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 . . .