Scooter cruises on Route 66!

Our last stops in the desert Southwest were Taos, Los Alamos, Santa Fe and Albuquerque. It was an eclectic mix of lovely old town areas, a multitude of fine art galleries, Pueblo Indian culture and a world renowned laboratory focused on nuclear defense. The common thread across this whole area is the strong influence of the Spanish and the native Americans- it is reflected in the architecture, art, cuisine, lifestyle and language. Another commonality was fire danger and high winds. There were high danger fire warnings and strong winds all over New Mexico....

Albuquerque happens to be one of the few locations in the Southwest where the old Route 66 still exists with motor courts and diners still in operation. Crusing Route 66 is on Scooter's "bucket list"  so when we got to Albuquerque off we went to find Route 66! Scooter went cruising on Route 66 past old motor courts, diners and even an old movie theatre dating back to the 30's and 40's!

Los Alamos was fascinating because of the history of the national laboratory during WWII. The town didn’t even exist until 1943 when the US decided to build an atomic bomb to hopefully end WWII. Los Alamos quickly became the home of some of the most brilliant scientists in the world. Their mission was to build an atomic bomb as quickly as possible and they accomplished the task in 27 months! We visited the old lodge ( formerly an exclusive boys camp ) where Oppenheimer and the other scientists first met to hatch their plan before the “town” of Los Alamos was built to house the 1,000’s of scientists and military who became involved in the project. It was a beautiful old wooden Lodge – very well crafted in the Adirondacks style and now a National Historic Landmark. Close by to Los Alamos were a lot of hot springs, a dormant super volcano 500 times more powerful than Mt Saint Helens and Bandalier, an ancient pueblo settlement with cave like cliff dwellings.

Our campsite in Albuquerque at a lovely casino!





Taos Highlights:

• Rio Grande River Gorge

• Old town plaza

Los Alamos Highlights:

• Learning about the history of the laboratory – particularly the period from 1943 to the end of WWII

• Bandalier National Monument with cave like cliff dwellings

• Soda dam - a dam naturally built from the mineral springs beside the river

• The 14 mile wide caldera of a super volcano with elk grazing in it

Santa Fe Highlights:

• Old town area

• Art galleries in old restored pueblo homes with lots of sculptures in the gardens

Albuquerque Highlights:

• Hopi Indian dances at the Pueblo Cultural Center

• Learning about the history of ballooning at the International Hot Air Balloon Museum and flying a balloon with a simulator - Gary beat me by a long shot!

• Petroglyph National Monument - there are 23,000 petroglyphs in this park!

• Exploring a section of Route 66 and seeing some of the old motor courts, theatres and diners

What's next: Now we start our trek “back east” through Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas – we hope to stop by the national park in Hot Springs Arkansas. It will be quite a challenge to dodge all of the storms that have been crossing the country lately and have caused so much damage this spring. Rose is a big girl but she’s no match for a tornado! Fingers crossed!!!

What do cliff dwellings, sand dunes, deserts, wetlands, 14,000 foot mountains and hot springs have in common?

They are all in Southern Colorado!!

Southern Colorado has a very diverse landscape and history – from geo thermal springs to 14,000 foot mountains to ancestral pueblo cliff dwellings. The diversity makes it so interesting!

Our first stop in Colorado was Mesa Verde National Park- a place we have wanted to visit for a long time. Sometimes expectations can be set too high but Mesa Verde surpassed our expectations! What an amazing culture they had and equally fascinating was where they built their homes – high on the cliff walls of a gorge. They had to climb up and down the cliffs to get to the fields where they grew corn and squash and also where they hunted. Their only source of water was the water that seeped through the rocks where they lived in the cliffs. There didn’t seem to be any fat pueblans with that daily routine!

Next stops were Durango, Silverton and Ouray - all mining towns that were bustling with activity in the late 1800’s with prospectors searching for gold and silver. Now all three towns “mine” the tourists instead! The scenery in Ouray is particularly striking and it is appropriately known as the “Switzerland of North America”. Ouray even has an “ice park” where they create large ice flows along the cliffs for adventuresome climbers in the winter! You gotta be young to do this!!!

