Serene Wandering

Having three quick stays behind us, we were ready for a longer visit and Las Cruces was a great fit.  We loved Las Cruces!   

We stayed at the Las Cruces KOA and had one of the nicest sites in the campground. 

We had sunrise views in the morning,

and city lights at night.

We even had a glorious sunset on our last night!

Las Cruces has a few iconic photo opportunities.  The first we encountered was the big red chili at Big Chile Inn.  It is 47 feet long and made from 2 1/2 tons of concrete!

Another icon is the Recycled Roadrunner sculpture located at a rest stop on I-10.  We saw it several times as we drove by but actually had to go to the rest stop to get pictures showing the scale and the recycled building materials.  

This mural, welcoming all to Downtown Las Cruces, shows some of the special things about Las Cruces in each letter.  

We saw the mural when we went downtown to the Farmer’s Market.  We had a great time buying art and local food items.  Art and food are big in Las Cruces!

We also enjoyed the historic town of Mesilla.  There is a town square with shops, restaurant and a church.  There are historic markers explaining Mesilla’s interesting history.  The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which ended the Mexican-American war established that this little town was within Mexico.   In 1854 the US acquired property, including Mesilla, by means of the Gadsden Purchase.

This 1850 building once served as the capital of the Arizona and New Mexico territories.  It later held the courthouse in which Billy the Kid was tried and sentenced to hang.

Just off the town square is La Posta de Mesilla, one of the ten best Mexican Restaurants in the country according to USA Today.   The building, over 150 years old, is on the national historic registry.  La Posta used to be a stage stop on the Old Butterfield Trail.   The 19 year old niece of the local land baron began serving food here in 1939.  Restaurant lore claims that her decision to serve complimentary ‘chips and chilis’ to her customers was the precursor for Mexican restaurants serving complimentary chips and salsa.  

We started with our own chips and salsa and a Margarita Flight.  Our favorite was the Coco Loco but we liked the La Patrona, the Blood Orange and the Chili-Rita as well.  They went great with the best chicken quesadilla we have ever eaten.

We liked La Posta so well that we went back a second time – even though we were only in Las Cruces for five days.  Mexican restaurants are three to a block in Las Cruces and we did frequent one other.  The food was very good but the experience was less festive.

Mexican Food New Mexico Style:  Red, Green, or Christmas.

In addition to Mexican restaurants, the area has an agricultural emphasis on pecans and pistachios.   Pecan trees are everywhere along the interstate.  We bought plain pecans, bread with pecans and butterscotch covered pecans.  

We don’t know if we saw pistachio trees or not but we bought pistachio products:  Pistachio biscotti, pistachio popcorn, and roasted pistachios. Throw in jam and shoofly pie for fun!

We bought New Mexico’s Famous Wedding cookies.   Are you getting the idea we ate our way through Las Cruces?  We did!

We left Las Cruces for the afternoon and drove to nearby White Sands National Park.  The signage says National Monument but the designation was changed by Congress in December 2019.

A highlight of this trip for Randy was getting carded – something he totally enjoyed!  He had to prove he was 62 years old to get his Senior Lifetime National Parks Pass.

White Sands is 275 square miles of stark white gypsum sand, the largest collection in the world.   This particular kind of sand retains moisture and that keeps it from just blowing away.   We were there on a very windy day and there was some sand blowing around but not clouds of it.

Sand verbena blooms quickly and has a short life span.

We’ve been here before but it was nice to come again!

Las Cruces sits in the shadow of the Organ Mountains.  We found them reminiscent of the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho that we loved.

We drove there and hiked into the Dripping Springs Natural Area.   As the name implies, there is a spring that provides water to the area.

Eugene Van Patten was a major player in early Las Cruces and built and ran Dripping Springs Mountain Camp in the late 1800s. He built a small dam to contain the springs for his camp.

Van Patten leased nearby land to Dr. Boyd who built and ran a tuberculosis sanatorium.  Both men experienced financial problems along the way and sold the properties which were eventually abandoned.

There is still much left for us to do in Las Cruces – some we missed because our time was limited and some places were still closed due to COVID.  We will be perfectly happy to return!

In our next post you will meet a tour guide named Alex. Half Navajo and half Mexican, Alex lives and works near Las Cruces. He said the Native Americans, Mexicans and Anglos fought it out long ago and then inter-married. When the person who is supposed to be your enemy is also family, you learn to get along. He believes the swath from Tucson to the Big Bend area in Texas lives in greater harmony than much of the country because of shared faith and intermarriage. We felt that in Las Cruces.

