EATEN BY BEARS, PART I
The Left Turn at Albuquerque
(pronounced al-buh-kwer-kway') Tour
The Route
Day 1—Houston, TX to Amarillo, TX
Day 2—Amarillo, TX to Santa Fe, NM
Day 3—Santa Fe, NM to Alamosa, CO
Day 4—Alamosa, CO to Colorado Springs, CO
Day 5—Colorado Springs, CO to Denver, CO
Day 6—Denver, CO to Echo Lake Campground, CO
Day 7—Echo Lake, CO to Oakley, KS
Day 8—Oakley, KS to Oklahoma City, OK
Day 9—Oklahoma City, OK to Houston, TX
Donna and I both make entries in the journal, so my comments will be light blue and plain face, like this, Donna's will be pink and italicized like this and the route will be yellow and in plain face, like this. Let me restate that the notes here are just our impressions on one trip, so, if any offense is taken, none was intended.
I-45 North to
Dallas, TX
US-287 N to
Amarillo, TX
Got started about 8:45am, a little later than we hoped, but considering everything, it was OK. Dad's truck is GREAT! Cruise control rules! the drive to Dallas was pretty much the same as always -- uneventful and filled with roadwork. We stopped in Decatur for lunch, gasoline, and a break. It's a small town, the county seat, with a stunning courthouse. The courthouse is built of Texas pink granite and shimmers in the sunlight. The architecture reminded us of "Mad Ludwig's" castle in Germany. Absolutely beautiful. As we drove northwest, the landscape started to change to high prairie and then to desert scrub mixed with prairie. Lots of Zimmmmatics! We were watching the local news. It was interesting that the lead story was that the new part of I-40 was open today. Also, the weather guy gave statistics for soil temperature and soil humidity. Oh, we were glad we spent some time last night surfing for a hotel room and reserving it. Amarillo is hosting a 20K+ Jehovah's Witness convention.
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The courthouse at Decatur, TX. The vertical sundial and a plaque with a nice rendition of the courthouse (not shown) inspired Donna to buy some tracing paper and soft pencils so she could do rubbings. (She has yet to use them.) |
Amarillo also happens to be hosting a Route 66 festival. Not sure if it's a local thing or a traveling festival that follows the old Route 66. The county courthouse in Decatur was marred by an industrial-looking fire escape that must have been added later. I felt that some kind of ironwork thing would have fit better. There waa a sort of cupola/viewing tower thing above the north side that I was half tempted to pull down the fire escape and visit.
US287 from Wichita Falls was amazingly annoying, as a driver. We'd go through little towns where the speed limit would drop, then it would rise again -- for about a yard -- and then there would be roadwork that reduced the speed again.
We should be heading into cool weather and cooler nights. Donna doesn't believe me about how cool mountains get. HA HA HA HA HA!
I-40 west to US-84
US-84 North to I-25
I-25 north to New Mexico 50
NM-50 to I-25
I-25 south to Santa Fe
Brett says that most of the
Wild West is closed on Sunday, which suggests that it's not quite as
wild as we've been led to believe. It's the fault of that damn Temperance
Movement, or we could blame General William A Kernan, whose
proclamation we read in Las Vegas' (NM) town square:
"I admire a good
Catholic as much as a good Protestant."
The day was a good one. The lady at the New Mexico Travel Center was very helpful and kept us from making a pointless sidetrip to see Coronado's Bridge. We went to Tucumcari so that I could photograph their Route 66 sculpture, but we found something else more interesting. In our quest to find their brand-new Dinosaur Museum at Mesa Technical College, we ran across the neatest dinosaur sculptures -- all made of car engine parts, horseshoes, railroad spikes, and other such metal debris. They were great! Not only that, but while we were deciding where to go next, a guy in a truck drove up. Turns out the guy is the President of the college and has been down here from Chicago for about four years. We talked to him about the college, the area, and the Dinosaur Museum which, of course, wasn't open on Sunday. We did see one of the souvenirs, though -- the guy's hat.
