Colorado Springs, Colorado

Making the best of things during this crisis!

Our view. Oh, how I miss Santa Fe already!

Our original plans were to be in Denver this week, staying in a beautiful state park, but due to the Covid -19 pandemic, those plans got tossed out the window.  Instead, we had to scramble around and find another park that was not only open in Colorado during this time but also had good cell coverage.  This was not an easy task.  In the end, we ended up paying a much higher price for the week and in a horrible park to boot!

Garden of the Gods

 

Since we were here for the week, I set out to find things to explore.  Our first trip was to the Garden of the Gods.  We have been to the Garden of the Gods in Illinois which was made up of gray stone, but here the park was made up of mostly deep-red and pink stones.  The stones were deposited horizontally but have now been tilted vertically and faulted into "fins" by the forces caused by the uplifting of the Rocky Mountains and Pikes Peak.

To our surprise, the park was pretty crowded and it was also an unseasonably hot day for Colorado, so we ended up only walking about for a bit and called it a day.

Pikes Peak

   Our next outing was to Pikes Peak. Wow! Just wow!!  It was definitely the drive of a lifetime.  

Pikes Peak is the highest summit of the southern part of the Rocky Mountains.  At the top, you are at 14,115 feet above sea level.  The summit is higher than any point in the United States east of its longitude.

To say it was a scary ride in a dually is an understatement.  Then to have to pass biker after biker that were making the 19-mile trek up the mountain was insane.

At the top is a huge construction site at the moment due to a new $50 million Summit Complex being built.  The is scheduled to open sometime in 2021.  As we stood there looking over Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Kansas it began to snow.  So worth the white knuckle hairpin turns. 

Folks, pictures and video can not do this justice, this is a trip everyone should take!

Rio Grande Gorge

Taos, New Mexico

On Saturday, we decided to visit the Rio Grande Gorge but first, we took a small detour to visited the ski resort of Taos.  The city is located in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and ended up being a pleasant trip through some beautiful mountains.  The English name Taos derives from the native Taos Pueblo language meaning "place of red willows".

The Taos Pueblo UNESCO World Heritage site borders the north boundary of the town and is considered to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in the United States

Rio Grande Gorge

The Rio Grande River flows 565 feet below this huge steel construction.  The cantilever style bridge is one of the highest bridges in the United States and is 1280 feet long.  The bridge allows a major east-west highway in north-central New Mexico.

The Rio Grande River is 1900 miles long, begins in south-central Colorado, and flows all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.  It forms a part of the Mexico–United States border.  This upper part is not a famous section of the river but well worth the drive to see it. 

The Turquoise Trail - New Mexico

The Turquoise Trail in New Mexico is a scenic highway linking Albuquerque and Santa Fe through rolling hills with mountain views and quaint historic mining towns.  The trail begins to the south in Tijeras and the Cibola National Forest, then heads north through Cedar Crest, Sandia Park, Edgewood, Golden, Madrid, and Cerrillos, before ending in the San Marcos/Lone Butte area.

We, however, began our trip in Santa Fe and drove south to Albuquerque.  The whole drive time is about 2 hours without stops.

Los Cerrillos

Our first stop on the Turquoise Trail was the mining ghost town of Cerrillos.  The town once boomed with 21 saloons, 5 brothels, 4 hotels, and several newspapers during the mineral boom.  But now the remnants of the once-thriving town are very ghost-like and have served as the backdrop to more than a dozen films, most prominently, Young Guns and Young Guns II.

 Cerrillos Hills State Park

The park, located roughly a mile outside of the sleepy town of Cerrillos, is open for day-use only and offers five miles of trails and spectacular views of the Sandia, Ortiz, Jemez, and Sangre de Cristo mountain ranges and the remnants of several mines.

The Park Elevation ranges from 5,900 - 6,100 ft.