After successfully getting through our shakedown days, we moved into New Mexico – destination Silver City!

We lucked into one of the nicest sites in the Manzano’s RV Campground.   

I worked on getting the inside set up while Randy prepped the outside – our normal routine. Then he gave the trailer a cleaning that it badly needed.

We celebrated the next stage of this adventure by opening a bottle of chocolate sipping tequila we purchased in Cabo when we were there in November 2019.  If we had remembered how delicious it is, we would have opened it long ago!  As I am writing days later, we haven’t quite finished the bottle but are already trying to figure out how to get more.

When looking at Things to Do in Silver City the primary mentions are of Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument and some of the area ghost towns.  I’m sure those are great, but we’ve seen a lot of cliff dwellings and explored random ghost town many times.  We have enjoyed each and every one. Those activities required a bit of a drive and we just weren’t motivated.  So….we explored a couple of hidden gems instead.

We started at Fort Bayard National Historic Landmark.  Fort Bayard was established as a military outpost in 1866. In the heart of Apache land, the command was to keep the area safe for mining, farming, ranching and for those just passing through.  

In addition to several cavalry and infantry regiments, the 125 US Colored Troops were stationed at Fort Bayard.  These Buffalo Soldiers are memorialized on site with a statue of Corporal Clinton Greaves.  He was given the Congressional Medal of Honor for saving the lives of six Navajo scouts during a battle with the Apache in 1877.   (Sorry for the photo – the sun position was not helpful!)  Another Buffalo Soldier Medal of Honor recipient to serve at Fort Bayard was William Cathay – only he/she was really Cathy Williams, the only known female Buffalo Soldier.

When Geronimo surrendered in 1886,  most military outposts like Fort Bayard were decommissioned.  The Army decided to maintain Fort Bayard as an Army Hospital, primarily treating tuberculosis patients.  That decision led to a long second life for Fort Bayard.

Nurses came in 1899 and were, of course,  housed separately.  The nurses building built in 1908 still stands.

A new Officer’s Row for doctors and the commanding officer was built in circa 1905.  These seven buildings remain.

One has been refurbished for a museum and visitor center.  Tours are offered two Saturdays a month by the historic preservation society but, unfortunately, they did not correspond with our visit.

The world’s largest sanatorium complex was built between 1902 and 1912.  The facility was a complete city unto itself with infrastructure, gardens, orchards, phone system and entertainment.  There were three hospitals.  

By 1918 there were five hospitals as WWI soldiers injured by mustard gas and Spanish Flu victims joined those with tuberculosis.  The dry, high mountain air, was a good treatment environment for all of them.

In 1918 over 400 buildings existed on site, many on this central parade ground.

In 1922 the facility passed to the new Veterans Administration. The VA opened a new, state of the art hospital in 1923.   The five Army hospitals were gradually phased out.   

The original 1985 Army hospital, housed German Prisoners of War in 1945.  They were brought in from Lordsburg POW Camp to be maintenance staff. The prisoners took the place of those drafted into service and were paid US private wages.

Over 300 buildings on Fort Bayard were demolished as part of Roosevelt’s Works Project Administration from 1937 to 1940.

Eighty buildings remain from the 1918 peak, plus eleven new ones built by the Veterans Administration.    

Fifty six of the remaining buildings are previous housing units.

The Veterans Administration discontinued use of Fort Bayard facilities in 1965.

A National Cemetery is on an adjacent property.  

There are people buried at the cemetery from the Indian Wars to the Army Hospital days to the Veterans Hospital days to present day.  It was named a National Cemetery in 1976.

This section is for soldiers who were buried at sea, for those whose remains were never found or identified, and for those who donated their body to science.

Our second adventure near Silver City was to City of Rocks State Park. 

As we approached the big pile of boulders in the flat vastness of southern New Mexico, they seemed totally out of place!

These rocks are remnants of the Kneeling Nun volcanic eruption. Rifts in the cooling ash were made larger by freezing, water and wind. Thirty five million years of weathering leaves us this City of Rocks.

There is a 3 mile hike around the circumference of the rocks or a hike through the middle.  We opted for the hike through the middle.

I had tried to book our stay at City of Rocks, and will try even harder next time!   The question will be do we get one of these super cool sites tucked within the rocks?

Or will we go for the more civilized sites with some amenities… I’d like to think I’d go for the one with no services in the rocks, but I know myself better than that!   There is a night sky program available for those in the park at night. Next time…

Just as we’d like to have done the tour at Ford Bayard and stayed at City of Rocks, there are still those cliff dwellings and ghost towns to explore.  We are glad Silver City isn’t too far from where we live.  It is worth a repeat visit!

