Saturday, May 21, 2011 – This kind of started out as a disaster!!!
We’re actually supposed to be on our way to Aruba right now, but thanks to a good ‘ole Texas thunderstorm and one particularly regrettable decision, we’ve hit the road!!! I would go in to the long list of events and frustrations that culminated into a fit of tears (on my part), but I’m trying to get past it. We knew the storm was coming, so we had a Plan B and the 2011 Road Trip is it!!! We got a late start, leaving our house just after 1:00PM, but we made it to Santa Rosa, NM and that is where we're spending the night. Tomorrow, we’ll be making our way to Santa Fe, NM and from there up to the Four Corners and eventually Mesa Verde and Durango, CO.
Sunday, May 22, 2011 – A REFRESHING start to the day!
8:00AM – Its 54 degrees here this morning. But, it is supposed to get up in the mid to high 80’s, so I’m only mildly excited about that temperature.
7:00PM – We started out our day by actually driving south to Fort Sumner. We figured we were as close as we would ever be, so we took the opportunity to visit the Billy the Kid Museum and his gravesite. This was a bit of a trek, but I had wanted to see these 2 things since my days of working for Benny Watkins when we had the Fort Sumner Housing Authority. The museum was okay, but the only things they had related to Billy the Kid were some pots that he had eaten out of and his rifle. They also had a rather long video about him, which we watched part of. After the museum, we drove out of town and visited the cemetery where Billy the Kid was buried. They have the grave in a cage and his footstone is secured with bars and nails because it has been stolen a couple of times. After our Billy the Kid adventures, we opted to return north a different route, so we wouldn’t see the same scenery. Well…it was kind of the same, but officially different.
During our side-trip, we did learn a few things about Billy the Kid – like that he spoke fluent Spanish and he got along well with the “amigos” or Spanish sheepherders. He was charming His mom died when he was 15 and is buried in Silver City. It was after she passed away and Billy the Kid was on his own that he ventured into illegal activities. His first crime was stealing laundry, but he became a horse thief and a murderer. It was rumored that Billy the Kid wasn’t really killed on the night of July 14, 1881. But, for what it’s worth, I don’t believe he could have given up his life of crime and slipped into anonymity so easily. And, either way, he’s gone for sure now!!!
Our next stop would be at Fort Union National Monument, north of Las Vegas, NM. We took the 1.6 mile, self-guided tour of the ruins and saw where the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Fort Unions were built. It seemed like it might start raining, but it never really did, which was good.
Fort Union was a military base and a key station on the Santa Fe Trail. In fact, it is here where the most visible ruts that were made from wagons traveling along the trail can be seen. It was from the first fort that dragoons and mounted riflemen campaigned against several Indian tribes living in or around the southern Rocky Mountains because they were disrupting traffic on the Santa Fe Trail.
When the Civil War began in April 1861, most of the regular troops were withdrawn from Fort Union and other frontier posts and replaced by volunteer regiments. The second Fort Union was built in anticipation of a Confederate invasion during the Civil War. However, it never saw the action for which it was designed. After the Battle of Glorieta Pass, about 20 miles southeast of Santa Fe, the Confederates withdrew to Texas, effectively ending Civil War activity in the Southwest, and the second Fort Union was soon thereafter abandoned.
The third and final Fort Union was built between 1863 and 1869. It is the fort whose ruins are seen today. The troops continued to participate in operations against Indians and the fort continued to serve the Santa Fe Trail, including a hospital that had a pretty darn good record (especially for the time) of helping sick and injured people. The fort was eventually abandoned when the Santa Fe Railroad replaced the Santa Fe Trail.
The transportation corral was the service area for the thousands of draft animals required each year to supply the frontier army:
The military prison was where murderers, deserters, and other criminals - civilian as well as military - were confined:
The hospital had six wards, 36 beds with a maximum capacity of 60 or more, a surgeon and assistant surgeon with a staff of eight. It was one of the best hospitals in the west:
From Fort Union, we headed in to Santa Fe with a detour through Las Vegas. Nothing special to note of that side-trip!!! We had not eaten lunch, so we were pretty hungry. We decided to try out Harry’s Roadhouse which had been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. Joe had a steak and I had a carne asada burrito. Both were very good!!! I had a margarita because I knew I couldn’t go to Harry’s Roadhouse and not have one, and Joe had strawberry-rhubarb pie, which also received a thumbs up from him.
After dinner, we drove to downtown Santa Fe and found the churches we wanted to visit, although they were all closed. So, we walked down to the state capitol building and took a few pictures. From there, we retired a little early at the Holiday Inn Express close to the Interstate. For some reason, I was really tired, so it was fine with me that we were in early!!!