As you pass by some of the historic turquoise mine shafts, you can just imagine the mine owner, James P. McNulty, as he discovered a stone that Charles Tiffany would later turn into a fashion statement.  Amazing history!  I gave up counting after the 8th shaft and started looking for water.

We decided to take what we thought was a half-mile trail for it was pretty hot that day.  Well, the half a mile turned out to be one and a half miles and then another half mile trek back to the truck.  As you can see, D was hopping from shade to shade.  We came upon several of the 1,100 years of mining shafts along the way and some awesome views!

The song "Been Through the Desert on a Horse with No Name" keep playing in my head the whole time we were out there.  Thanks, Pam!

Madrid, New Mexico

Madrid is a recovered ghost town that now exists as a creative community alive with small galleries, cafes, and shops.  Madrid was once a coal mining town and all along the main street are small miner's homes, which have been converted into shops and galleries.

Out of all the stops along the Turquoise Trail, Madrid is the most lively.  This was a major stop along the Santa Fe Railroad in the 1800s, and it is also home to the old AA Minor League Baseball team, the Madrid Miners.

As we approached the town, I looked over at D and said,  "I think this is where Disney might have filmed the movie "Wild Hogs".  Sure enough, I did a quick search on my phone and discovered it had been a filming location, and also others had been too, including one of our favorite shows on Netflix called Longmire!  Come to find out, the Mine Shaft Tavern is the prop for the Red Pony in the series.  So we did a quick turn around and decided to visit the bar. 

Since there were tons of bikers (of course) hanging out & eating, we thought we would grab something too and maybe a beer while we looked around.  When we went to order the woman looked at us like we were insane!  "Beer? We can't serve beer for curb service!  Are you not from around here or something?"  Well duh!  First of all, we thought maybe they were actually open because of all the folks hanging around and second, you can get a beer or glass of wine with takeout orders in most of the states we have traveled through during this stupid shut down.  What has happened to us Americans that we would give up our way of life so easily!  Enough, already!  Let's get America back to work already and our lives back to normal!

Sandia Peak

As we came toward the end of the trip, we arrived at Sandia Peak Ski area.  The aerial tramway travels above deep canyons and breathtaking terrain at a distance of 2.7 miles.  The observation deck is atop the 10,378 foot Sandia Peak in the Cibola National Forest and affords an 11,000 square-mile panoramic view of the Rio Grande Valley and the Land of Enchantment and is located on the eastern edge of Albuquerque in the Sandia Foothills at the end of Tramway Road.  There is a restaurant at the base and at the top of the tram.  We had hoped to ride the Sandia Peak Tramway and grab a bite to eat but of course, that didn't happen, so we continued on toward Albuquerque.

There we grabbed a bagel sandwich from a local deli that was recommended by the gas station attendant.  Seriously folks, we went for it!  Turned out to be not a bad choice.  D got a Ruben bagel sandwich and I got a veggie one.  It was kinda expensive but worth it, I guess.  Afterwards, we headed back north to Santa Fe so ending our trip along the Turquoise Trail.

Heading to the Land of Enchantment

April 26- May 10, 2020

Last week we had a zoom meeting with our small group friends from our church back in Marble Hill, Ga.   It was great seeing everyone and catching up on how they are doing during this crisis.  During the meeting, we mentioned we were moving to Santa Fe the next week and was told by several of those that had visited here on how beautiful it was.  Well, they are right.  You are surrounded by mountains on all four sides of the city and many of them still have snow.  Dennis is in love with the city, the adobe-style homes, and would move here in a heartbeat!  Although I find it pretty here, I just can't imagine me living in an adobe house.  Give me a craftsman style home or a mountain lodge and I'll be good.

Great site with blooming purple Iris flowers!

Our View! Mountains no matter which way you looked!

Sneaky, our welcome greeter! Yikes! And Hopper our Nightly visitor.