When we were last in the trailer (late August 2020) we had a leaky shower,  ideas for renovation and appointments for two estimates.  We kept the appointments but suddenly had a much bigger problem. Our largest slide made horrible noises and barely got in and out. That took priority over everything else because slides really need to work!

Misalignment caused a gear tooth to break which caused more breakage and more misalignment. Who knows how or why? Randy found a mobile tech who worked through the slide issue and then he fixed the leaky shower himself – not for the first time.  

We had also decided we wanted to take out the old carpet and the mobile tech knew a guy. Randy made contact and then decided he would do the demolition himself.

Randy took out the old carpet, laminate and many dozens of stapes. He had to sand the floor several millimeters to allow for more clearance for the slides. It was a lot of work. We had to keep the carpet on the slides because there just isn’t a good way to replace it.

We had reservations to take a trailer trip to Death Valley over the winter but opted not to go when medical leaders asked people to stay home.  As a result our trailer sat unused for seven months – the longest it has been idle since we purchased it in 2012.  

Thus the question – Are we novices again? We feel like it!  Things that were once second nature now render us unsure.  

When we lived in Boise we had house stuff and trailer stuff and rarely moved things back and forth.  When we were full timers we had everything with us.  When we were trying to stock our new home (and garage) almost everything came out of the trailer because we needed it and because it is just too hot to leave things inside.

The results were that on the trips we have taken since, we would inevitably leave something behind or be out in a remote area in need of parts. Idle trailers seem to have as many things break as those that are being used all the time!   

To combat the inevitable, we planned our first few days of this trip close to home.  We could retrieve a forgotten item or get parts in town before venturing too far away.  As it happened, we did go back home for forgotten AirPods but we didn’t need any parts! Everything is working so far!

We live on the west side of Phoenix and our ‘close to home’ stay was on the east side – sixty miles away!    Not only is the Phoenix metro about 60 miles wide it is also quite populous.  Maricopa county (Phoenix metro) has a population estimated at 4.6 million.  That is about the same as the states of Louisiana and Kentucky, numbers 25 and 26 in rank population order.

Since Maricopa county is pretty much a state on its own, we have our own version of state parks.  There are fourteen Maricopa County Regional Parks and they are very, very nice.  We have camped at several and hike occasionally at the two nearest our house.

We visited our first Maricopa County Regional Park in 2015, Usery Mountain, and loved it.  We went to lunch with a volunteer couple and met with a ranger because we were very interested in potentially volunteering there.

This is a chain-fruit cholla cactus.  The fruit pieces are edible and some animals rely on them during drought for food and water.

He heard bees and saw a hive in this crevice and when he went in for a picture, the bees swarmed him.  He called me and told me what happened and said he lost his glasses and an AirPod and had to go back in.   When I knew he was okay and was not having a reaction to several bee stings, I shook my head and thought “That is such a Randy thing” –  always going in, or getting closer to the edge, for a better look.

After telling a fellow hiker about his experience with the bees, the other man told Randy about a man who died from a bee attack at the same park. This is the link: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/mesa-breaking/2016/05/26/hiker-dies-after-1000-bees-attack-usery-mountain/85002420/

The first time we were here we noticed many people had lights around their RVs and vehicles.  We were told pack-rats love to get up into vehicle compartments and chew wires. We’ve used the lights a few times along the way and got them out again.

Having successfully maneuvered our initial shakedown, we traveled further afield into south eastern Arizona.

Roper Lake is a nice state park with a small lake.  We thought it was too chilly to pull out the paddle boards.

We hiked to the top of the “sky island” mesa and enjoyed the sunset.  By the time we got down we were blissfully dodging rain drops.   Blissful in the rain is an Arizona thing….

So far so good for these novices! It is great to be on the road again.  Next stop is Silver City, New Mexico!

Our first excursion was to Chena Hot Springs Resort. We had a tour of the geo-hydro plant that provides most of the heat and electricity for the resort.  

This resort is very remote (requiring onsite employee housing) and their ability to be mostly self sufficient is impressive. Nice, but we came here for The Ice Museum and a soak in the hot springs!   

The Ice Museum has a number of impressive art carvings and a few “rooms”to rent to stay the night. They give you a room in the lodge as back up. Very few make it through the night!

After getting chilled in the ice museum – we were ready for a soak in the hot springs!

