The last week

The Last Week                                                October 30, 2018

With the end of our adventure in sight, we enjoyed a few more days in New Mexico. We explored the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos and completed our visit to the second of three sites that comprise the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. If you read earlier blog posts, you may remember we visited the Hanford Nuclear Reactor site in Richland, Washington in September. We hope to visit the third site in Oak Ridge, Tenn. next summer. We camped at Bandelier National Monument and made an early morning visit to the cliff dwellings the next morning before making our way out to Cochiti Pueblo land to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument (Bureau of Land Management). We made a three-mile hike through a slot canyon up to the mesa top and marveled at the rock formations known as “tent rocks.” Quite a scenic location that we had never seen before and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

 The cliffs at Bandelier are composed of tuff from volcanic eruptions.

 

 Visitors are allowed to go into the dwellings that have ladders.

 Lovely fall morning on the nature trail at Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico

 

 Hiking through the slot canyon before getting to the uphill part of the trail.

(Facebook Friends:  Brian posted a video of this part of the hike.)

 

 Almost to the mesa top

 

 Looking down to where we started

 

 

 The view from the top made the 500 foot elevation gain worth the effort.

 

We drove to SE New Mexico and camped near Roswell at Bottomless Lakes State Park. The “lakes” are sinkholes filled with water. We passed through Carlsbad with the Guadalupe Mountains silhouetted against the western horizon and into Texas, dodging potholes and oilfield trucks all the way to Pecos. Our last night of camping was at Monahans Sandhills State Park where some friendly RV folks offered to loan us a ceramic heater for the night. We politely refused and commented that the overnight low of 55 degrees was going to be 20 degrees warmer than we have been experiencing most of the past month.

 

 

Seen while geocaching:

 

 At night, the sign has lights that change color and flash.

 

 Artwork along U.S. Highway 285 southeast of Vaughn, NM

 

 The geocache on this side of the highway is titled "Hey You!"

 

 Geocache on this side - "Cowboy Ruckus"

 

 Ingram, Texas - Hill Country Arts Foundation

 

 

 

 

 

People have asked us if we ever feel unsafe in campgrounds and the answer is always “no.” Campers are some of the friendliest folks we ever meet (or they generally ignore each other). Our plan to camp at another state park in the middle of Texas was discarded because it was closed due to recent flood damage. Our last night of this trip was spent at the home of long-time friend in beautiful Bandera.

 

We are well aware that our means of traveling is not the norm and it is hard to put into words how we feel about our experiences. We enjoy what I will call “elemental living” in which our physical needs for food, water, and shelter are met very simply. Our travels feed other needs beyond the physiological ones – curiosity, beauty, desire to learn new things, spiritually refreshing contact with nature and God's creation in all its various forms. We have not formed any plans for extended road trips in the near future, but we have plans to camp in about a week with our children and grandchildren in a state park in the Texas Hill Country. We attended Open House at Clear Lake City Elementary this week and saw our 4 year-old grandson's “All About Me” page and he has his favorite thing to do as camping. That made my heart sing!

Trip summary:

13,046 miles in 68 days through 13 states

10 National Parks visited and 17 other National Parks Service locations (national monuments,

                  historical parks, reserves, historic trails)

3 national monuments administered by National Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management

865 geocaches

Homeward Bound (sort of . . .)

Good-bye, Utah and Hello, New Mexico (with a nod to Colorado)          October 23, 2018

After 10 days in Utah, we said good-bye to our favorite state to visit and began to get serious about heading south. We spent one night at Mesa Verde, NP before entering New Mexico (another great state to visit).

After catching up with good friends from high school in Ogden and Lindon, Utah we set out for southern Utah. We made brief visits to Capitol Reef and Arches National Parks – brief because the campgrounds were full in both parks and we hadn't planned far enough in advance to make reservations. We have made several visits to both parks over the years so weren't too disappointed. We arrived in each place in late afternoon when the light was perfect for photos.

 

late afternoon shot

 

 Capitol Dome formation

 

 petroglyphs (above and below)

 (with a not so scenic fire hydrant at the Visitor Center)

 

 coyote in the historic orchard, Capitol Reef NP

 

 interesting rock face, Capitol Reef NP

 

Park near Moab, UT - the pedestrian bridge in the background crosses

the Colorado River to the Arches NP side.

 

 Kris on the pedestrian bridge looking up at cliff on Arches NP side

 

 looking upriver from the bridge

 

 The line of cars waiting to get into the park was quite long so we waited

until an hour before sunset before entering the park.  Our national parks

have gotten to be so popular since our first visits 40 years ago.

 

 We have photographed Balanced Rock every time we visit Arches NP. 

Here it is glowing in the light of near-sunset.

 

 

 

Our primary destination was Canyonlands National Park (Needles District). We had never visited this park on our summer travels and knew October would be a great time of the year to explore. We took a nice hike on the Slickrock Trail that gave us great views of the canyons in all directions.

 Wilson Arch on the way to Canyonlands NP

 

 Slickrock Trail, Canyonlands NP

 

 

taking in the views

 



 Slickrock Trail is marked by stone cairns; this one is quite fanciful.