I had booked us here at Santa Fe Skies RV Park for just one week and then we were scheduled to move to Denver.  Well...you know what they say about the best-laid plans, they don't always go as planned.  Due to the shutdown, Colorado has canceled out reservations!  Dang, it!  If you have ever camped in Colorado, then you know just how hard it is to get a spot in a state park.  They open reservation dates six months out, so last December at the stroke of midnight I was up making our reservation.  I was so excited that I had gotten one and for two weeks at that!  Oh well!  That just gives us more time to enjoy this awesome park and city.

Our Fourth and final Hop in Texas

Lubbock, Texas - April 19 - April 26, 2020

Our trek through Texas has taken us through several of the states regions.  We started out in the Gulf coast Region.  Then hit the Texas Plains, cruised through the Hill Country, and now are held up in the Panhandle plains.  Whew!  Despite the pandemic lock down, we have still managed to see and explore this great state.  It would have been much better if we could have also tasted some of the local cuisine and visited the museums but that just gives us an excuse to come back to the lone star state at a later date in our travels.

 

I have to admit that the only reason we stopped in Lubbock is that it was a halfway point between our last stop in Marble Falls and our next destination of Santa Fe, New Mexico.  I found a brand new park just off I-27 called The Retreat.  The noise from the interstate wasn't as bad as we thought it was going to be but it was still pretty loud.  I think when the park gets fully operational it's going to be a nice stop over location.  But for right now, there is still construction going on in the back half of the park and the sites still need landscaping.  But hey...the price was great at only $205 for a pull thru!  However, I do recommend the back in sites over the pull thru.  We did not have a concrete patio like all the back-in's did.

One hour waiting for a $4 part! Insane!

I had not really researched anything to do, so it was a pleasant surprise to find things to do here.  However, our first trip was to Home Depot.  Whoever plumbed in our sewer connection had it at ground level which prevented us from connecting without having an extension.  The office did not seem to care about this so it was up to us to go find the fitting for it.  Needless to say, after waiting in line for over an hour just to get into Home Depot due to the Covid-19 restrictions, we were not happy.  We then figured they could send the plumber who plumbed it wrong to get them one for we be taking our $4 part with us!  Ha!

Buddy Holly Museum

Buddy Holly Center that was NOT open!

Even though the center was not open to the public is was still cool just being there.  Across the street the Civic Club of Lubbock built this memorial to honor Buddy Holly and it has since grown into
honoring those who have a strong connection to Lubbock and the West Texas area who have devoted their lives to the performing and visual arts and whose body of work has been influential nationally in one or more of these areas.  Here are a few of the names I recognized:

Buddy Holly (of course)
Waylon Jennings
Jimmy Dean
The Crickets
Tanya Tucker
Roy Orbison
Gatlin Brothers

Texas Tech

Texas Tech Seal

Four Faces located at Talkington Hall

Park Place located at Talkington Plaza

The Masked Rider located at Marsha Sharp Center

Will Rogers located in the Memorial Circle

One evening we set out to explore the Texas Tech Campus in order to see the Will Rogers Statue.  Little did we know that this school has beautiful art everywhere.  I posted just a few of them that we found.

We even found out they have a little piece of the Blarney Stone.  Of course we had to check it out too. And no, just for the record, we didn't actually kiss it.  Plus, we've been to the real one in Ireland and know that the locals urinate on it as a mean joke on the tourist!  Mean, I say, just plain mean!

National Ranching Heritage Center

Located just down the street from Texas Tech was the National Ranching Heritage Center.  I so wish this place had been open.  Open, Open, Open!  Oh well, at least we got to get up close and personal with a longhorn or two.

Lubbock loves their art! 

As you can see there are tons of things to do in Lubbock despite the lock down.  There is no shortage of art throughout this city.  So if you are just passing through like we were, please stop and enjoy all this wonderful talent that is displayed.  I have a feeling we just lucked up on a small part of it.

With this we say goodbye to our month long hopping through the huge state of Texas and head further northwest to Santa Fe, New Mexico!