On to Santa Fe

August 19-23

It is a fairly short drive from Alamogordo to Santa Fe, so we did not rush to get going in the morning. We arrived in the early afternoon and found our campsite and set up.  It was a very nice camp ground with lots of trees and grass and located about 4 miles from the main part of Santa Fe.  However, traffic is really heavy and it took a long time getting anywhere. In addition, the roads are crooked, change names and are very confusing, particularly in the old section of town where all the action is. 

Our campsite even had a lawn where we could set up our Clam, a portable screened-in enclosure. However, mosquitoes where not a problem and the lawn area had a sprinkler system which gave it a shower every morning so we took it down. It also turned out that we were rarely at our campsite the entire week due to wedding duties.

After setup we had to head to Albuquerque to pick up Megan and Lucy, plus 4 suitcases of stuff for the wedding.  We got Megan back to Santa Fe and setup in the nice apartment she rented. The apartment was near the main plaza which is the heart of Santa Fe. Megan's apartment became flower central as she was responsible for flower arrangements at Kevin and Cina's wedding thing.

Kevin and Cina flew into NM on Tuesday AM and we met them at the Santa Fe Sam's Club to buy wine and things for the ceremony.  We also met Cina's mom, Martha, for the first time. We went to dinner that evening with them at Cina's favorite Mexican restaurant. There are literally hundreds of Mexican restaurants to choose from and by the end of the week we no longer wanted Mexican food, we found a steak place.

New Mexico is touted as the chili capital of the world. There lots of them for sale all over Santa Fe. Almost every food item in restaurants has green chilies in them. There is even a green chili beer we found.  Santa Fe is also in the mountains and sits at 7000 feet so it was not quite as hot as lower elevations. It is also very dry so staying hydrated is important. There is a ski area nearby and the better known Taos area is only an hour away.

On Wednesday, we took a tour of Santa Fe. It has over 80 art galleries and they are everywhere. It also is the site of a historic basilica and the miraculous staircase at the Loretto chapel. This chapel had a choir loft and the nuns would not use a ladder, as was common in that time. They needed a staircase so they prayed and a man showed up and built a two turn spiral staircase that does not have a center support post nor is it attached to the wall. He built it with simple hand tools and then disappeared without payment after completion.  It did not have a hand rail and the nuns were afraid to use it so they later contracted another carpenter to add an outer and inner hand rail. It is a thing of beauty.

The Basilica of Santa Fe

The miraculous staircase. The support was added later.

Santa Fe was also the check-in point for scientists enlisted for the Manhattan project which took place at Los Alamos, about an hour northwest of Santa Fe. There is a plaque on the wall in what is now a pottery shop commemorating this. Our guide said that scientists went in the front door and where not seen again as they were secretly escorted out the back door to Los Alamos. 

Besides helping Megan get her flowers together, I did get to play golf twice, on Thursday and Friday morning. Thursday, Elliott and I played Black Mesa, a beautiful, tough course about 25 miles north of Santa Fe set in the mesa and canyons. A local said to always take an iron into the rough as you might encounter a snake. Yikes. On Friday, Elliott, Andy, and Tom Etzkorn, a old friend in town for the wedding, and I played the Santa Fe CC. A bit flatter and friendlier course for a hacker like me.

A signature par 3 up into a canyon at Black Mesa

The greens and fairways were excellent. Off the course is trouble

One of two ponds on the course.

Beautiful vistas on almost every hole.

Alamogordo and White Sands

It has been a while since we have posted.  We were busy with family, the wedding, and plagued with poor WIFI. So, there will be a series of updates to cover our travels to Santa Fe and return.

August 16-19

After visiting the International UFO Museum, we headed to Alamogordo, NM where we plan to meet up with Keri, Elliott and kids.  The trip is up and over some mountains where we landed in the KOA.  Keri and fam arrived Saturday afternoon and we had a small party going in our spot. As the weather was very hot, there were not a lot of campers.

Chilling at our campsite.

