Southern Colorado

We left Santa Fe a little sadly--especially me.
The weather was turning fair, but we'd been there a while & it was time to move on. First thing that morning though we took a quick trip to the Saturday Farmer's Market. It was a beautiful morning and the market was booming even at seven a.m.







It was a beautiful, not too taxing drive to La Veta, CO, in the very south of Colorado. We chose it on the recommendation of a couple we met in Santa Fe; they stay each place a month and were heading first to Taos then to La Veta, then on to Estes Park, CO. La Veta is a tiny resort town, about 15 miles off the interstate. It has more real estate offices than restaurants, a great little grocery store, a train station--sadly, we missed the day trip to Great Sand Dunes National Park by train. It runs only on summer weekends, and was leaving as we drove the car in to town to explore on Sunday morning.







We took a day to explore Cuchara, an even tinier town to the southwest of La Veta. Its altitude of 8650 feet started to make Jim really dizzy--which is when we realized that he's been having a lot of trouble with the most minor symptoms of altitude sickness. That curtailed much mountain exploring around there, so we poked around the town and rested up. I got a couple miles of running in the next morning, down the flat streets of the town, and we hooked up the rig & moved on to northern Colorado.

It's amazing.

Wyoming is amazing, weatherwise. The wind was so gusty Jim had to fight sometimes just to keep the motorhome in the road. Pretty exhausting. En route to Cody, we pulled into a campground in Douglas, Wyoming (named after Stephen Douglas), and we weren't sure the motorhome would be upright after about 15 minutes. What we think of as wind in NC is a mere breeze. In the space of 2 hours, we experienced 2 thunderstorms with wind gusts up to maybe 60 mph, and sunny hot moments that made it so stuffy inside the motorhome we had to open the windows--then the wind picked up so we were afraid we'd take off in the wind!

We were in the official home of the Jackalope. Seriously. A man from Douglas created it --he was a taxidermist--back in I think the 1930's and it stuck as a mascot.

This sculpture holds pride of place in downtown Douglas. The wind and sand were blowing so much that we couldn't really see much else of Douglas. We holed up in the motorhome for the night, and planned an early departure. Sunrise came early--about 4 am the sky began to lighten. We had a little housekeeping to do then headed toward Cody, ready for some Yellowstone.

Santa Fe

One afternoon we drove to a small town about 20 miles north of Santa Fe. There is a very old church there, the Santuario de Chimayo. In a tiny back room off the chapel, there is a pit of blessed earth, credited with healing power as witnessed by written testimonials and abandoned crutches hung from the walls in another room. A steady stream of pilgrims reverently collected bits of the earth in little boxes and plastic vials, prayed and lit candles. The town itself is tiny, and looks and feels more like a town off the beaten path somewhere in Mexico than in New Mexico, USA. Adjacent to the chapel is a tiny restaurant, selling famous local chiles, ground, bottled, strung into ristras to hang in the kitchen, and cooked into all of the local specialties. I'm hooked on tamales with roasted green chiles.

Santa Fe itself is growing as crazily as Raleigh, Atlanta, and Charlotte. There is a building code that mandates an adobe-like look, so Best Buy and all the other Big Boxes have a jauntier, more charming appearance outside, though the insane consumerism is identical inside to all other stores of that kind. Downtown, in old Santa Fe, the adobe is real more often than not, and a different kind of consumerism is at work. Tourism! There are probably more than a hundred art galleries, as well as museums, churches, restaurants, and open-air markets. We strolled downtown on Sunday morning, before many of the shops & restaurants were open, and still were elbow-to-elbow on the sidewalks with other visitors. We both tend to run away from crowds, so our tour of downtown was pretty brief. Still, I was like a kid in a candy store snapping photos of the plaza area.

I could see living here in Santa Fe, because of the wonderful outdoors options. Bikes are everywhere--there was the 23rd Santa Fe Century ride last Sunday out into the surrounding area--and a good bus system ensures that not everyone has to drive wherever they are going. Streets are pedestrian friendly too, and there is so much hiking, skiing, pretty much anything outdoors you want to do. We were unlucky in our weather, though, happened to be here during late-spring rains with sleet & wind. I think we'll have to come back sometime, maybe a fall visit for fiesta season.

The road to Santa Fe!

A motorhome as tall as ours provides amazing vistas as we roll the highways. It was irresistible to shoot the changing terrain and a few classic Southwestern scenes--even though almost every photo is through the windshield.


I couldn't stop taking photos of wind turbines--as fuel prices pass $4/gallon, renewable energy is pretty attractive. And one thing the Southwest has a LOT of is wind. Once the terrain changed from high plains to high desert, we didn't see any more turbines. Another thing there is a lot of is open space. According to our campground host, New Mexico has more public than private land--although it is not publicly accessible, just government-owned. And Ted Turner owns large pieces of it. It's easy to imagine cowboys herding thousands of cattle across the scrubby land.


We (I) chose the wrong campground the first night. The idea was good, to be outside of town so we could see the stars, but it was a poorly laid out campground and we had a terrible time getting on a site. To its detriment, the campground was about 10 miles out of the center of town. Luckily, another campground close to the Plaza at the center of town had availability for the next night, so we could laugh it off knowing we'd be outta there in the morning. We're looking forward to exploring all that Santa Fe has both in town and out in the mountains surrounding it.

Palo Duro Canyon, Texas

We spent an afternoon touring Palo Duro Canyon, 25 miles Southeast of Amarillo. Also known as the Grand Canyon of Texas!
Below is the slide show of the photos we took in the canyon--most of which just couldn't do it justice. It would be a fantastic place for an early morning run. Especially because the snakes tend to be asleep at that time!