New Mexico State Capitol Building in Santa Fe:
Monday, May 23, 2011 – Around Santa Fe
We awoke to another beautiful day here in New Mexico. After our free breakfast at the hotel, we decided to head first to the Pecos National Historical Park. This would be the first of 5 parks we would visit dedicated to the ruins and ways of lives of Ancestral Pueblo Indian people who lived here before the white man arrived. In the past, these people were identified as Anasazi which roughly translates to “ancient enemies” and is no longer used. All of the ruins were abandoned for reasons unknown.
The first thing we learned about was kivas and we saw these at each of the 5 sites we visited. A kiva is a room for religious rituals, many of them associated with the kachina belief system. Most are built underground and similar in design.
At Pecos National Historical Park, we took the 1 ¼ mile self-guiding trail around the Pecos Pueblo ruins and the Mission Complex. The Pecos Indians were once a powerful tribe and Pecos was a major trade center. In the early 1600’s, the Spaniards assigned a friar to Pecos because they were the richest and most powerful New Mexico pueblo. The Pecos and Spaniards lived side-by-side for a few years, but the mission caused a division among the Pecos. By the time the Santa Fe Trail came through this area in 1821, the pueblo and the mission were practically a ghost town. By 1838, the last survivors had left.
The abandoned Spanish Mission:
Inside the reconstructed kiva:
From Pecos, we headed back to downtown Santa Fe to explore. The New Mexico State Museum and Palace of Governors was closed on Monday, but we did visit the Loretto Chapel with its famous staircase rumored to have been built by Jesus, San Miguel Mission which is said to be the oldest church in the United States, and Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi. Since the state museum was closed, we ended up with some time on our hands. We considered going to the Georgia O’Keefe Museum, but decided instead to get a head start on tomorrow by visiting Bandelier National Monument.
Loretto Chapel:
San Miguel Mission:
Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi:
At Bandelier National Monument we took the 1 ¼ mile loop through the ruins, including the tour through the cliff dwellings. There were a couple of the cave houses, or cavates, with access via ladders. One was very small, but one was actually tall enough for us to stand up in.
After you walk around the ruins of Tyuonyi Village and past the cliff dwellings, including the Long House, you come to a fork in the trail. If you go left, it takes you back to the visitor center. If you turn right, it takes you to Alcove House. Alcove House is a cliff dwelling that is 140 feet up and to get to it, you have to climb 4 wooden ladders and a number of stone steps. It is here that I should probably admit that I kept telling Joe that it was 400 feet up and I was not really interested in trying to tackle it. But Joe convinced me to walk down there so we could at least take a picture (yeah, right – good one, Joe!). When we arrived, we realized I had mis-quoted the distance and my fate was kind of sealed. It is here that I should probably admit that climbing up to the Alcove House was a highlight of the trip for me. Getting up wasn’t that bad, but getting down was a little more challenging. The last ladder (last one up, first one down) was fairly short, but the 2 ladders in the middle were quite long and the first ladder (first one up, last one down) was pretty long, too. On the 3rd ladder down, I actually had to stop a couple of times because my legs were shaking so badly. But, I made it down without incident and I was quite proud of myself for the accomplishment!!!
By the time we finished our hike, the park facilities were closed, so we headed back to Santa Fe for dinner at Backroad Pizza. This was our 3rd Triple D restaurant and probably our favorite. We had the “Norm” pizza, which had the homemade sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, and olives. It was really yummy, as was the salad we ate with walnuts, dried cranberries, and feta cheese.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011 – Making our way to Colorado
We started our day, again, with our free breakfast at the hotel. After checking out, we decided to make a pit stop at Wal-Mart and pick up some drinks and snacks for the road.
Our first stop was several miles away at Chaco Culture National Historical Park. We had thought we would skip this national park service site, but it’s very out of the way and we decided we might never be in this area again. Our hesitation was that in order to get to the park, you had to drive down a dirt road and Joe wasn’t too interested in driving Daisy down a dirt road. As it turns out, though, he was more interested in visiting the park and getting a stamp than he was in keeping Daisy off the dirt road, and so we went (and for the record, she is just fine!!!).
Chaco Culture National Historical Park has 6 sites displaying ancient architecture. They built massive, multiple-story stone buildings, called Great Houses, where peoples and clans converged to share ceremonies, traditions, and knowledge. Chaco is central to the origins of several Navajo clans.
We visited 4 of the 6 sites during our visit. The first one was Una Vida. The structure had about 150 rooms and 5 kivas. It is an excellent example of a mostly unexcavated site. Our second stop was Hungo Pavi where we saw the incredibly thick stone walls of the complex. The 3rd and 4th sites were Chetro Ketl and Pueblo Bonita. Chetro Ketl had an estimated 500 rooms and 16 kivas. Pueblo Bonito was the core of the Chacoan complex and the largest of the great houses. It towered four stories high, with over 600 rooms and 40 kivas and was lived in from the mid-800s to 1200s. Pueblo Bonita is one of the most extensively excavated and studied sites in North America.