 

Prior to their arrival, we visited Cloudcroft for lunch on Saturday. Cloudcroft is 15 miles on the road but 4000 feet higher in elevation.  It is also 20 degrees cooler.  It is a totally different climate and ecology than Alamogordo.  It has lots of trees and even a ski resort.

A tunnel on the way to Cloudcroft. On the other side it is much greener, more trees, etc.

At the tunnel stop. There are climbers going up the rock wall

Downtown Cloudcroft

Main drag. It was crowed up here.

On Sunday, we visited White Sands to show the kids the white dunes and let them saucer in the sand. The KOA was nice enough to loan us two saucers which we would have had to rent at the dunes.  While the saucer does go down the sand, it is not nearly as fast as snow. 

We left dunes at lunch time and decided to avoid the heat by returning to Cloudcroft for lunch. There is a fairly new brewery there with a neat patio, great pizza and good brews.  We also stopped on the way up to view the restored railroad trestle that was used in the late 1800's and 1900's to move passengers up to Cloudcroft to escape the heat. Cloudcroft was resort destination for people from as far as El Paso. The train was the only way up and it was a major endeavor just to build the railway.  This trestle is only one of many that had to be built.  In addition, the train had do a switchback, where it stopped, went in reverse up a ramp, and then forward up an another track to permit making the grade.  It was multi-hour grueling trip on the train just to get there. 

Restored trestle that let the train get to Cloudcroft.

We also visited a Pistachio farm. For some reason, this is big growing area for these nuts.

World's largest pistachio, so they claim

At all other times we were at the pool, cooling off.  The kids and we really enjoyed our time together at the campground. Keaton slept in the trailer with Keri, while Elly slept with her dad in a tent.  Fortunately, it cooled off enough at night so they could get some sleep. 
Tomorrow is Monday so it will be on to Santa Fe. Keri and Elliott are heading to Albuquerque to swap out rental cars. (They flew into El Paso and needed to get rid of their more expensive one way rental. )

Alien Invasion

August 15

We left Clyde Texas and took non-interstate 380 towards Roswell, NM, home of the 1947 UFO crash landing. It was amazing to see the miles and miles of cotton fields in west Texas. We ate lunch in Brownfield, TX which, besides cotton, claims to be the "grapevine capital" of Texas.
Once into New Mexico, the agriculture stopped and it became nothing but brush and large cattle ranches.  We made our into Roswell in the mid afternoon.

Aliens welcoming us to our campground

This is the entrance to our campground. As you can see, aliens are everywhere.  The WIFI password even was "aliens51". 
We stopped by the visitor center and got maps, etc. They even take your picture with visitors from out of state. Guess who is from Missouri.

As we had a few hours, we drove to Bottomless Lakes state park. The lakes are just large sinkholes with water in them and not bottomless.  One of the larger lakes has a beach and swimming.

August 16

We left the campground and headed to the International UFO Museum in downtown Roswell.  It has detailed displays of the Roswell Incident along with many affidavits and testimony of witnesses.  One of the authors of several books on the subject gave a presentation on the incident. There were over 600 people who witnessed some of the weird happenings that occurred and the governments responses. However, there is no physical evidence. There are eyewitness claims that the Army picked up all the stuff and the dead aliens and flew them out to top secret hidings.
It was amazing to us how many people where at this museum early on a Friday morning. 

Some of the visitors to the museum

We then headed out of Roswell on our way to Alamogordo, NM to meet up with Keri, Elliott, and kids on Saturday, the 17th, to let the kids camp with us, swim in the KOA pool, visit White Sands, and then head toward Santa Fe. The weather has been brutal, high 90's to over 100 in the afternoon. But, it is a dry heat. 

Do you know the way to Santa Fe?

August 12, 13

Apologizes to Dionne Warwick.  We left St. Louis on Monday, August 12, working our way out West, planning to land in Santa Fe on Monday, the 19th. 
Our route took us to Arkansas so we could add another sticker to our map of travels.  We have a US map and stickers for each state we camp in.  Arkansas was open plus it has Hot Springs National Park.  So, we headed south, in the heat, to Hot Springs. Most of Missouri is trees, but near the border and into Arkansas, it opens up to rice fields/paddies.  Why they grow rice there I do not know.
We had a campsite in Lake Catherine State Park. Our campsite was right on the water.  It is beautiful park but unfortunately the temperature was 101 with high humidity.  We stayed inside with the AC on.

