises. Only tornadoes frighten me in this part of the world. Do they have tornadoes here? I may just be paranoid.

Today was devoted to pure dumb luck exploration. We pulled out of Storrie Lake campground and turned left up NM-518. Just a few miles had passed under Charlotte when we had a mutual brain fart and turned west on NM-94 headed for a place called St. Ignacio. We had no rational nor clearly definable reason for doing this. NM-94 is almost paved with only some terrible, tire-wrecking potholes cleverly concealed throughout the road surface because they know you will be looking elsewhere and will drive right into them.
The trip up this road takes you through some gorgeous pastures, forests and unique geology. The rocks around here remind me of what I remember in Monument Valley but that was long ago and my memory is easily tricked at my age. Up on 94, the gigantic rock formations are cloaked in forests and/or parts of some magnificent palisades. After being foiled by a few dirt roads that scrambled our careful lack of planning, we drove back down 94 from St. Ignacio to Las Tusas where we turned north on NM-105 headed for a place called Mora.
More good scenery presented itself as we covered the stretch from Las Tusas to Mora. In Mora, we got back on another section of NM-518, turned east on NM-422 back to I-25 for the run back to Las Vegas. Peggy and I both noted that this was an excellent sightseeing tour and we were both underwhelmed to discover that neither of us expected what we were fortunate enough to see as we passed through this gorgeous state.
The sections covered by prairie are very….uhhh….prairie-like. There are loads of antelope grazing along the road, just out of rifle range. There are loads of very colorful birds everywhere. The sections of forest we drove through were lush and bright green. The rock formations that constitute the terrain are spectacular and of rarely-seen colors. I don’t know what this state looks like most of the time but since we have been here we have been dazzled by the scenery.
We pulled back into Storrie Lake SP and were deprived by being forced to eat steak for dinner. It was tragic.

Today was a travel day but the distance was easy. We loaded up our stuff and departed Trinidad Lake in Colorado and drove through the strange circuitous route in Trinidad back to I-25. We took I-25 south over Raton Pass at about 8,000′ before descending into the prairie of New Mexico. Along this road you can see the Rockies on the right and to the left is plains all the way to the horizon. On both sides of the road are big crowds of pronghorn antelope along with a few cattle grazing in some pastures visible from I-25. If there are so many pronghorn visible from the road, I wonder how many are not in view. They are gorgeous animals. They are also smart enough to stay out of the range of men’s guns. They split when we get anywhere near them.
We covered the 160 miles or so from Trinidad to Las Vegas, NM, pretty quickly so we arrived at Storrie Lake State Park near town around noon. The cute little Ranger at the gate took some money from us and directed us to the locations of water and power hookups in campsites. We initially selected a nice one and completely set up our Barbarian Invader before finding out that the 30 amp breaker in the site’s pedestal was henshit. We decamped, moved and set up in a new location where the power pedestal was not so cantankerous. That burned some valuable fooling around time. When I mentioned that site 8S had a wonky main breaker to the park staff, the guy who apparently doesn’t take care of maintenance issues stated that he had problems with the very same breaker the day before. What an asshole – he could have labelled the pedestal so ignorant Californians wouldn’t completely set up their RVs before discovering he was a poor electrician. He also stated that he would have to call an electrician. I doubt he scored well on his SAT test.
We turned on the air conditioning, drank a drink and both took short naps but after a bit we were seized by a startlingly frightful idea and drove down the road to Scab-Mart. Despite this particular Wal-Mart being about the size of an ordinary metropolitan football stadium, they don’t have cashews or sunflower seeds unless they keep them in the sporting goods sections. We retreated to our second choice spot back at Storrie Lake SP where Peggy performed some wonderful magic and produced a chicken Caesar salad that I greedily consumed in record time.