Another adventure took us on a return trip to Denali National Park.  We were there ten years ago, taking the school bus tour 89 miles into the heart of the park, and seeing a variety of animals.  We also saw a cloud obscured Mount Denali. That was then.

We knew we weren’t seeing Denali this time either because of heavy cloud cover but we were hoping to see animals.  (After seeing two distant moose, a porcupine and a fox right after we arrived in Alaska, we hadn’t seen anything since!)

Usually, personal vehicles are allowed to only go fifteen miles into the park. With no bus tours offered, we were allowed to drive 30 miles in on the only road in Denali National Park.

It wasn’t the wildlife viewing experience we had hoped for but we learned a few things.  Denali National Park’s original preserve was formed to protect the Dall Sheep from excessive hunting. It was later expanded to include the mountain.  Alaska has sixteen national parks and their combined acreage equals two thirds of all United States National Park holdings.

Our last big adventure away from Fairbanks was to fly to Coldfoot, Alaska –  landing above the arctic circle!

After landing in Coldfoot, we took a 30 minute van ride to Wiseman, 63 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

In Wiseman, we met Jack who told us about living in the arctic.  He has lived in the arctic region since he was a small child. He and his wife, a few members of his extended family and a handful of others live in Wiseman year round. They live off the grid – as you must up here – using solar power and Honda generators. They rely on subsistence living and plan to use every single scrap of the moose his wife had killed the day prior. They must get a caribou to have enough meat to last the winter. Fishing opportunities are rare this far inland.

Jack uses cues from the trees to know when to put seeds or seedings in his garden. He uses plastic sheeting to warm the ground maximizing their 100 day growing season.   

Our impression was that Jack was one of the smartest people we have ever encountered.  It wasn’t clear if he had formal education beyond the arctic but it was very clear he knew a lot about a lot of things!  Jack reads everything and serves on government boards for fish and wildlife management.

It was fascinating and impressive that a handful of people survive out here with just their own tenacity.   It is also humbling to know that I would never (could never?) want to live this way.

We did, however, do what only two percent of visitors to Alaska do. We crossed the arctic circle!

Most visitors cross by vehicle (at least one way) and have a photo op at this famous sign.  We saved ourselves many, many hours by flying both ways – but missed the photo op!

Although our purpose for visiting Fairbanks was to see the northern lights, we had daytime to explore.    Randy and I were in Fairbanks in 2010 with my parents on a cruise/land tour so we had already seen some of the sites.  Others were closed because of Covid, and still others were closed because it was late September and the summer tourist season was over.

Our cabin was just down the road from a great attraction – the Running Reindeer Ranch.  This is the ultimate story of: girl wants a pet, overcomes mom and financial hurdles to finally obtain two reindeer.  Of course, the girl grows up and moves away, leaving mom to care for the reindeer.  Years later, mom has turned the reindeer herd into a family business. Mom breeds reindeer and educates tourists about them, serving chocolate chip cookies from the same recipe the girl used to raise $2000 to buy that first reindeer.

There is an opening informative talk about reindeer. All the while the herd wanders around and through!   Reindeer are the same as caribou – just domesticated.  They need human support. Female reindeer and caribou grow antlers – unlike other horned or antlered animals.   All caribou and reindeer shed and grow new antlers each year.

The herd is currently about a dozen animals and, after learning about them, we all went for a walk through the aspen forest.

Another fun afternoon was spent at the Fountainhead Antique Automobile Museum.   I always enjoy car museums way more than I expect to but this one had a unique twist.  Not only are the vintage cars on display, but corresponding vintage clothing are displayed as well!   How fun is that!

I’ve never been big on fashion except to appreciate it in a general way.  However, I did learn about a pigeon breasted bodice in this 1905 display.  It absolutely looks like a pigeon breast! Oh yeah! See the car in the background!

If Randy was writing this you’d get more car highlights.  Sorry, it is me.  Here are a few car things that I noticed, or were pointed out to me.

Randy had a nice time looking at the cars and talking with the docent. (He said he barely noticed the clothes.) I enjoyed the car-fashion combinations.  It was a fun way to spend a rainy afternoon in Fairbanks.

Next post – The things we did away from Fairbanks!

In 2019 we went on a Panama Canal Cruise for my mother’s bucket list trip and to an overwater bungalow in Tahiti for Randy’s.   My bucket list idea was to see the Northern Lights. Our first plan was an October 2020 Princess Cruise to Norway called Looking for the Northern Lights.  Of course, that was shut down with everything else in 2020.  Plan B was a trip to Alaska. 