We continued east in Colorado to Pagosa Springs – there are lots of outdoor activities here – skiing, rafting, hiking, four wheeling and hunting but the most relaxing activity was soaking in their hot springs along the San Juan River! Wonderful!!!

Our final stop in southern Colorado was Great Sand Dunes National Park. The National Park has desert, 750 feet tall sand dunes, wetlands and 14,000 foot mountains too – what a diverse environment! It was really cold and windy the day we were there – we even had sleet!

Next stops are in northern New Mexico to explore Taos, Los Alamos, Santa Fe and Albuquerque!

Rose camps with the Goblins!

We're happy to say we've had no more winter storms to dodge - we did have one sand storm that turned the sky brown though! Other than that, we've had lots of blue skies and pleasant temperatures!!

Our first stop was Goblin Valley State Park. We had never heard of the park but several people we met on our travels said “you have to see it to believe it” – so we went! Not only did we see it but we camped in Goblin Valley among the goblins! When you first see the valley you think you have been transported to Mars – it is like nothing we have ever seen before. Miles and miles of red stone “characters” nestled in a valley in the middle of the desert and sculpted by 1,000’s of years of erosion. They seem to come alive with your imagination and just like the clouds you can see all sorts of characters and likenesses in the Goblins! It was fun to come up with our own ideas of what the goblins looked like since none of them had been previously named like you so often find in the national parks. We camped in the park campground among the Goblins in the middle of the desert. It was delightfully quiet ( the goblins were sleeping) and far from city lights so the stars were amazing!

Our next stop was Moab – base camp to see Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. It is incredible to see the power of water and wind – changing the landscape over millions of years sculpting huge canyons and arches. It’s so much easier to see the changes to the earth when there is so little vegetation to obstruct your view! An added bonus was a hike to see some dinosaur prints of an Alasaurus ( a three toed meat eating dinosaur that walked on it’s hind legs) and LOTS of petroglyphs and we even saw a really cool old cowboy camp tucked under an overhang in the rocks in Canyonlands National Park!

Landscape Arch - the 3rd largest in the world

Delicate Arch - the icon for Utah's canyon country

It's a "Grand Canyon" under construction in Canyonlands!

Dinosaur foot prints!

Next stop was in the very south part of Utah near the four corners of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. There are lots more Pueblo ruins in SE Utah. We hiked to a few cliff dwellings and Pueblo towers that were off the beatin’ path –what a treat to be the only ones there!

We went to Natural Bridges National Monument where 3 of the largest bridges in the world have been carved out by a river running through a canyon. We learned that the difference between a bridge and an arch is a bridge is carved out by flowing water from a stream or river and an arch is carved by wind and rain and ice. We hiked down to the bottom of the canyon to see one of the bridges up close – it was huge… much larger than it looked from the rim of the canyon!

We also went to Monument Valley where the classic old western movies were filmed… massive red buttes all over the valley rising 1,000’s of feet above the valley floor. Some of the more recent movies filmed there are Back to the Future III and Mission Impossible III and there are the classic films from the 40’s and 50’s like Stagecoach that were filmed there too .

Scooter finally got her chance to do some off roading ( it’s a wildly popular past time out in this part of the country). We drove on the Moki Dugway – we found out that a “Dugway” came from pioneer days when a wagon trail was dug out of a very steep cliff through the mountains. Scooter had no problem traversing the Dugway and the view of Monument Valley from the top was beautiful! We did have to spend the afternoon cleaning the dust out of her – it got into everything even though we had the windows closed! We camped at a government campground by the San Juan River and had a view of a cliff with lots of petroglyphs on it - quite an unusual view at a campground!

Our last stop was the Four Corners Monument. It’s the exact spot where the corners of Arizona, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico meet. So we stood in four states all at once and Molly did too! Seeing the four corners was on Molly’s “bucket list” so we just had to take her there!

We've been on the road almost 2 months now and the time has flown by ...next stops on our journey are Mesa Verde National Park ( can’t wait to see the really big cliff dwellings there), Durango/Silverton and the San Juan Scenic Skyway drive, Pagosa Springs and Great Sand Dunes National Park!