Today required no trailer towing or maintenance so we decided to go exploring. Breakfast and fortified coffee consumed, we hopped into Charlotte and I directed today’s driver, Peggy, to what I was convinced was the park visitor center even when she calmly informed me the visitor center was elsewhere. Peggy dutifully obliged me and drove to where I directed her and parked. We both got out and walked in the nice double glass doors to find ourselves in a large and very nice restroom and shower facility. There were no displays with pamphlets because the visitor center was elsewhere.
We then went to the real location of the visitor center and Peggy scooped up a pamphlet about CO-12 from Trinidad to Walsenburg and it looked nifty so we departed. We took a little side trip to the south side of Trinidad Lake where I photographed some of the nicest and most colorful slag piles I have ever seen. No shit! They were neat; black slag on top over a white layer and a red layer of natural formation. From the slag piles we took off going west on CO-12. We had no idea it was going to be so spectacular.
CO-12 initially climbs very slowly and passes through Cokedale where we saw the arch things we saw yesterday but now we knew they were the door side of the old coke ovens that ran in this county back in the day. 12 continues along through very pretty country through Segundo where there was a moby coal processing facility some time in the past and then continues to Vigil where you can see where some guy built a small house spanning a creek. The next big item on the highway is Stonewall where there were some contentious and deadly battles between heirs of land grant former owners and new settlers. It is plain to see why the town has it’s name because there is an enormous rock shelf on edge that towers above the town, both sides.
We turned north at this point and continued our drive through some high alpine lakes (actually reservoirs) before beginning the steep climb to Cuchara Pass at 9995′ elevation. We stopped in the pass. The view back into eastern Colorado is stunning. We descended down from the pass passing through the Blue Lake / Cuchara River Recreation Area and into the town of Cuchara. Cuchara is a very scenic little burg with businesses that mostly cater to tourists. The main drag is very skinny and gravel.
Continuing on CO-12 West (which is actually running northeast from Cuchara) we next came across Goemmer’s Butte and The Devil’s Stairsteps. Goemmer’s Butte is a beaut and Devil’s Stairsteps is a truly impressive flat-sided rock wall tilted at about 80 degrees from the horizontal that runs about 4 or 5 miles across. It is almost the entire skyline until you gaze into the distance and realize the road taken has circled the Spanish Peaks which fill the horizon with jagged, rock-tipped giant mountains. CO-12 continues through the towns of La Veta and Walsenburg before hitting I-25 where we turned south and headed south back to Trinidad.
Peggy and I were both dazzled by this terrific loop road. We both think this road may be better than driving through Rocky Mountain NP although they are both pretty stunning rides. CO-12 is bucket list grade scenery in our opinions.
We returned to Trinidad’s McDonald’s for another stab at electronic communication. We were pleasantly surprised when we found RPI had responded to our reservation attempt made yesterday. We are in for Albuquerque starting 9/25 and departing 10/8 at Hidden Valley RV Resort. Yippee!

Reluctantly leaving Starlite Classic Campground in Royal Gorge we scooted down the hill through Canon City and on to Pueblo where we turned south on I-25 and slowly climbed up to Trinidad, CO. We exited the freeway following the signs to Trinidad Lake State Park and found possibly the most circuitous route feasible to get to the park. We actually were required to turn left more than four times in rapid succession and ended up almost exactly where we started but no closer to the lake. After some more zigzagging we escaped downtown Trinidad and headed west on CO-12. After just a few miles we pulled into the state park and made the obligatory stop at the Ranger station where we parted with $54 for a two-night stay.
The Rangerette working the desk sold us a spot that was allegedly 65 feet long but there are retaining walls with curb stops they assume you will butt your trailer tires against. Our beloved Barbarian Invader trailer has axles about mid-length so if you back our trailer in so that the tires touch the curb stops, the access door at the back of our trailer would only be about 6′ off the ground. Watch out, honey! Ahhhthump!
We only took two hours to travel the required distance today so we had time for exploring before dark. We popped down the hill to Trinidad and found some very nice historic buildings situated right next to city sections in their death throes. We drove down Main Street and we had gone about 4 blocks before it got ugly. We ended up in a giant graveyard where we drove around a bit to fulfill Peggy’s morbid and disgusting yearnings to observe the final resting places of complete strangers. There were a bunch of dead strangers all over the place. Nobody we know.
We went to a McDonald’s to get wi-fi access because this part of the world has no bars or G’s over the air and state parks don’t have wi-fi. We finally were able to establish rudimentary, sloth-like communications through Mickey D’s wi-fi where we found out we cannot make any New Mexico state park reservations because they insist they need 14 days previous notice to allow the state park system to give notice to all interested parties in case anybody wants to start a filibuster. We will arrive in New Mexico in two days. We were able to make an RPI reservation for a park near Albuquerque 9/25 to 10/8/15. They will notify us by email if the reservation works out within 72 hours. Unfortunately, as soon as we left McDonald’s, we were back in incommunicado mode so I suppose we will be required to return to Ronald’s weird house if we wish to receive any emails. I hate the horrible phone service we have. It renders the phone a brick.
We took a short side trip to a place on CO-12 called Cokedale. It is rumored to be an historic town and, if having a bunch of old buildings makes a place historic, then we were in the right spot. As we left Cokedale after our 5 minute reconnaissance we spotted long, curved lines of connected archways made from concrete. We speculated about what they might be and ended up confused. We’ll ask around.