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One of the dinosaur sculptures at Mesa Technical College, a Tyrannosaurus Rex. |
Next, we wandered over to Las Vegas to look for a ghost-town outside there. But first, lunch at Arby's, but they had no roast beef. Soooo, we found a little place on the Las Vegas Plaza -- La Cochina. New Mexico burgers, at least their version, are burgers drenched in chili-flavored beans and cheese. Messy, but yummy. We felt the need to walk around for a while, so we walked around the town and bought a couple of souvenirs. Our last stop was Pecos National Historic Monument, which is the site of a mission built in the midst of Pueblo people. We got to go down into a kiva. Ok, it was a reconstructed kiva. It was a neat park and quite interesting.
We finished Day 2 more tired, but in a better way than Day 1, even though we didn't go as far. We worked it out that Saturday's trip to Amarillo was approximately one quarter of the total trip. We stopped in a little gift shop in Las Vegas (while we were walking lunch off). It was very eclectic with local gifts and cards and some curiosities. They had Las Vegas, NM shot glasses with moose on them, which I didn't find particularly reminiscent of a town on the border between Ponderosa country and the High Desert.
Santa Fe has way too many "artists". I think, among America's small cities, only Washington DC has as many galleries and museums. It seems that anyone who can successfully hold a brush without putting an eye out is an artist in Santa Fe.
The technical college in Tucumcari has a farrier major, which is basically the science of podiatry for horses. They learn blacksmithing and horse-foot anatomy. When we went to Wal-Mart, we got some tracing paper and crayons so Donna could do rubbings of etched stuff. [Amazingly, Donna found nothing worth rubbing after this purchase.]
Heading into the fire zone, now. We'll see how often we have to turn around.
My quest on this trip is to acquire, by fair means or foul, a piece of the KT Boundary. [The quest was a failure. The Hero is dead. The Dragon is snoozin'.]
US 285 north to NM 502 to County Rd 4 to Bandelier State Park
US 285 north to NM 64
NM 64 to Taos
US 68 to US 285
US 285 north to Alamosa, CO
CO 17 to 6-mile Road to Great Sand Dunes Nat'l Monument
Got up early, as we were still on Central Time and headed out to Bandelier National Monument. This site is what remains of a cliff-dwelling population center. There was also a population on the canyon floor. Pretty good access to the place. You can actually climb into a couple of them. Tiny spaces and low doorways. I couldn't imagine the hardship one would have living there. We browsed the gift shop and bought a few things, then headed towards Taos. We noticed four "wide-loads" the day before outside Santa Fe. This morning, on the way back from Bandelier, they were on their way to Los Alamos. I suppose that was part of the temporary housing brought in because of the fire. Oh, and we could see places where the fire had reached and places where the fire retardant had been dropped. And another thing about Bandelier... Since it is composed mainly of compacted volcanic ash and basalt (the result of an enormous volcano million of years ago), the rock is pocked and sculpted wonderfully. It's like an alien landscape. Back to Taos, which was smaller than I thought, and flatter. It has a laid-back, walk-around feel and is still artsy, but not artsy-fartsy. On we went to Rio Grande Gorge and the SECOND highest bridge in the US. Over the bridge and onto Antonita, where we talked with a young lady at the tourist info center, who gave us the name of a place to eat in Alamosa -- Oscar's. Again, yummy and filling Mexican food. Walked around Alamosa's downtown a bit and saw THREE Model A's in use. Headed out to Great Sands National Monument. Words cannot describe this place, nor can photographs. Its thirty-something square miles of sand dunes trapped between two mountain ranges and totally spectacular. My brain was unable to process just how enormous these dunes are. They are small mountains of nothing but sand. Amazing! I'm at present sitting comfy in the back of the truck, safe from the wind, thunder, and lightning in the park. Thank-you, Dad, for the truck. [We really thanked him when the temperature plunged to 40 degrees.]
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Donna Hanging out in one of the caves sites at Bandelier. |
The Rio Grande as seen from the second highest bridge in the United States. The blurry fingers in the foreground illustrate our need to buy a bigger camera. |
The college kids at Bandelier were assessing artifact loss due to erosion and graffiti. They are trying to undo the damage done by recent graffiti.
The Rio Grande Valley cuts a wide swath into the Rocky Mountain Range so that from Santa Fe you can drive north for almost 100 miles without really climbing into the mountains. Last night, after the storm had cleared, Alamosa lay on the horizon like a bead of jewels under the glowing stars. This morning the dunes which had been swept and pointy are now rounded and smooth. It's like a minute lesson on how young mountains, like the Rockies, become old mountains, like the Appalachians. There are ground squirrels everywhere.