Amarillo

This might be the prettiest spring light I've ever seen. Clear, bright, unencumbered by humidity. Amarillo is high plains, we've been told. And apparently, along with high plains, one should expect high wind. Normal, constant wind is 20-30 mph, and it's considered windy when sustained winds are in the 40-50 mph range. At home, that's a hurricane! Could it be that the Cadillacs at the famous Cadillac Ranch were originally planted vertically, and the wind has had its way with them over the years??

Mostly it's flat here, and you can see for miles. Today we drove south to Palo Duro Canyon, which locally has the reputation of the Grand Canyon of Texas. The canyon drops from the flat plains--would be a shock to come upon it without advance warning. And would have been pretty discouraging to come upon 150 years ago, in a wagon.

The canyon offers a dramatic drop to its floor, where the Park has created & supports a good dozen hiking and running trails. Cyclists love it --especially if they can park below the first grade drop--and there are primitive campsites as well as a few that could accommodate a pretty big RV. For us, the road to the campsite is too twisty for the length of the motorhome. We'd meet ourselves coming and going!

Now that I've finally created this blog, I'll throw in a little catch-up post for the sake of completeness.

We left NC the last week of April, on an open-ended adventure in our motorhome, to see the American West especially but hoping to see a lot of small-town USA on the way. We had only one reserved destination week, at the Kentucky Horse Park (KHP) in Lexington. The intention was to be near the Kentucky Derby in Louisville but not embedded in the madness of the Derby.

The KHP is 1200 acres of rolling Kentucky fields, photogenically green and sectioned by classic board fence--mostly black fence nowadays. Thoroughbred horses were everywhere, long-legged foals guarded by their moms. On the weekend there were a variety of horse activities, from cross-country & steeplechase schooling, to sulky driving, to children's gypsy drum shows. The terrain is rolling and green, and absolutely irresistible for running in the early spring mornings.

Reluctantly we left on a Tuesday morning, heading west through southern Indiana--including one night camped in the overflow parking lot of Casino Aztar, on the bank of the Ohio River. It was our first boondocking experience--not in an RV campground--and cracks me up just to think of it. The casino is a pretend riverboat, though apparently real enough to require boxes of lifejackets on the top deck. The lower decks are bursting with slot and video poker machines, the atmosphere smoky and clanging. We happened to be there on primary day, so it was relatively deserted (no alcohol sold in Indiana that day till the polls closed). We were too tired to stay up with the big kids. We pulled the shades by 9 pm and tried to sleep. That was when we discovered just how close we were to the railroad tracks!

On to Missouri before full daybreak the next morning (we weren't sleeping anyway). It rained almost nonstop, through 11 hours of road time. We stopped every couple of hours hoping to wait out the storm, but no such luck. Finally stopped in Springfield, MO for a couple of nights at a campground, with the intention of poking around historic Route 66. Mostly we saw shot glasses, coffee mugs and reproduction highway signs! And once again, each night we discovered how close we were to the railroad tracks.

Along the way, we've been enjoying just living in our motorhome, in wet weather and dry. It's been very different traveling this way, compared to our occasional beach or mountain trips. After a hard day's drive or long day of touring, it's a cocoon of home. Most nights we cook at home--in fact almost all meals are in the motor home. The weather has rarely cooperated yet for us to cook outdoors or even just lounge around outdoors, except at the Kentucky Horse Park.

We're better at staying out of each other's way than I expected. There have been moments of panic (what are we doing!!?!), especially as diesel fuel prices creep toward $5/gallon. In those moments we have to remind ourselves that this is our chance to see the country, and it's pretty unlikely that fuel prices will drop. I just lobby for staying in good places longer, to spread out the pain of each fuel stop! Spencer is a good sport, sleeps on his couch most of the travel days, and begs to go with us whenever we go to play tourist. Otherwise his needs are pretty easy to handle.

Running is suffering mostly because of campground locations--either too close to a major highway, too scary to venture into the neighborhood nearby, or too far to find a good running place. As the cities get smaller, further West, I'm hoping to find better running!

All in all, it's a cool life and I think it will be even more fun as more outdoors weather comes along, and as we arrive in more vacation destination-type places, where other campers are outdoors to meet & socialize with.

Truly West!

After 2 weeks away from home, we've made it to the American West at last! Spring might not be the best time to travel the southern Midwest; we've had more rainy day drives than not, and gray weather didn't improve our experience of Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. Oklahoma City weather is more welcoming. Sunny, breezy, 70 degrees. But we're in a campground in the heart of the city, so the wide open spaces will have to wait till Texas, I think.

I was surprised to find that OKC has a lot to do: the bombing memorial of course, the National Cowboy Museum, a big nightlife district, and even a nice place to run--but it's 15 miles or so from our home base so it will have to wait till tomorrow.

The Oklahoma City National Memorial, in the heart of downtown, occupies the site of the Murragh building blown up in 1995. It is elegantly rendered, and the atmosphere is respectful, as are the visitors we saw there.

We've decided, though, to keep moving West, till we can find a place to explore for a few days.

Next up is Amarillo---famous for the Cadillac Ranch, and big steaks, and we'll find out what else. I hope to get to Palo Duro Canyon, which is close to Amarillo, and we are really hoping that there's more small-town atmosphere. Cities just don't go with the casual/social experience we hope for by traveling in the motorhome.

Here's to the hope that I'll find a good place to run again--it's been tough to find a place near any of the recent campsites that felt safe enough to run solo. Running circles in campgrounds is not what I had in mind for exploring the possibilities of running all over the USA!!