Santa Fe, NM -> TX -> Oklahoma City -> Eagleville, MO

The drive from Mancos CO to Santa Fe was mostly uneventful except for a few big hills up & down.  We arrived early afternoon to Santa Fe Skies RV Park just outside of Santa Fe.  Great place to visit Santa Fe from as you really don't want to haul your rig through the city.  The park here is reasonable, Good Sam, excellent wifi, full hookups and descent DTV reception (50% religious channels, 25% Spanish).  Once setup we headed to historic downtown Santa Fe.  It was Sunday so we could park at the visitors center free and hike 4 blocks (parking garages in town have only 6'6" clearances).  We passed the San Miquel Church:

The Oldest Church Structure in the USA (1610)

And then we passed by the famous Loretto Chapel built in 1873:

famous for the miraculous staircase which it houses:

Scientist and engineers to this day do not understand how this staircase stands without a central support.  The church was built without a way for the nuns to get to the balcony.  1 day a carpenter shows up at the door and offers to build a staircase in 1 day.  He does so and with wood that comes from no where in the region.  You can look this up on the web for the remaining mysteries & speculations.

We finally make it to downtown Santa Fe where we find the Cathedral Basilica:

which was even more impressive inside:

3 churches on the same Sunday - we should be covered for a little while!  We walked all around the downtown area.  There are numerous galleries, shops & restaurants here to explore: 

We also checked out the Native American sidewalk sales along the commons:

There were a handful of characters cruising back and forth in their tricked out low-riders.  This guy gave me the nod as I was about to take his picture and then he jacked up the front of his truck:

and this cute little girl in one of the markets shared her teacup chihuahua with us:

She calls him "Killer"

The next day we decided to take a drive up to Taos.  It's about 75 miles (or 125 miles the way we went) from Santa Fe.  We took the "scenic high road" there which you'd need to be high to think was a scenic drive.  OK, maybe that's a little harsh but don't waste your time on this route!  Taos was a little like Santa Fe except not as inviting so we kept rolling through - passing the home of Kit Carson.  We checked out the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge which is the 5th highest bridge in the US at 650 ft above the river.  We wouldn't come here just to see this bridge but if you're in the area, check it out:

Unimpressive bridge itself but the view of the Rio Grande was impressive!

We then decided to take the "enchanted circle drive" around Taos.  80 miles later & no pictures taken, neither of us were all that enchanted.  There were some nice winding roads through mountains & the Carson National Forest and the ski town of Red River was kinda cool (not Telluride but wanted to be).  We passed the grave of Kit Carson & his family along the way.  If you're in the area and have time to kill, take the drive.

We took Scenic route 68 back to Santa Fe.  We're not sure what they were thinking calling this route scenic!  Again, no pics.  Maybe we've just been spoiled by some real beautiful scenery in other parts of the country? 

 As we begin our journey back toward NH (the looong way with 3000 miles to go), we headed for Amarillo TX.   When we got there it was 112 degrees and still early afternoon so with no plans we decided to keep drivin:

It did bounce between 111 & 112 for a while

We passed by the Cadilac Ranch in Amarillo:

We made it to Oklahoma City (500+ miles) that afternoon.  We found a very nice and very reasonable campground just off the highway, Rockwell RV Park.  Full hookups, wifi, cable TV, big pull thru sites for $28/night.  Once setup we drove 5 miles to downtown OKC to see the National Memorial:

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The memorial is built on the site where the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building once stood in April of 1995.  Some of the foundation is incorporated as the surrounding wall and also used in the walkways.  Each of the 168 seats below represent a life lost.  The rows represent which of the 9 floors each person was on at the time of the blast:

From here we headed downtown where they have built a river walk similar to what San Antonio has:

We sat on the water at the Bourbon St Cafe listening to live music, watching the boats cruise by while sipping on beverages:

a AAA baseball game was going on in what looked like a beautiful new stadium:

By the time we left downtown it was dark out so we went back by the memorial to see it lit up:

It's a beautiful memorial to see day and night!  Downtown OKC was a pleasant surprise to us with all the bars, restaurants and activities going on - we'd come back! 

Now we're off to Minnesota and Wisconsin (the last 2 states of the lower 48 which we've yet to visit).  From OKC, we drove another 500 miles to Eagleville in northern MO and stayed at Eagles Ridge RV Park a mile off Hwy 35.  Very nice campground with friendly & helpful owners (Shelby & Bob are from MN so lots of great tips).  Full hookups, huge pull thrus, wifi, pool and a few DTV channels for under $30 Good Sam (cash or check only).  Great place to chill out for a long weekend or stop by on your way to somewhere else!