We made a sudden stop at the Oldest "Christian" church in Colorado. We just happened to see the sign and turned around to visit it. Donna was afraid to take any pictures. We left a small donation in the poor-box and moved on.
CO 160 to I-25
I-25 north to Colorado Springs, CO
The night was stormy and neither of us got a great night's sleep, but it was OK. We stopped into the Visitor's Center for Great Sand Dunes to sign the register, but there was no guest book. There was a high school science project displayed there which theorized the source of magnetite in the dunes. These super-specific science projects amaze me. We headed a little bit away from Sand Dunes to a little off-the-road park called Zapata Falls. We climbed the road that led up to the falls, getting a massage because of the washboard surface. The half-mile climb up to the falls required two stops, as both of us are low-landers and kept running out of breath. The falls were neat, although Brett will describe the source, which he trekked back to see. Our next stop was at Fort Garland Historical Museum. Nice little fort with a lot of stuff dug up, mostly broken or fragmented, though. The woman manning the place was kind of annoying and kept trying to talk to us, only we didn't want to talk to her. Oh, the commander at the fort was Kit Carson. We moved on and started to stop for lunch at Pueblo , but decided to go on to Colorado Springs to settle in for the day. We had an unpleasant surprise at the Quality Inn. Left there and got a much better room for much less. Finally got Arby's!
Donna never actually saw the falls at Zapata. What she saw was the brook that proceeds downhill from Zapata. The falls, which require a walk up the brook to see, were stunning. The walk up the brook is why Donna didn't go. She doesn't feel competent enough with her ability with stepping stones and didn't want to get her feet wet.
The water pours forth from a break in the cliff-face and arcs out two to four feet before falling with a roar to a pool some twenty feet below. A secondary fall, some three feet high, drops the water into a brook.
We went to the mall on Academy Blvd last night. Academy Blvd is an interesting little scam. The street starts south of the city, loops around the edge of downtown, hitting all the shopping districts, and has a sudden existence failure at the highway on its way to the Academy [Air Force Academy]. Actually, it changes names to the more military South Gate Blvd.
We keep waiting for some of that Colorado Springs friendliness that Kim talks about. So far, only the ladies at the La Quinta desk have shown any friendliness, or even courtesy.
I-25 South to US 24
US 24 West to CO 1
CO 1 south to Cripple Creek via Flourissant
CO 67 north to US 285
US 285 east to CO 470
CO 470 east to I-25
I-25 north to Denver, CO
Off we went to Florissant Fossil Beds, first thing. Lots of crawly things and plant fossils. A lot of giant sequoia stumps, too, and these about 1000 years old when they were killed and the fossilization began. After looking around there for a couple of hours, we went down to Cripple Creek. This is a city filled with casinos and really nothing else. We played for a couple hours there, too. Off we went through the Pike National Forest, after lunch at a BBQ place that was pretty good. The drive through the forest was full of mountain vistas, sparkling creeks, and rugged rocks. Wonderful! We also saw places where the fire went through a couple of weeks ago and charred a lot of the place. There was one particular house, way up on the hill, that was completely surrounded by black. The house and the few trees near the house were fine. Down leaning up against the mailbox was a plywood sign that said, "Thank-you for saving our home". In fact, there were quite a lot of signs thanking firefighters. It was kind of neat. We made our way toward Denver, which was a mistake. The La Quinta was right off the freeway and we settled in, only to discover that the folks above us were pacing constantly on the squeaky floor and children were running up and down the concourse. The desk person was extra-nice, on the fast-track to managing her own La Quinta.
We spent some time working out the rest of our route. The main idea being that we have some very long driving days and some very short ones that we wanted to equalize.
There is a Dave & Buster's across the street from the hotel that covers a city block. Chris would be in heaven.
Florissant was a nice walk. It's not an active paleontological site and most of the fossils are from a single dig. The fossils come from two relatively separate eras. The first, when volcanic ash killed the sequoias in the valley and created the lake which set the stage for the second era, when ash covered the lake and the surrounding valley.
