2014 October

The trip elevations slowly went up, we averaged from 5,000 to 7,000 over the next month, and the ups and downs reeked havoc on our ears.  We arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico for a 2 week stay.  We did all the scenic drives north of Santa Fe, up to the Colorado border seeing beautiful country with lots of history.  

Our first drive was the Enchanted Circle, visiting Taos, Red River and Eagles Nest.  The Taos Pueblo contains one of North America’s oldest continuously inhabited structures.  The San Francisco de Assisi Church in Rancho de Taos is one of the most painted and photographed churches in the Southwest.  We walked across the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, the 7^th highest bridge in the U.S.

 

 

We visited the Bandelier National Monument just outside of Los Alamos.  We were able to climb the ladders up into the cliff dwellings, hard to imagine it was a village at one time.  One of the ascents was 140 feet high, it was quite a climb up the ladders. 

 

 Our next scenic drive was out to the Valles Caldera National Preserve, one of the world’s largest volcanic calderas.

 

Our next scenic drive was the Chama River Valley, this was our favorite.  We stopped at the Ghost Ranch and did an awesome hike which was no easy task at 6,000 feet elevation.  The vista view at the end was well worth it.  We stopped at the Echo Canyon Amphitheater along the way and had a picnic. The natural echo was awesome.  We arrived in Chama, just south of the Colorado border.  The narrow gage steam train is the main attraction which takes scenic trips up into Colorado. We didn’t take a ride but visited the historical train displays. 

 

We spent a ½ day at the Los Alamos Bradbury Science Museum.  It was quite an education on the history of the WWII Manhattan Project, the Los Alamos National  Laboratory's current and historic research projects related to defense and technology, and focus on Laboratory research related to national and international economic, environmental, political, and social concerns. This is the area where the world’s first nuclear bombs were designed and developed.

We spent a day seeing the sights in Santa Fe.  We took a 1 hour trolley tour to learn the history.  We had a great lunch in the town square and then visited the Loretta Chapel with a unique awesome spiral staircase.  We visited the New Mexico History Museum which included the Palace of the Governors, an adobe structure built in 1610 and is the oldest continuously occupied public building in the United States. 

 We had a great fall color tour of the yellow Aspen’s on our drive up to the Santa Fe Ski Resort. We took a drive down to Albuquerque (about an hour south) to see the international balloon festival launch, it was a sight to see.  After the balloons we took the Turquoise Trail Scenic drive from Albuquerque back up to Santa Fe.  The Tinkertown Museum on the way back is one of the most unusual museums we have seen.  It was one man’s life’s work. 

 

We had dinner with one of Jerry’s grade school friends, Betsy and her family.  They hadn’t seen each other in over 40 years. We had a great visit catching up on old times.     

 

 

We then moved the rig down to Albuquerque for a week to see the sights.  We visited the Petroglyph National Monument, hiking the trails through the Petrolglyph’s.  The National Balloon Museum is right next to the Balloon launch park.  We learned about the history of balloon aviation.  We took the Sandia Peak Tramway (the world’s longest tramway) to the top of Sandia Peak where we enjoyed a wonderful dinner at sunset. We won’t forget as it was to celebrate Belinda’s 1^st year of retirement.  Next stop was the Rattlesnake Museum, quite a variety of the many venomous critters. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having seen all of Santa Fe and Albuquerque it was time to move on.  We headed to Roswell and Carlsbad, 2 items on the bucket list.  The UFO Museum in Roswell was very interesting and fun, lots of detail with lots of unanswered questions.  Next stop was the Carlsbad Caverns in NM and was the highlight of Belinda’s trip so far.  They were amazing an awesome.  We took the 1 1/2 hr walk down into them from the natural entrance and when done took the elevator back out.  It was truly amazing everywhere you looked. 

 Next stop for the rig was Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas.  This is truly out in the middle of nowhere, no cell service but the campground did have internet access.  We spent 3 days seeing all the sights and hiking many great trails.  It is over 800,000 acres and took 1 ½ hours to drive from one end to the other.  It runs along the Rio Grande River with Mexico on the other side. Anyone want to swim to Mexico and back? 

 

This was a new one for a road sign!!

 From Big Bend we headed to Kerrville, Texas located in the Hill Country about 1 hour northwest of San Antonio.  We were ready for a month of rest and relaxation after being on the go for 1 ½ months.