Alaska requires a Covid test 72 hours before departure.  Arizona State University sponsors a drive up testing site that worked for us.   We tested Saturday morning, had negative results on Sunday, and left on Tuesday.  The above paragraph makes the whole process sound simple. It was not.

Alaska Airlines had a great deal on flights and does a nice job of keeping travelers and employees safe.  We had great views of the frigid northland with many glaciers.

I researched time and place and decided on a very rural airbnb cabin 10 miles outside Fairbanks.   We booked for eleven nights around the fall solstice with minimal moonlight.

German Shepherd Sadie lives on site and she and I became good friends.  We even took care of Sadie for a few days when the owner went camping.

We were in place and ready to see lights!      Our working plan was to drive to a nearby viewing area each evening and wait for lights to appear.   It was only 15 minutes from our cabin – but it was easier planned than accomplished!    

We were our first problem.   All summer we have gone to bed early so we could be up early because 5:30 – 9:00 a.m. is the only good time to be outside in the summer desert heat.  Staying out and awake well into the night required a major shift in our internal clocks.

We learned about KP levels (how far the solar activity would spread) and had websites and apps to monitor viewing potentials.   The highest KP levels were supposed to be near the end of our trip but activity was possible at any time as long as the night skies were clear.

Each clear night we drove up the nearby hill for optimum viewing and stayed until we were just too cold and tired to care.

One night we saw an interesting white glow spreading across the north.  It was like a dome of light above a distant city, but Fairbanks was in the opposite direction!   We knew something was different! Sadie had been tied up for awhile so about midnight we headed back to the cabin all the while keeping our eyes looking north.   We stopped once en-route because things were looking even more interesting!

We got back to Sadie, let her off her tether,  and the lights came.  Our lights were white, some like those old spotlights shooting up from car dealerships.   Others we saw were like rolling clouds.   We saw hints of color a couple times but white was dominant.   We didn’t even try to take pictures.  We just enjoyed them, wrapped in a blanket together, with Sadie at our feet.

Our show lasted about 30 minutes and we were so cold and tired that we were fine with it ending!  We were only half way through our trip, KP levels were rising and we had hope of seeing more.

But we never did.  The clouds rolled in for days and we didn’t have another chance until the dark morning we drove to the airport to leave.  I watched out the airplane window hoping to see them one more time.

Honestly, it seems like a crapshoot to ever see the lights.   We went to the right place, at the right time, stayed eleven nights and feel fortunate to have seen them once!  Most people see green lights – so maybe we were lucky to see white.    We talked to someone who had lived in Fairbanks for 27 years and had only seen the multi colored light display one time.

I’ve heard from many of you that seeing the Northern Lights is on your bucket list too.  I offer this piece of advice.   Do your research on time and place like I did, but then book a room in a Bed and Breakfast or Lodge that will WAKE YOU UP if the lights appear.   I knew that type of lodging existed but was being Covid careful, wanting to be more isolated.  Hopefully, that won’t be necessary too much longer.   It was exhausting to stay awake so late, checking the apps for notifications anytime we woke up, and still trying to have some fun during the days.

Look for future posts about those daytime activities near Fairbanks!

Occasionally we’d see something else.  This is an old water tank for the steam engines on the old railroad line between Chama and Durango.

One morning we saw all these fish congregating along the bank for about 300 yards!  We caught THE day the carp were spawning!   When the water temperature is right (73 degrees) it all happens in one day.    Two days later the eggs hatch.

We did get in the truck a couple times to go exploring!  Chimney Rock became a national monument in 2012, one of only 11 national park sites that are managed by the US Forest Service.   

Over 200 structures, or former structures, are evident within the monument. Some have been excavated and stabilized.  Large archeology efforts were made in 1921 and 1971.

The Ancient Pueblo people lived here from 925 to 1125 AD.  They were part of a larger network that centered in Chaco Canyon, 100 miles southwest.     Within the network, the Chimney Rock community was the most remote and highest in elevation.

Architecture and pottery similarities establish that Chaco relationship for archeologists. The wall under the shelter above is the only section of original wall available for viewing.  Other areas have been rebuilt (using original stones as possible) and stabilized with concrete.  When in use, the walls and roofs would have had a covering of adobe.

We accessed self guided tours to both sections of the national monument.   The first was Mesa Village containing home sites and a grand kiva.  The path is paved and the audio tour is well done. During non-covid times, guided tours are available.

The second section is the Great House Pueblo Trail.  The trail is a bit adventurous with rock/gravel footing,  steep drop-offs and gorgeous views.