 

Strangely eroded rocks along the trail

 Driving away from Canyonlands to the main highway, we stopped at Newspaper Rock

to see more petroglyphs.  These are almost 2,000 years old.

 

Our next stop was a new-to-us NPS location: Natural Bridges National Monument in southeastern Utah. We hiked to the base of two of the three main bridges and got quite a workout.

 Looking down at Kachina Bridge - hard to see from the overlook . . .

 

 . . . but after 3/4 mile hike down into the canyon, there I am standing under the span.

 

 Petroglyphs carved on the base of the natural bridge

 cool ripple marks in the mud under the bridge

 

 Owachomo Bridge

 

Afterwards, we had several hours of daylight left and headed south to Goosenecks State Park on the San Juan River. The most direct route took us through three miles of gravel road through the Moki Dugway that took us down 1,000 feet of elevation at 10% grade from the top to the valley below – not for the timid driver. (After googling 'Moki Dugway" we learned it was built in 1958 to transport uranium ore from the mesa top to the town of Mexican Hat below.)   Brian has become a pro at negotiating narrow, winding roads without guardrails! Our visit to Goosenecks was late in the afternoon so not the best lighting for photos. The park has really changed since our last visit – there is now an entry fee and the camping is not free anymore. Quite a few visitors were out there in this remote part of Utah.

 warning sign at the beginning of the Moki Dugway

 

There was also a sign saying RVs were not recommended, but we saw some anyway!

 

 This is at the bottom before heading back up THAT cliff.

 

 view from the top

 

That's where we were headed

 

Goosenecks of the San Juan River

In geologic terms, this is an entrenched meander with the river 1,000 feet below the mesa.

My father took a photo of this place in the 1950s and I was always fascinated with it as a kid.

From the overlook, you can see the river almost doubling back on itself four times.

 

 

Before leaving Utah, we wanted to visit another site we have not made the journey to before: Hovenweep National Monument. It was established in 1923 but is little known. Here the NPS preserves some ancient ancestral Puebloan ruins. The intricate masonry of the stone structures is exemplary and they are still standing after seven centuries. We took a great hike around the canyon behind the visitor center but did not venture out to any of the sites that required driving on bumpy gravel roads.

 With the shorter days of fall, we are usually up and on the road before sunrise.  This is our reward.

 

Mule Canyon Ruins - kiva

 

 looking across the canyon at the beginning of our hike

 

Right after Hovenweep we crossed the state line into Colorado and traveled to Mesa Verde National Park. We were able to get a campsite as the campground wasn't due to close for another two weeks, but the ranger-led tours of the cliff dwellings were over for the season. We did drive out to view Spruce Tree House from the overlook – it was closed because of potential rock falls. We were not too terribly disappointed in our trip to this because we have climbed ladders and squeezed through narrow passageways up to the cliff dwellings on previous visits.  (Note:  Our son and his wife were able to take cliff dwelling tours when they were at Mesa Verde in September.)

 Spruce Tree House - Mesa Verde NP

 

 

 

 

Everywhere we look, we see the cottonwood trees showing off their color.

We saw miles of them today while driving through the Rio Grande Valley near Los Alamos, but the rainy conditions were not good for photos.  I hope to get better ones tomorrow.

After just one night in Colorado, we set off for New Mexico. We were able to get an oil change in Farmington and do some much-needed grocery shopping. After dry camping for three days, we refreshed ourselves at the aquatic center showers in town for a small fee. (Note: While some campgrounds are still open this late in the season, most have turned off the water taps so we make sure we have 3 or 4 gallons with us for cooking and dishwashing.  I have come to regard vault toilets as  luxuries - at times we find ourselves in dispersed camping situations where they are nowhere to be found.)

One of the things we like best about traveling without an itinerary is the surprises we encounter. After leaving Farmington, we headed out into BLM land for free camping at Angel Peak Recreation Area. We left the paved highway and headed out on a well-maintained gravel road to a nice campground six miles away and this is what we found:

Angel Peak Recreation Area (BLM) - we were surprised to see these badlands.

View of Angel Peak from our campground

Sunset from Angel Peak Campground

Today we drove through intermittent rain past some previously-visited locations through Jemez Mountains to Los Alamos, NM. The weather prevented us from camping at Bandelier National Monument so we settled into a motel and hope for better weather tomorrow. Also, it is time to do laundry again. (It's not all surprises and excitement on extended road trips.)

 We visited Valles Caldera near Los Alamos 8 years ago before it became part of the

National Park Service.  We took a van tour deep into the caldera to see the historic ranch.

portion of the caldera on a rainy afternoon

Seen while geocaching:

 

Brian is on the far left side of this interesting rock formation replacing the geocache.

If this has a name, we don't know what it is.

 

 Kris hiking out to the big rock formation near Angel Peak.  We went out there to replace

 a geocache that hasn't been found in three years (with cache owner's blessing).

 

 Angel Peak Campground - we didn't know there were any geocaches out

there until we realized we had a cell phone signal and used the app to check.

 

There was a geocache in the middle of the bridge near Moab.