God's Country

We have found a place that I can't describe any other way then to say it is truly God's Country. Unfortunately, the camera can not capture the vibrancy of the color of the rocks or the depth of these formations. These rock piles are so enormous, it will take your breath away.




The place is called Arches National Park. We spend an afternoon of driving and walking around in total awe. The rocks have this deep reddish brown color and the shape of these boulders is so unique, we just could not get enough. We actually walked 1 1/2 miles so see the landscape arch, which is in danger of collapsing.

I thought the Rocky Mountains were the best place to see and they are beautiful, but they do not compare to this place.

Moab, UT

This is the view we have in the morning when we step out of the rig.

There is still snow up in the mountains, but will soon be gone, since it really is warming up in the daytime. The drive from Aztec to Moab was very interesting. The roads in New Mexico are not the best and got better as soon as we entered Colorado. Driving along on Route 160 near Mesa Verde National Park, we were just minding our own business as we got to see something I never saw before. There was a really cattle drive with cowboys along the side of the highway. We all hit our brakes and marveled at the site. I should have stopped to take some pictures, but unfortunately did not, however, it will be a mental picture forever. Things were pretty uneventful until we were about 20 miles south of Moab. The landscape changed drastically and we got to see some pretty amazing huge boulders and rock masses. I have never seen anything like it and we will drive back down to take some pictures before we leave here. Just how amazing this place is, we found out a couple of days later when we went to Arches National Park.

Mesa Verde

We originally planned to be only one week in Aztec and maybe see Bonnie and Gayle in Moab, UT over Memorial Day weekend. Well, it is not good to be without reservations in a big tourist area on a big holiday. Luckily we called the RV parks before we left here and found out that everybody in Moab was fully booked. It must have been a zoo up there. Our campground here had room for us for another week, so we decided to stay and check out some more stuff around the area.

We saw signs for Mesa Verde National Park on our way to Durango and decided to check it out at a later date. Now was a good time. The drive from New Mexico in to Colorado was beautiful. I just can't get enough of these huge snow covered mountains. We had 90 degrees in February in Texas and right now we have the electric heater on in the bedroom at night, since temperature drops down into the 40's here right now. Mesa Verde is at about 8000 feet and we could see the temperature dropping as we started climbing. It was in the 50's when we got there and we really did not bring any jackets with us. But, as long as the sun was out, it was pretty warm.

We started climbing down to the dwellings, which were pretty interesting.


As we were climbing back up to the road, we saw some darker clouds, but really did not give it a second thought. After all this walking we decided to have lunch at the restaurant. Since it was a little bit cold, we chose a table inside. It turned out to be a good idea, since it started hailing within 5 minutes. Again, we figured that it was just a passing cloud and finished our lunch to start a leisurely drive back to the rig. Check out what happened next.


The snow was coming down so hard at times that we could not see more then 200 feet. By the time we were back down by the highway, our surroundings were white. The weather here sure has kept us on our toes. By the time we were back at the rig in New Mexico the sun was shining and it was about 75 degrees.

Durango-Silverton Railroad

The trip cost a lot of money, but people, it was worth every penny. We are only going to do this adventure once, so we might as well enjoy every minute of it. The train left Durango at 9 am, so we had to get up early, since we are about 40 miles south of Durango.

We booked two seats on a train car with a glass roof and it was well worth it. The next 3 1/2 hours we got to see some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. I took 165 pictures and there is no way to post them all on this website. Doug is working on creating a website on "webshots" and we will post a lot more pictures there. There will be a link from this website to the picture website.



The river followed us all the way up to Silverton, and as we started climbing it got colder and we got to see snow very close up.


We spend a couple of hours in Silverton, which is a lot smaller than I remembered and it was enough time to check it out.


We had a great day and if there was anything I would do different next time, we would take the bus back down to Durango. As much as I love to ride the train, every bone in my body was well shaken by the time we got back to the train station.