Evidence exists of large fires at the Great House site.  They are thought to have been signals to a community on Huerfano Mesa approximately 30 miles away.  From there signals could be sent to Chaco Canyon.

The Great House appears to have had ceremonial purpose instead of residential.  Archeologists estimate no more than 10 people lived in this part of the site.  Many rooms were empty, thought to be guest rooms occupied only when special gatherings took place.

There were normal ceremonial gatherings and then there was the Northern Major Lunar Standstill gatherings.  Of course they didn’t call it that. Once every 18.6 years the moon rises between the two rock pinnacles, as viewed from the Great House.   During occupation of the site, those dates would have included AD 1076 and AD 1093.   Wooden beam datings have corresponded to those dates.

The next cycle of the Northern Major Lunar Standstill will occur in 2024-25.  Maybe we’ll have to come back to see it, and maybe by then I’ll understand it.  I looked for a simple, brief explanation for the blog and nothing was simple or brief!

Peregrine Falcons return to nest at Companion Rock each year.  We didn’t see falcons, but we did see evidence.

Beyond our exploring and relaxing, Handy Randy spent considerable time trying to fix leaks in our shower.   We had a cracked shower pan replaced under warranty a number of years ago and it is such poor quality that we are hesitant to use it again.We’d like to install a residential grade shower.  

That discussion led to a few other things we’d like to do – like resurface the splitting desk top, replace the carpet with a vinyl “wood” floor, and a few others.   We have appointments with two RV renovation companies to look at possibilities.

This three week trip has been great and reminds us that we really do like traveling in our fifth-wheel.  Randy is ready to sell the house and go full timing again but I’m hesitant.  We spent the last year getting our house just how we like it.  I’d like the best of both worlds!

We so enjoyed our 12 days at Ridgway State Park near Montrose, Colorado.  We can see ourselves volunteering here in the future – after we finish our map. 

The only negative is that campsites have only 30 amp power.   For those who don’t know what that means, it means on the cool Colorado mornings, I can’t warm up my cocoa in the microwave and run the electric fire place at the same time.  High amp appliances like those, and the toaster and blow dryer have to be managed – I can’t use more than one at a time on top of the other random low amp draws.  It’s do-able, just not as convenient as having 50 amp power.  Randy could explain to you that 50 amp really means 100 amps but what I know is that when we have 50 amps, I don’t have to manage anything.  It all just works, whenever I want, without tripping circuit breakers.

We aren’t the only ones who love this part of Colorado.  Actor Dennis Weaver, (environmentalist, all around great guy) and his family lived in Ridgway for many years.  He and his wife built a solar home made of recycled materials (tires, cans etc.) and called it Sunridge Earthship.  With walls three feet thick, it is well insulated against cold winters and warm summers.   We saw and commented on the home without realizing what it was and who it had belong too.

Dennis Weaver and family donated large acreage along the Umcompaghre River as a wildlife preserve and recreation area.  (Uncompaghre is a Ute word roughly translated to dirty water, or red water spring – likely from area hot springs.)  There are miles of hiking trails.

Dennis Weaver died in 2006 and his family dedicated the Dennis Weaver Memorial Park in 2007.

This eagle, by sculptor Vic Payne, has a wingspan of 21 feet. 

There is an invitation to assemble your own prayer stones.

Enjoy a musical interlude along with relaxation and reflection inspired by the park.

Dennis Weaver isn’t the only actor who spent time in these parts.   An impressive number of movies were filmed in the area and one is mentioned repeatedly –  True Grit.   During non-Covid times there are True Grit tours and movie locations to experience.

We found one True Grit site, Katie’s Meadow on Owl Creek Pass, where Rooster Cogburn (John Wayne) had a shootout with Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall).   Search for the “Bold Talk for a One Eyed Fat Man” movie clip if you want to relive it.    A few free range cows were enjoying the meadow when we were there.

 Owl Creek Pass is one of the famous scenic drives in the area.   Drivable by two wheel drive vehicles, it rises to 10,114 feet in the Uncompaghre National Forest.    

We saw Chimney Rock, clouded in smoke…

…and other beautiful towering rocks lifted up.

Miles and miles of aspen (and the random evergreens) made us want to come back and drive Owl Creek Pass in the fall.

Although we saw signs for bear and big horn sheep everywhere, we didn’t see much wildlife beyond the free range cows.  An exception was this marmot high on a rock behaving as sentry along the road.

And this squirrel, high up in a dead tree, enjoying the Colorado beauty – just like we did!