Today was the only day where it threatened to rain. It looked like it was raining all around us, but only rained on us when we were driving. After our visit to Pueblo Bonita, we decided to skip the last 2 sites (once you’ve seen 4 ruins, really do you need to see 2 more – ha!) to be sure we made it back down the dirt road in case it did start raining. So, we headed back to the main highway and north to Aztec, NM. For the record, it never did rain much. We stopped in the camping area (trying to escape the wind, but it was impossible!!!) to have our Subway sandwich. It started raining while we were there, but it ended quickly and did not affect our progress!!!
Our next stop would be at the Aztec Ruins National Monument. Aztec was also built by Ancestral Pueblo people and not the Aztec Indians of central Mexico as the name implies. We followed a short self-guided walking tour of the West Ruin, which included a reconstructed kiva.
Between Aztec Ruins and our final stop, we took another detour to see Ship Rock. It’s a very interesting rock formation that Joe had seen on postcards in Santa Fe. You could see it from miles away (in fact, we saw it again the next day from Mesa Verde), but we did try to drive as close to it as possible. There is only a dirt road that drives to the base of the rock and we didn’t do that, but we did get some pretty good pictures. Navajo’s believe it to be bad luck to climb it, although people have. In fact, it is technically illegal to climb the rock since it is governed by the Navajo Nation.
Our final stop was the Four Corners Monument. This monument is not associated with the National Park Service. My parents had been here several years ago and my dad mentioned that it was very commercialized. I wasn’t sure what he meant until we went, but the area is surrounded by vendors selling jewelry and t-shirts and such. I think we benefited from the fact that we arrived very late as most of the vendor booths were abandoned. We were able to fairly easily go to the monument and partake in our photo op. It was quite cheesy, but still fun.
Joe demonstrates how to be in four states at once:
On the way out of Aztec, we had gone through the town of Farmington. We had considered returning there for the night, but the traffic was absolutely horrible and we thought we were never going to get out there. The town just went on and on and on and on and on!!!! Instead, we continued towards Durango, stopping for the night in Cortez, Colorado.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011 – Visiting the Cliff Dwellings
We spent most of today at Mesa Verde National Park. Although I found all of the ruins interesting, the cliff dwellers are the most interesting to me. The way they built communities inside of the cliffs is amazing in and of itself, but imagining how they got in and out of the dwelling to farm and hunt is even more amazing.
We knew this was our only destination of the day, so we got up leisurely and made our way there mid-morning. It was quite chilly, which I loved, of course. We stopped at the visitor center to get tickets for a cliff dwelling tour and ended up having about 2 hours to check things out before our tour started. So, we headed down to Chapin Mesa Museum and walked around Spruce Tree House, which is a self-guided cliff dwelling. According to the NPS, Spruce Tree House is the best preserved cliff dwelling and it was a great introduction to the tour we would take later.
I was mildly concerned about the Cliff Palace tour since they make such a big deal about climbing the ladders to exit the dwelling. I had some confidence after Alcove House, but nonetheless, we were in a large group and I was afraid I would hold people up. It turned out to be no big deal at all, in fact, it was pretty cool, but more on that later…
Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling. It is visible from several overlooks, but it was completely worth the $3/each to take the tour. We learned a bit about the people who had lived here. Infant mortality was very high, as was death to the mother during childbirth, so their average lifespans were quite short. They were farmers and they used foot-to-toe holds to get up to the top of the mesas or down to the canyon floor to do their farming and hunting. The mystery that remains is why they left – here and the other pueblos we visited this week – which were all abandoned.
I would find that there were no ladders down on this tour – only up – which was a good thing (I’m much stronger going up than down). But, to get out of the Cliff Palace, you go up these stairs in what looks like a miniature slot canyon, up to the ladders that take you out. It was incredibly cool!!!
After our tour, we drove the Cliff Palace Loop and the Mesa Top Loop, stopping along the way to overlook various cliff dwellings. From there, it was time for a late lunch, so we stopped within the park at one of the cafeterias for a bite to eat.
From Mesa Verde, we headed into Durango, CO where we would stay for 2 nights at the Doubletree. We took advantage of our early afternoon by taking a swim in the indoor pool and hot tub. The hot tub felt awesome on my aching muscles and I drilled Joe about why he wasn’t sore from the various ladder climbs, but he didn’t have a good answer for me. Lucky, I guess. After our soaking, we enjoyed dinner at a local brewpub, the Steamworks Brewing Company.