Coloradoans are obsessed with their history (or lack , thereof). Every building, no matter how old or young, is marked with the year it was completed. Even our hotel has a date on its portico (1975). Southern Colorado is filled with references to Colorado's importance in the Civil War, which can be summarized as "a couple of Colorado regiments marched south and kicked the crap out of some Texas volunteers in a blind canyon in New Mexico, thus ending the threat that the South would control Colorado's huge expanses of strategic granite".
Pike National Forest is composed of a million little pocket parks, each with its own fee. The problem with driving through the mountains, I've noticed, is that all the really great vistas are right on curves where they had to cut into the mountain, so there's no place to stop and look. Donna and I have taken to swapping out driving responsibilities, so that one of us can look and the other can drive. There is something to be said for an area that can go through a devastating disaster (wildfire) and still be stunningly beautiful.
Side note: We have discovered that the Eastern Rocky Mountains are the source of all bad weather in parts East. You can actually see the clouds form around the peaks.
I-25 north to I-70
I-70 west to Golden, CO
to Idaho Springs
to CO 275 to St. Mary's Glacier (snowfield)
I-70 east to Idaho Springs
CO 103 to Echo Lake National Park, CO
Slept amazingly well, considering how noisy the upstairs guys were. Thank goodness they settled down about 9:30pm. Went in for breakfast and the same woman was manning the desk. Seems she had spent the night, catching a few winks in between phone calls. Took off to downtown Denver to visit the Museum of Natural History. We went through their Gem & Mineral Hall and their "Prehistoric Journey" exhibit which started with the formation of the earth and moved through the ascent of man and the mammals. Very Epcot in presentation and interactive all over the place. They also had an Egyptian mummy exhibit which was interesting. Off we went towards Golden, home of the Coors Brewery and a very entertaining tour. Of course, there was the gift shop and the customary Hospitality Room, where you could sample their many products. We struck up a rapport with the tour guide and Brett provided additional knowledge and one-liners to make the tour fun. In the Hospitality Room, we got to talking with a couple from Dallas who came up for a wedding and made a trip out of it. They told us they had toured the US Mint and we hadn't missed anything. I was glad to hear it, since I had wanted to visit it. Oh, back at the museum, while waiting for it to open, we walked over to the paddleboat lake and greeted the geese. We also sat watching the waterjet fountain, which was mesmerizing.
Anyway, we walked around Golden's historic downtown, which was the territorial capital for a while. We had lunch and then set off to find St. Mary's Glacier and a place to camp for the night. The road up to the glacier, actually a snowfield, was curvy with switchbacks. I drove up, but Brett had to drive down. This place was practically unknown, there where no signs, and it wasn't on the map. I knew about it because of the bed and breakfast I came across when I was researching Colorado on the web. Anyway, the glacier was 3.4 miles back into the woods, practically straight up. Needless to say, we stopped several times to catch our breath. We met a guy carrying a boogie-board who was on the way down. He had climbed up the glacier and boarded down. He seemed like a perfectly nice person, but he must have been insane. He teaches boarding at Breckenridge.
As we were leaving, we struck up a conversation with a couple from NY state. Very nice, friendly people. It made the walk down go much faster. Our final stop was Echo Lake Campground, at about 12,000 ft. High mountain lake nestled in the mountain. Watched the sunset from the warmth and safety of the car because the mosquitos were horrendous and hungry.
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A squirrel in a tree at Echo Lake. Can you find him? |
Turns out the mosquitos were male so they were neither hungry (at least for blood) nor particularly horrendous. We saw puma tracks up to the snowfield.
Near Echo Lake is a mountain that is a national forest fee area. The odd thing about it is that the 14 mile road up to the fee station has two picnic areas and several scenic overlooks, then, if you continue past the fee area, all you get is 14 miles of road and an outhouse.
Day 7—Echo Lake National Park, CO to Cedar Bluffs Reservoir State Park, KS
I-70 east to US 83 to Oakley, KS
I-70 east to KS 147 to Cedar Bluffs Reservoir State Park, KS
Today was another driving day. We're on our way home, now, through Kansas and Oklahoma and there's not a lot to see. Also, we did the mid-Kansas and mid-Oklahoma on the early part of last year's roadtrip, so it's not new territory. About 4pm today, it suddenly occurred to me that we should have gone back the way we came (since we missed things along the way and we knew how Kansas and Oklahoma are). Hindsight is always 20/20.