A list of the ten national parks in the US with the smallest number of annual visitors include three in Alaska.  Why is kind of obvious.  Two are islands (Isle Royale and Dry Tortugas) so require watercraft.  The other five are in isolated parts of the country.   That doesn’t mean they aren’t worthy.  They are National Parks after-all.

Although we have not yet been to the parks in Alaska or those that are islands, we have visited three of the remaining five least visited parks, one of them recently – Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

In 2014 we visited North Cascades National Park along Highway 20, the northern route across Washington.  The area is stunningly beautiful.  I wrote about it in the blog post  What is that smell?!.  (The title had nothing to do with the national park!)

 

Great Basin National Park is very isolated near the Utah- Nevada border.   Again in 2014, we enjoyed the scenic drive within the park and Lehmann Caves.   We traveled The Loneliest Road in America to get there and that is the name of the blog.

This week we visited Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.  This park isn’t hard to get to (at least in summer) so my guess is that there is just so much else to see in the four corners region.  We are actively exploring the area and have much more to go.  There are five national parks in southern Utah, two in northern Arizona and another in southwest Colorado.  Maybe Black Canyon of the Gunnison just gets lost in the mix.

Like the Grand Canyon, this park is more easily accessed from the south so the south rim has nearly all the services.   We entered at the south entrance near the town of Montrose.  Also like the Grand Canyon it is not a simple decision to visit the north rim.  It takes several hours to drive around to the north side.   It took us many years to get to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon (The North Rim – Finally!)  We hope it won’t take us that long to get to the north rim of Black Canyon of the Gunnison so we can enjoy “solitude and self-reliant conditions.”

After entering the park, we started down the East Portal road which descends to the Gunnison River.  Some reviewers said they had seen bears in the morning so we went there first.  Unfortunately, we didn’t see bears.  

The East Portal road is closed in winter because of hair-pin turns and a 16% grade.   Vehicles over 22 feet are prohibited.  Randy never saw the truck tilt more than 9% but apparently there are places of 16%.  The road was impressive and I was glad my driver knew how to use low gear and engine braking.  Some people were riding their brakes all the way down!

At the bottom we found a beautiful river and canyon.  If you look close you can see an ever present fly fisherman.

The road itself seemed quite an accomplishment but at the end we learned that the true engineering marvel was the Gunnison Tunnel.  

This picture shows the small town that supported the tunnel workers and families in 1905.  It had a  power plant, post-office, school, dining hall, hospital and more to support the 24 hour per day work lasting through 1909.

The 5.8 mile long tunnel was one of America’s first Reclamation Projects. A straight line was maintained for 10,000 feet into the canyon wall.  It still brings 495,000 gallons per minute of irrigation water to the Umcompahgre Valley.

It was honored as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.  Other projects honored in this way include the Statue of Liberty, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Durango & Silverton Railroad.

After driving back out to rim level we started the scenic south rim drive.  There are twelve overlooks along the seven mile route and we went to eleven of them.  (Three overlooks were very close together and we skipped the middle one.)  All involve a bit of a walk to the viewpoint, some short, others ranged from 300 – 700 yards.  One was as long as 1.5 miles.

Black canyon isn’t the deepest canyon or the longest in the United States.  Those distinctions belong to Hell’s Canyon (Idaho and Oregon) and the Grand Canyon respectively.  What makes Black Canyon distinct is the combination of depth, vertical drop and narrowness.  The canyon is only 1/4 mile wide in the Narrows and some areas see very little daylight.

Randy stands at the edge of the precipice because…of course he does.  I do not ask for these photo ops!!!

One of the primary features of the canyon is Painted Wall.  The dark sections are Gneiss while the lighter veins are Pegmatite.   The wall is twice as high as the Empire State Building.

While all the scenic viewpoints are great, the eighth in our journey was our favorite – Cedar Point.  

There was a bit of a hike through Pinon-Juniper to the overlook.

From Cedar Point we had a nice view of the Gunnison River and the Painted Wall.

The last viewpoint involved a “moderate” 1.5 mile hike to Warner Point.  After being sick much of July, hiking at 8000 feet, with the smoke and the afternoon heat wasn’t a breeze for me.  Randy had plenty of time to take close up shots of this very colorful lizard.  

When we got to Warner Point we found our view thwarted by smoke.  It had been evident throughout our visit but increased in the afternoon.   Oh well, just one more reason to come back and visit Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park – next time from the north rim.

 

In early July we wanted to escape the heat and go to cooler Colorado.    Since the trailer had been in storage for many months, we had a lot to gather and organize.   Things needed repair due to lack of use.  It was a hot endeavor to get ready.