Thursday, May 26, 2011 – A beautiful train ride!!!
Today, we took the Durango-Silverton train. It was pretty much an all-day affair, but quite an enjoyable one. I had ridden the train several years ago with my parents and my Aunt Mae, but this was Joe’s first trip and he said it was his #1 favorite part of the trip. The scenery along the way is fantastic and the town of Silverton is quite charming. We had lunch at Grumpy’s and walked around town before boarding the train and heading back to Durango.
On the train:
On the way to Silverton:
In Silverton:
Once back in Durango, we decided to splurge on dinner at the Ore House. It is a steak place with a western theme and it just seemed appropriate. It did not disappoint!!! It was one of the best steaks ever, accompanied by asparagus with hollandaise sauce and a baked potato. I even had a glass of wine.
Friday, May 27, 2011 – Finding the Sahara Desert in southeast Colorado
Sadly, today we would start heading home, but we still had a couple of stops to make along the way.
Our first stop was actually unplanned…it was at the Continental Divide at Wolf Creek Pass. We only stopped for a moment – and a photo. It was pretty cold, with lots of snow still on the ground. A couple of families were building snowmen!
Our next stop was in Manassa, CO. Joe noticed on the map that there was a Jack Dempsey Museum there since it is the town where he was born. He was intrigued and so we decided to go. However, when I checked the website on my phone, it said that it didn’t open until Memorial Day weekend. We decided to give them a call since I wasn’t sure if Friday or Saturday would be the official start of Memorial Day weekend. A guy at city hall answered the phone and said he would let us in if we came down. To top it off, it was FREE!!!! It wasn’t very far out of the way, so south we headed. Turns out, they did consider Friday the start of Memorial Day weekend and it was open anyway. Mostly it contained information and pictures of Jack Dempsey, although there was a pair of his boxing gloves and a pair of his shoes. Also, there were some mementos from his days in high school. The museum is in the actual home where he grew up and the whole place was about as big as our living room. I couldn’t believe that 11 people had lived there at one time!!! (Jack was one of 11 kids, although the 2 oldest had moved away when they lived in the house.) Joe gave thumbs up to the side-trip.
From Manassa, we headed north to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. I have to say this was one of my favorite and one of my least favorite national parks so far (our 17th!). I loved it because it is so unique. I swear that it looks like someone dumped part of the Sahara Desert down in the middle of the mountains. It just looks so bizarre that these huge sand dunes are sitting at the base of a mountain. And you can see them for miles and miles and miles before you actually get there! We stopped at the visitor center to watch the movie and we walked a nature trail that told a little about some of the plants, animals, and bugs that call the sand dunes their home. Then we got back in the car and drove down to the access point for the dunes. First we walked over to Medano Creek – just to see. Then we walked to the base of the dunes. It was probably ¼ to ½ mile to get to the base of the dunes, but walking in sand is tough!!! Furthermore, the wind was blowing like crazy, so I felt like I was getting sand-blasted. That part I hated (hence, the “least favorite” NP part of the story), even though I am glad we did it. Like White Sands, you can actually hike anywhere you want to in the sand – in fact, some people were going all the way to the top. We decided to stop at the base. It was getting late in the afternoon and we were trying to make it to Raton, NM to spend the night. Besides, I don’t think I could have managed the wind for another couple of hours!!!
We did make it to Raton, but for the first time, we had to drive for about an hour in the dark. We almost stopped in Trinidad, CO, but the hotels had been cheaper in New Mexico and we were heading to Capulin Volcano the next morning. Joe missed Raton pass (since it was dark), but it was an easy interstate drive, so he didn’t mind.
Saturday, May 28, 2011 – All the way home…
Our only real stop of the day would be just outside of Raton, at Capulin Volcano National Monument. There are two hikes at Capulin – one that goes down inside the crater and one that goes up and around the rim. I thought these were both GREAT hikes. I was proud of myself for being able to climb up and up and up on the rim without too much effort – proving to me that my diet and exercise is paying off. The only thing I hated was the bugs. We should have used some bug spray, but we didn’t, and we paid for it. There were quite a few flies, which were driving me crazy, but at the end of the rim hike, we were both covered with these very small flying bugs. I’m not sure what they were, but they sure did like us!!!
From Capulin, we drove in to Texas. We stopped for lunch in Dalhart at DQ (the only DQ stop on our whole vacation!) and then we took a scenic drive from Stinnett, TX down to Dickson, TX. For a second night, we did end up driving in the dark – this time for a couple of hours, reaching home about 10:30.
Overall, we had a great trip and I’m sure in time, I will be okay with the fact that it wasn’t Aruba.
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