More to come . . .

Mesa Verde National Park, Telluride & 4 Corners - CO, UT, NM, AZ

We traveled about 150 miles from Moab, UT to Mancos, CO where we camped at Mesa Verde RV Resort.  This was a very nice park, reasonable and located 1/2 mile from Mesa Verde NP.  After getting setup we hit the park starting at the highest point in the park, Park Point (8572 elev).  You could see for almost 100 miles from here:

From here we headed down Chapin Mesa park road and stopped at Spruce Tree House.  Mesa Verde NP is the largest archaeological site in the US.  We didn't find much wildlife here but if you're into cliff dwellings, this is the place!  We hiked down to the Spruce Tree House dwelling:

This is the 3rd largest dwelling in the park and does not require you to pay for a guided tour (as the 2 larger ones do):

We decided to check out the hike to the petroglyphs from Spruce Tree.  Great hike that worked it's way up and down along the cliffs with some interesting challenges along the way:

Yes, I was able to squeeze through!

That's right, we laugh at these challenges:

And after 45 mins of grueling hiking in 90 degree weather we come to 4' x 10' panel of petroglyphs:

Translates to "you dumbass hiking here to see this!"

It was a good hike, great views of the canyon along the way too.  Just make sure you bring water!!!  After the hike we checked out the Cliff Palace Loop and the Mesa Top Loop.  There were stops all along the way to view the cliff dwellings across the canyon.  Here's a shot of Cliff palace (the largest dwelling in the park):

These dwellings date back to the 1st century and were inhabited by the native Ute tribe whose ancestors still live on nearby reservations.  Our 2nd day here we hit the Wetherhill Mesa area of the park to do a couple of hikes around the Step House dwelling:

These hikes weren't too strenuous (or interesting) other than seeing & being able to walk through the dwellings.  On the Nodenskiold hike we spotted the only wildlife we saw in the park (small deer) but it took off too quickly to catch a shot.  The trail ended with a view of another dwelling:

The other special thing about this trail was it was decorated every few feet with something that reminded me of a handful of my friends (you know who you are):

This one was hard to miss but it's everywhere on this trail!

We'd had enough of cliff dwellings so we decided to drive out to the Four Corners.  One of the few places in the world where you can say you're in 6 places at once (Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Navajo & Ute nations):

OK, so just to support the prior statement of being in 6 places at once, I contorted my body for this pose:

I make it look much easier than it really was!!!

This whole thing was a little hokey and the ride was boring but once you got there it was kinda cool.  The most fun was watching how other people would pose to have their pictures taken covering the 4 states - pics too racey to post on this blog!

Our last day here we drove the San Juan Skyway scenic drive.  From camp we headed east to Durango (cool little town with steam train ride but we passed on that), then north to Silverton & Ouray.  The ride north on 550 was slow but incredible scenery along the way.  We hit elevations over 11,000 feet on winding roads carved into the mountain side.  We passed the largest herd of sheep we've seen grazing on this trip:

We stopped at several places along to way to check out the scenery and waterfalls including this river which passed through an area where iron ore mining was taking place (hence the colors of the rocks and water):

We also saw people panning for gold in this area.  The drive from Silverton to Ouray was especially scenic with few spots to pull over (so I shot this video while driving):

From Ouray we took 62 west to 145 south into Telluride.  We were immediately welcomed by a herd of elk:

We drove through down town Telluride which was bustling with people and bikers visiting the many shops & restaurants.  On the other end of town we stopped and had lunch by the many waterfalls there:

We then rode bikes to the free gondola ski lift which we took up the mountain:

It was a beautiful day and the views from up top were incredible too:

We didn't realize until we got to the top that we could have brought the bikes with us too.  Looked like fun but may have been a little too challenging?  We did continue to explore the bike trails in and around town:

There were wild flowers growing everywhere along the trail:

Nice trails but they got a little congested with bikes & people closer to town and especially where there was access to the shallow river running along side:

The reason for congestion here is because there were kids young and old riding down the river in tubes and then walking back up the trails (I took this one while riding on the bike so give me a break!):

Later that evening while hanging out at our campsite we watched many hummingbirds enjoying our neighbors feeder:

Mesa Verde NP is a great park to visit if you're into archeology and cliff dwellings.  Mesa Verde RV Resort was a very nice park, great location, well maintained with full hookups, wifi and good DTV reception.  If you're here, go see 4 Corners!  The Telluride trip was an all day drive but it was well worth it.  We wouldn't take our 5th wheel this way but perhaps the reverse direction up to Telluride would be nice to spend more time there.  We've moved on to Santa Fe, New Mexico where we'll scope out down town and take a drive up to Taos.