Our campsite at Lake Catherine State Park.

Since we got into the area in the late afternoon, we drove into Hot Springs to get the lay of the land.  The main part of the National Park is a section of the main drag called Bathhouse Row. These are buildings going back to the early 1900s that were built to support the large trade of medicinal baths using the hot water emanating from 47 springs that exit the earth behind the bathhouses.  The National Park system owns the buildings and has leased them for other purposes.  The Superior Bathhouse is now a brewery and uses the hot water from the springs in their brewing. All there beers are brewed with Hot Springs water. This is the only brewery located within a National Park.  The beer and the food was excellent. Katie and I both had flights of beers to sample some of their brews.

The bathhouse now a brewery and restaurant

Our seats faced the main drag. Beer flights and people watching.

The next day we returned to the park to take some tours offered by the visitor center. The NP center is in the restored Fordyce Bathhouse, one of the most elegant of the houses along bathhouse row. In the 1800's the Federal government took over the springs to ensure the quality of the water, etc. They took control of the water and distributed it the bathhouses, which they authorized.  Currently, only two bathhouses offer the bathhouse experience, of which we did not partake.  The remaining are used for a gift shop, art museum, etc.
The water takes over 4000 years to exit at the springs. Rain water slowly seeps deep into the earth and is heated by the warmer temperatures deep in the earth. It is not volcanic so the water is pure and drinkable. It then hits a fault line and takes about a 100 years to reach the surface and exit out of the Hot Springs mountain located behind the bathhouses.  The water is about 143 degrees and very pure and drinkable. There are fountains along the street where anyone can fill up a jug of hot spring water.  The bathhouse experience included sitting in tubs of spring water and also drinking it.  As the water was too hot to bath in, the houses had cooling systems to cool the spring water to temper the water before bathing.  In all cases, only pure spring water was used to ensure you got the full medicinal benefits of the water.  There were no common pools, only individual cubicles with tubs for the bath.
The tour was very interesting as there were all kinds of treatments available. In fact, back in the day you had to have a doctor's prescription to use the baths. Different bathhouses were supposedly specialized for different ailments. Some were for liver problems, other for stomach ailments, etc.  There were also doctors located across the street that could set you up to treat whatever ailed you. 

The Fordyce Bathhouse, now the Park visitor center.

Example of opulence in the Fordyce.. a stained glass ceiling in the Men's bath area.

As mentioned, the Feds took over the springs early on to ensure everyone had access and maintain the quality.  In fact, the Ranger claimed this was the first National Park, almost 50 years before Yellowstone. However, the springs were called a Federal Reserve and not a park. It became a national park in 1921.   Originally, the water just emerged at various places and flowed to a creek. To prevent contamination, they capped all the springs and piped it to central site for storage and distribution to the bathhouses and fountains. They continually test the water.  There was a site where water emerged recently and was not yet capped.  Capping was planned for the future.

Several capped springs. They all have locked trap doors on top.

A new spring emerging from a section of the rocky hill behind the houses. Water is hot.

August 14
We left the area on Wednesday and drove Southwest. We drove though Dallas and took I-20 West to Clyde, Texas.  Tomorrow we head for Roswell, NM.

Our campsite in Clyde, TX.  Nothing special.

Getting our Trailer

This post covers buying a new trailer and our trip to Reno, NV, to get it. Once there we visited Lake Tahoe and Great Basin National Park before returning home with our new trailer. 