When we stopped enroute, I was not feeling well.  We assumed I had overheated while loading the trailer.   When we arrived at a state park near Grand Junction the next day, I never felt well.  I had a headache, low fever, cough, and fatigue.    Despite being very careful  – I had covid symptoms.  We decided to go home in case I got worse or Randy got sick.  Randy drove ten hours home and unpacked it all himself.  

My doctor recommended Covid testing, not an easy endeavor in Arizona,  but one that was accomplished three days later.   I was told I likely had Covid.  I was mildly sick for ten days, very unusual for me.   By the time I got my negative test results 14 days later I was mostly well and we were highly skeptical.   Randy never did feel sick.

By mid August I was well and wanted to finally escape the heat.  Social distancing is easy in an RV and I was able to find reservations in two Colorado state parks above 7000 feet.   

Randy installed “soft starts” on both trailer air-conditioners.   That allows us to run an air conditioner from a 20 amp outlet at the house.  It made the loading procedure much more tolerable!   Due to the extreme heat we can’t keep much in the trailer while it isn’t in use.

After a quick overnight in Flagstaff, we arrived at Ridgway State Park near Montrose, the northern point of the San Juan Skyway region in southwest Colorado.  

The park has trails along the Uncompahgre River and Ridgway Reservoir.  

Fly fishing is very popular here and we enjoy watching.  

We are here for 11 days so have plenty of time to wander, relax and explore the area.

Also plenty of time for a Handy Randy project!  Because the trailer is stored for months at a time, he kept needing to sterilize the fresh water tank.  Not only is that time consuming but it wastes water.   We never forget we live in the desert!

Randy installed an UV-LED water purification system by the Canadian company ACUVA.  Basically the water is zapped by ultra-violet light to kill any contaminants  from the source or our water tank. (That is Serene’s non technical explanation.)  Some municipalities use the same technology for their water purification.    Included was a charcoal water filter to help with taste.  We will use water through the ACUVA for drinking and cooking.

We took a day long excursion along the Million Dollar Highway, one of the “most scenic drives in America.”  There are several thoughts on why it is called the Million Dollar Highway.  Possibilities include building it cost a million dollars a mile and that fill dirt contains a million dollars in gold ore.   

The Million Dollar Highway northern terminus is Ouray, the Switzerland of America. 

Ouray looks like a fun town with a historic main street, enticing restaurants, brew pubs and hot springs.  Since we are not currently doing ANY of those social things, we just drove through – happily anticipating our next visit.  

The route between Ouray and Silverton is 25 miles long and takes about 45 minutes to drive if you are just going from one town to the other.   Of course we explored a bit!

According to tourist information, there are two ghost towns accessible from the highway,    Ironton and Red Mountain.  They were just two of many towns that sprang up during the mining bonanza of the late 1880s.

Ironton boasted 1000 residents circa 1890.  The Silverton Railroad made twice daily stops and life was booming due to the 1890 the Sherman Silver Purchase Act requiring the federal government to buy silver.  In 1893 the act was repealed and the price of silver plummeted.   By 1910 only 26 people remained in Ironton.

It was easy to see the additions off this main house – an added room and the covered walkway to the outhouse.

There are six or seven buildings still standing in the former residential area.  I wonder if this house was the nicest in town.

  A copy of The Mining Age newspaper, used for insulation, is still visible under the stairs.

 

Red Mountain Creek runs adjacent to the town and is shocking at first sight!  

Over 100 mines were developed within the 30 square mile Red Mountain region.   They left environmental devastation.  Mine tailings exposed zinc, cadmium, copper and lead.  Rainwater and snowmelt go through the tailings resulting in acid mine drainage.  Iron is also evident in the bright orange water and rocks.

Only one mine company,  Idarado, is still in operation.  Their mission is remediation of the land and water by re-contouring and moving water routes away from pilings.  Idarado is remediating areas damaged by all mining operations, not just their own.

Given the remains of mines are everywhere, that task seems enormous!

We searched for the townsite of Red Mountain but didn’t find it.  Our four wheeling search led us to other interesting things.

We found this mine opening…

…and this machinery and mine shaft.  

Eventually we got back on the Million Dollar Highway to Silverton.

We spent a little time in Silverton last year when we rode the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. (That blog post is Plan B:  Colorado!)

The Million Dollar Highway, part of US 550,  is not a road for the timid.  Parts include hairpin turns, no guardrails and steep drop-offs.   I am glad we explored the highway this way first because our route to the next Colorado state park goes south through Silverton.  That means the Million Dollar Highway with the trailer… Randy says no problem!