Four Corners

Well, I had this romantic notion about "Four Corners" being in a forest with a nice little sign marking the spot. Don't ask me where I come up with this stuff, but be assured it was not like that at all. We had a nice drive from Aztec northwest and first drove by "Shiprock", a pretty tall mountain in a fairly flat area. It looked from the road that we should get there, but thatt was an illusion.

So we just kept going towards "Four Corners". I am proud to say that my left foot was in Colorado, my right foot in Utah, my right hand in Arizona and my left hand never left New Mexico.


The monument is actually on Indian land and there was plenty of Indian art for sale.

We continued on the highway to Durango to pick up some information on the railroad and went back home.

Aztec, NM

We planned on finding a campground in Bloomfield or Farmington, so we parked the RV at a casino and started checking out the area with the little car Wednesday afternoon. Well, the campgrounds around here are not quite what I had hoped for so it took us a while to find a place in Aztec, which is about 10 miles from Bloomfield, where the mail was being delivered. The campground does not have a clubhouse or laundromat, but it is very reasonably priced and the laundromat is about 1/2 mile down the road. I have learned by now that you can't always be picky. As long as I have water, electric and sewer, I shall not complain. We are still deciding if we should get a washer and dryer in the rig or me keep going to laundromats, while on the road.

It has been interesting moving north from Texas. We have been through the desert, which is pretty, but not for me. By now we are starting to see real trees again and spring apparently just arrived here. It is beautifully green and I enjoy the small rivers, green pastures and meadows. We started our explorations of the area by checking out the local Aztec Arches. Should you ever want to do this make sure you have a GPS with you. The directions read "drive 6.2mile on CR 2770 and take a left up a hill", but GPS coordinates are given. But who needs directions when you can just drive on a dirt road with no idea where you are going .We do like challenges and it was very interesting.




As we are crawling around in these rock formations the weather started to look very interesting.

As cool as it was to watch the storm moving around the area, we decided to head back home and got to the rig just in time before the downpour started.

Albuquerque, NM

Again, it has been a while since I have posted and when people ask you if you are still alive, it is time to blog again. We left Deming two weeks ago (I can't believe it has been that long) and headed north. By late afternoon we had passed through Albuquerque and decided to stay at a casino RV campground about 20 miles north of Albuquerque. What a surprise when we were awakened that night by rain and thunder. We had not seen rain since January 15th and were really excited. Well, by now if have seen all kinds of weather and rain is not a rarity anymore. Tuesday we went to the Albuquerque Balloon Museum, which was pretty cool




I was surprised that the takeoff area for the balloons is really not that big, but was assured that there was plenty of balloons taking of at the festival and that all the RVs are able to find a place to park. Once you are there you might not get back out until it is all done, but everybody has a great time. We have not decided yet if we want to go to the balloon festival this year, or if we will go to the HDT rally.

The second place we wanted to check out was the Sandia Tramway. It is the world's longest tramway, but unfortunately, the weather did not accommodate us. The clouds where hanging low and there was no sense in trying to go the pick. So we moved on further north on Wednesday.

Gila Cliff Dwellings

The reason we came to Deming was to see the Gila Cliff Dwellings. So after getting my car's first oil change ( I can't believe we have already over 5000 miles on the little car) we headed for the Dwellings on Thursday. It is about 98 miles and we were told that it would take us at least 2 - 3 hours. I kind of doubted it myself, but did not say anything. We took 180 north to Silver City and then continued on 15 to the Cliffs. The signs saying that no RV over 20' were allowed on the road should have been a hint. I have never seen so many tight turns on a pretty much one lane road with no center line. Every curve I kind of wonder if somebody was coming towards us or not. I am glad we took the small car and Doug had a blast with all the switchbacks. We certainly got rewarded by some beautiful views as we drove along.

And as we are going about 25 m/h for the last 44 miles, Garmin kept changing our arrival time. By the time we finally got there it was well worth the time spent getting there. It was a leisurely walk uphill for about 30 minutes and then you could see the dwellings.


You would think that these dwellings would be protected from the wind, snuggled nicely into the mountain. Well, you would be wrong. The wind was quite strong in the caves.

We crawled around the cliffs for a while and headed back to Deming.