Mid April, 2019
After we found out our trailer was totaled and determined how much insurance money we would get, we had to decide on our next step. We could order a new 19', but the time to complete it took us into September. This interfered with our plans to use our trailer in Santa Fe for Kevin's wedding. So, we looked on the forum for used trailers. A brand new, never been used trailer was on the forum for a good price.  It was not configured exactly as we wanted, but it was close. It was also a 21', larger and slightly heavier than our 19.   I called and it was still available, but someone was coming to look at it the next day.  I immediately committed to buy it and sent overnight a significant deposit to hold it for us.  The seller committed the trailer to us and agreed to hold it to the end of May,  when we would finally get our car to tow it.  The owner had picked up the trailer in February, trailed it to Reno, and then stored it indoors.  It had never been used other than that trip. 

Our new trailer in storage in Reno. (a defunct K-mart)

Friday, May 17, 2019
When I returned home from picking up our repaired car in Tallahassee, we immediately packed up the car and headed out to Reno at about 9:00 AM. Katie obviously drove as I was wiped from the overnight drive from Florida.  We wanted to get to Reno on Sunday to pick up our new trailer.   We got to the middle of Nebraska and stopped in Lexington. The motel clerk said there were tornado warnings.  We came to find out that tornadoes struck about about 20 miles from where we were staying.  We drove the next day solid and finally stopped in Elko, NV. which is about 4 hours from Reno.  The route we took (I-80) took us through Salt Lake City and driving across the salt flats west of the city. It is a very unique and almost surrealistic location.







Sunday, May 19, 2019
We got to Reno about noon.  We had an appointment at 1:30 to get our trailer. We stopped at a Chili's for lunch near our destination. Our seller called and we meet at 1:15 to complete the purchase, review all the extras he bought for the trailer and hook up.  We had reservations at a campsite in Carson City, NV.  We drove there with no issues and set up in the campground.  The trailer was stored indoors and was like new. In fact, the owner had never used or tested any of the systems such as the water heater, furnace, AC, refrigerator, etc.  We had already committed, so we had to hope it all worked.  We did know that Escape made a good trailer so we were confident it would all be fine.  So far, everything is working fine.



Monday, May 20
On Monday, we unhitched and drove to Lake Tahoe to visit that area.  You cross over some mountains to reach Lake Tahoe.  It is literally surrounded by mountains. In fact, all the rain that falls drains into Lake Tahoe. There is only one flow of water out of Tahoe called the Truckee River, which ends at Pyramid Lake and stops. None of the water reaches the ocean.
Crossing the mountains you come upon beautiful views of the lake. The water is very clear and cold, although it never freezes because the lake is so deep, the convection currents keep the water circulating to prevent freezing.

Great views of the lake

This is a tunnel in rocks to let the road through.

We took a boat cruise around the lake from an area called Zephyr Cove.  It happened that the area of the boat tour also had a gathering of old classic cars. There where Model A's, Pierces and Duesenbergs. Very cool.

The cruise goes across the lake and back.  There is really not a lot to see other than beautiful mountains and clear water. Due the time of year, it was still pretty cold and very few boats were on the water.  There is a historical mansion on the far side built by some rich Scandinavian, appropriately called "Vikingsholm."  If you drive to the other side, you can hike down to the estate and look around.

Cruising on Lake Tahoe

The Vikingsholm Estate

 
An old friend from work lives in Tahoe, so we meet for a beer and appetizers. Nice to see an old face in a new location.  After our meeting we drove around Lake Tahoe.  It is a very unique and beautiful lake with lots of expensive houses as well as older, more modest dwellings.


Tuesday, May 21
On Tuesday, we started out east along Hwy. 50. The section of this highway in Nevada is called the most lonely road in America.  Once you get a few miles out of Carson City, there are very few cities and very few people.  You go for a hundred miles or so with nothing. There are also very few gas stations.  The weather was also funky.  We went from cloudy to sun to rain to sleet to snow and back. You also go from valley to mountain pass and back again about 5 times. Near the end it was snowing quite a bit and we weren't sure we could make it.  A gas station attendant said to treat it like rain and keep going.  We did and made it to our destination in Baker, NV. which is near the entrance to Great Basin National Park.
The campground was a bit weird but the site was nice. The town was so small it had almost no facilities but it did have a very nice restaurant.  Very weird to have this place to eat in a town with almost nothing else.