Breakfast just seemed better if we bought it and let someone else do the work so we drove into Canon City and pulled up in front of the Waffle Wagon. I can state, for a fact, that they have pretty good chicken fried steak, hash browns, eggs, biscuits and gravy. Peggy’s omelet was just what she asked for. All of this was also very reasonably priced and we left with a bill around $20.
We wandered about town for a bit and made a stop at the Chamber of Commerce visitor info center. They had good local maps but we found there were no roads or no paved, viable roads going where we wanted to drive so we settled for a spin south on 1st Street. There is a beautiful roadside public walkway here that runs between the highway and the edge of the creek where Peg and I sat around for a while. We met a tiny dog named Fritz who was very nice and let us know we could pet and scratch him. He had his owner in tow who told us some neat stuff about the local area before continuing her trip with Fritz alongside. After passing some spiffy wood houses and some country road, we turned southwest on County Road 3 / Temple Canyon until we were finally flummoxed by the road turning to a surface more appropriate for 4-wheel drives with big knobby expensive tires than for an enormous Ford F-250 two-wheel drive king cab with highway tires. We turned around and headed back to Canon City and US-50.
We voted unanimously (2-0) that we wanted to try another road for exploration so we drove through the back streets of Canon City, getting another glimpse of the gorgeous architecture of the small commercial and residential buildings. We emerged onto Field Avenue on the east side of town and turned north. This city street turns into County Road 9 which allegedly ends up in the Victor / Cripple Creek area. We ascended through a valley with bunches of birds and stunning geology on both sides of the road until we came to a fork near Sand Gulch campground where the paving and our courage petered out. We returned again to Canon City, filled up with diesel and headed back for happy hour at Starlite Classic.
This section of Colorado is absolutely gorgeous and I would love to return here. The Starlite Classic Campground owners and park were terrific, the scenery is delightful, local small building architecture is varied and classic, the food where we ate was tasty and inexpensive and the weather here, including the night skies, has been superb. It is tough to find a lot to complain about here.

We slept pretty well last night. There were very few truck noises loud enough for me to hear and I suspect the trucks I heard might have been Dodge pick-ups driven by short persons with substandard-sized genitalia who have customized their suspensions and exhausts so everyone within earshot can hear and hate them. My sleep may have been sounder than normal because I had such a wonderful time at last evening’s park get-together. The effects of the setting sun illuminating the scenery visible from the porch were magnificent. The vistas here are stunning.
We cooked and devoured breakfast, took showers and departed on an adventure, sort of. Initially we drove a couple miles back east on US-50 where we turned off on Skyline Road. The road is one-way, very narrow, and offers spectacular views of the surrounding countryside from a long way above. It was built with very little cost to the taxpayers since prisoners from the local pen did the work. It is a pretty amazing road to be built by hand since large sections pass through nasty formational rock but an abundance of free labor kept scheduling concerns to a minimum. Peggy is not overly enthusiastic about roads built on narrow, serpentine ridges with death-dealing abrupt drop-offs on both sides so she elected to abandon the truck and walk along behind for about a half mile. I bravely and cunningly navigated through the ridge sections in Charlotte and parked at a pullout without being killed.
Skyline Road switchbacks down the Canon City side of the ridge and lets travelers out on residential streets lined by historical dwellings of multiple architectural styles. There are stone, brick and ashlar masonry buildings right next to Victorian, Tudor and Craftsman wood structures that are in great shape and very pretty. We slid along all the good residential streets at about 10 miles per hour with frequent stops to gaze at the gorgeous buildings. We did so much of this that we soon drew the attention of a local cop who followed us until he realized we were old, boring and unlikely to do anything interesting. We ultimately emerged from our architectural showcase trance directly in front of a terrific downtown liquor store where we parted with some cash to replenish our dwindling Irish Cream and porter stocks.
With our loot in hand, we headed back west toward Starlite but instead of turning into the park we continued south on County Road 3A to a county picnic area that overlooks Royal Gorge. The gorge itself is spectacular and from the picnic area you can overlook the Royal Gorge Bridge with cars that look like bugs creeping across. I understand the bridge deck is nearly 1,000 feet above the Arkansas River at the bottom of the gorge and looking down between the bridge planks is harrowing for those unaccustomed to heights. There is a bunch of pucker factor at work here.
After giving the gorge a sniff, we headed back to the Starlite Classic Campground and gathered up some porter to consume at the park’s 4:00 PM happy hour on the porch. There were dogs there. I was happy. We finally broke away from the fun and returned to the trailer for a bit of grilled steaks, corn and beans. This retirement stuff is tiring.