We did stop once during the day for the Fick Fossil Museum in Oakley. A small little museum that shares space with the library. Nice fossils and an unbelievable number of shark's teeth. Also, lots of "art" by Mrs. Fick. I'm thinking that she had to figure out what to do with the piles and piles of fossils (mostly unremarkable) that Mr. Fick would drag home each day. There were several really interesting fossils there, but most of them we'd already seen in Denver. Nice museum, though the docent was kind of strange. We asked her where we should eat and she seemed reluctant to offer an answer. Brett finally asked her where the last place she ate was and we went there. The Colonial Steakhouse was filled with Boy Scouts returning to Ohio from Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. Two busloads worth!
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The birds at Cedar Bluffs Reservoir. Usually, they were buzzing around the nests, but they seemed to have a sixth sense for when I had the camera out. |
We ended the day at Cedar Bluffs Reservoir State Park. Since it's the first day of a July 4th weekend and they still had spots open, we thought it best to stay here for the night. It's supposed to be in the mid-60's tonight, which should be much warmer than the 40 degrees last night.
Day 8—Cedar Bluffs Reservoir SP, KS to Oklahoma City, OK
I-70 east to I-35
I-35 south to Oklahoma City, OK
Before we forget, we saw bison herds on our drive through Kansas as we neared the junction of I-70 W and I-135 S.
The park at Hayes was filled with birds. I think they were some kind of orioles, because of their clay nests, but I'm not sure. In any case, they were entertaining. As we left the park, we saw a flock of prairie chickens.
At the Fick Museum, it struck me as interesting that prairie areas walk a fine line between political correctness and maintaining the belief that their ancestors were totally justified in everything they did, which results in schizophrenic displays that refer to Native Americans as "alarmed at intrusions into their territory" on one hand and "blood-thirsty" on the other.
We stopped at the Kansas Cosmosphere en route to Oklahoma City. It was not sphere-shaped or even vaguely round. It was, however, very interesting and presented an amazingly balanced view of the Cold War space race, beginning with Nazi rocket and jet development and ending with the Apollo-Soyuz mission. Many of the displays were one-of-a-kind in the West, having been acquired from the Russian government or from the companies that made the original units.
The morning started with a misty coolness. Oh, and there were fireflies last night. I've always been enchanted by them because they seem so magical. We took showers last night, thank goodness, because these campgrounds have NO hot water. Yesterday that was okay because we were kind of hot and sweaty. This morning, however, a cold shower would have been quite the eye-opener.
The Cosmosphere was extremely interesting. Lots of Russian hardware and artifacts, as well as American. This museum basically told the story of the rocket-type airplane engine and worked its way into the space race. The WWII history was especially enlightening. I learned that the rocket bombs that were bombs that were dropped on London were faster than the speed of sound, so you didn't hear them coming until after it hit. Also, the Germans had this particular kind of two-part fuel which was so caustic that just one drop could burn off your face and so unstable that a speck of dust would cause an explosion when they mixed. The pilots (30 of them) dreaded flying the planes that used the fuel and only 10 survived the ordeal (they weren't shot down). Also, the Russians put a dog (Misha) into orbit before the chimp (Ham) and they landed a metal sphere that looked like a soccer ball on the Moon years before we got a human landing.
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The SR-71 Blackbird, a plane so secret that for a few years after it was built it was only rumored to exist. That and the Skunkworks that built the Blackbird are probably the coolest things about Kansas. |
Donna made me take this picture of her high-fiving a bronze statue of Neil Armstrong. My wife is such a dork. |
As we got further from Colorado, the more we wanted to get back home. We weren't supposed to get back until Monday, but we decided to go the distance and made it home early Sunday evening.
Day 9—Oklahoma City, OK to Houston, TX
I-35 south to I-470
I-470 east to I-45
i-45 south to Houston, TX
We got kind of a late start because it was raining. We had to get almost the OK/TX border before it stopped. I was very nervous until it started to let up because it was so windy. All I could think of was tornados, especially since it was thunderstorms and there was all this wind. None encountered, though. It was good to get home and good to cuddle up with the dog and the cats, all of whom had missed our attention. Another good trip, though. Much better than last year's trip. The only regret I have is that I didn't think of going back home through Colorado and New Mexico. Oh well, live and reflect.