Our campsite in Baker, NV

We spent the next day touring the park and taking the cave tour. Originally, the only visitor destination was the cave, but it eventually became a national park to highlight the Great Basin.  The basin is the area from Tahoe, into Oregon, to mid-Utah that includes most of Nevada. It also includes the Great Salt Lake.   This Great Basin is named because any rain that falls in this area does not reach the ocean.  There are mountains surrounding this whole area that contains the rain.  We ate lunch in the cafe in the park and I had a Popper grilled cheese, a sandwich I had never seen before. It was a grilled cheese that put Jalapeno peppers and cream cheese on the bread.  It was very good.
There is a scenic road to the top of Mt. Wheeler, the highest peak in the area, but due to the weather and snow, the road was closed. 

Snow on the trees in park

A Marmot

Watch out for the critters!

The cave tour was very nice. There were many remnants of previous occupants. One area had a low ceiling and many names were carved into the ceiling. This occurred before it became a national park.

Goofy cave pictures

Ditto

Thursday, May 23
We started for home on Thursday and wanted to get to the lake for Memorial Day weekend. We reserved a parking spot for our trailer at our condo and started east.  We continued on Hwy. 50 until we hit I-70 in Utah and stuck with that most of the way. We ran into some wild weather in Utah; rain, snow and sleet. We camped in Gypsum, Colorado the first night and Abilene, Kansas the next.  Abilene is the birthplace of Dwight Eisenhower and the location of his library. We drove by but did not stop in.
As we neared Kansas City, Google Maps took us around and south of KC to Hwy 50 again working east and south into Eldon and then Osage Beach and our condo. The weather was not great but we had a nice relaxing weekend with friends at the lake.

Niagara Falls

July 5, 2019

We had a long drive to get from Mackinaw City to Fonthill, ON, which is about 20 miles west of Niagara Falls. We crossed into Canada at Port Huron. We arrived late afternoon, got into our campsite, and had time to go shopping to get some water, ice, etc.  The campground was also very large with all kinds of activities like a rock climbing wall, multiple pools, etc. It seems to be a destination vacation for some folks.  Fortunately, we were located away from all the activity in a quiet, wooded corner of the site.

Chilling in Canada

July 6, 2019

We headed out to the Canadian side of the falls. We believe the Canadian side offers a better view of the major waterfall, Horseshoe Falls. I also has a very nice developed waterfront with a visitor center, restaurants, and activities.   It also offers a unique attraction called Journey behind the Falls. Back in the early 1900's, they dug a shaft and tunnels that go behind Horseshoe Falls.  There is also a viewing landing on the outside, right next to the water fall.

Horseshoe Falls from the top

Going behind the falls. They provide plastic rain slickers

Behind the falls. Just a lot water

Forgot to turn on the flash

Outside viewing area next to the falls, lots of mist and spray.

Our next attraction was taking a boat ride into the bottom of the falls.  The picture below is the Maid of the Mist which you launch from the US side of the river. The rain slickers provided by the US side are blue.  Since we launched from the Canadian side, our slickers for this ride were red.  The ride is short. You cruise to the turbulent whirlpool at the bottom of Horseshoe Falls, sit there for a while and then return. It is very wet due to the mist and spray.  It was, however, a very cool experience (no pun intended).

Maid of the Mist from the US side

Boarding our boat on the Canadian side. Note red rain slickers

At the falls. Very misty and wet so picture taking a challenge.

We had a very nice lunch at the visitor center. It is right at the top of Horseshoe Falls with a great view.

Having a beer and wine, eh.

There are two other falls, both on the US side, called American and Bridal. Not as impressive as Horseshoe.  The US side is a NY state park so it is not as developed. It also is harder to view the falls from the US side.

Ameican Falls (left) and Bridal Falls.

After a day of exciting activities and walking, we returned to our campground to rest up for the trip home.

July 7/8
We headed east and south in Ontario and crossed into the US at Buffalo, headed south to I-86 to avoid tolls on NY I-90.  Connected with I-90 in Pennsylvania and into Ohio, then headed SW on I-71 to Columbus, OH. where we spent the night.  Cruised home the next day.