More to come . . .

Arches & Canyonlands National Parks - UT

The drive across I-70 East from Bryce to Arches was beautiful!  We didn't stop for pics along the way as we were slowly developing a petro situation.  There's a sign that says no services for 110 miles just before you hit the mountains.  Do yourself a favor and gas up - even if your vehicle says 220 miles to empty!  The hills were long and steep and we just made it to Green River, UT with less than a gallon left.  There was nothing in between except many beautiful viewpoint stops - next time!We arrived in Moab, UT early afternoon.  We pulled into Riverside Oasis RV Park which sits on the Colorado river. 

This is a very nice park with lots of trees for shade which really helps in the 102 degree temps! 

After getting setup, we headed into the Arches NP which is less than 2 miles up the road from the campground.  Lots of big red rock scenery:

They don't call it Arches for nothing, there are a lot of arches here.  Some you have to hike to and others are right along the road.  They call this the Windows area (taken from a distance across the petrified sand dunes):

We'll come back to the Windows on a hike another day.  Then we passed by Balanced Rock:

We drove down by the Windows and saw Double Arch:

We also passed by the "I forgot the name of this" Arch:

and we did a short hike in to see Sand Dune Arch:

and another very short hike into Fiery Furnace:

We didn't come up with the name!

On our way back out of the park a storm was rolling in which gave us another nice rainbow to check out:

In an attempt to beat the heat, the next day we got up early and drove all the way through the park to Devil's Garden trail head.  It was only low 80s by 9:30am.  We hiked this 4 mile round trip plus did several offshoots along the way.  One of the first arches you come to is Landscape Arch:

This trail was considered strenuous (and steep drop offs) as it involved climbing up rocks for a ways and traversing ridges with significant drop offs:

Along the way we took a side trail off to Partition Arch:

We also took another side trail to Navajo Arch (this was in a cool shaded area - felt great in the heat!):

Further along the hike the views were incredible and if you look really close you'll see another arch out there:

The trail ended (for us) at Double Os Arches:

Although a coyote passed in front of us one day, there's not a lot of wildlife around here to see but we did spot many of these little guys:

This was a great hike if your up for some climbing, can handle heights and hot temps (low 90s by the time we finished) - brings plenty of water!  Later in the day we hit Canyonlands National Park which is about 30 miles from camp.  This park has 2 parts - we were close by the north section which we drove all through.  Similar scenery as the Grand Canyon only much more red:

There were a few hikes to do here but we decided to just see the park from truck with short walks to overlooks:

There were golden fields with green trees in front of red canyons with large mountains and blue skies in the back ground:

You can see where the Green River (which is brown) passes through the park from this overlook:

Our last day here we decided to go back into Arches NP and hike the Delicate Arch trail.  It's a 3 mile round trip but 1.5 miles straight up with some steep drop offs:

On the way up we passed an arch that when you climbed up to it you could see the Delicate Arch off in the distance:

And from the top you get a great view of Delicate Arch:

On our way back down we ran into another man-eater:

We also detoured to check out the 17th century petroglyphs here:

After this hike we still had enough energy to hike the Windows area.  We immediately veered away from the crowds at North and South arches to check out Turret Arch:

We then took the primitive trail around the back side of South Arch:

There weren't many people hiking the primitive trail even though it really wasn't too strenuous:

Great view of the North Arch from the primitive trail side too:

And as you are coming around the final bend of this hike you get a great view of Double Arch:

On the way out of Arches, we snapped a shot of the Moab valley:

Later that afternoon we took a ride up Scenic Route 128 which is right across the street from the campground.  This was a beautiful drive along the Colorado River with steep red mountains on both sides:

Our destination for this afternoon was Fisher Towers which we found after 20+ miles down this drive, then another 4 mile down a dirt road and a short climb up a hill.    These formations were very cool and unique for this area - Suze spotted them from 10 miles away:

We also had a great view of the surrounding mountains and the Colorado river below:

We have to also mention the Moab Brewery in downtown Moab.  M, Tu & Wed from 4-6 they have awesome .15 cent wings and excellent baskets of onion rings!!!  Overall Arches & Canyonlands parks were a good take.  We would recommend visiting when the weather is a little cooler, October maybe?  River Oasis was a nice campground and a great location for visiting these parks!  We're now off to Mesa Verde National Park in Southwest Colorado for a few days. 

More to come . . .