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May 29, 2003

Start:   Traveller's World, Clovis NM
End:     Rancheros de Santa Fe, Santa Fe NM
Miles:   203
Hi Temp: 92
Lo Temp: 61

We left the Clovis CG at 6:52am, way ahead of our usual departure time, and headed west on US-60. We stayed on US-60 until US-285 branched off it to go to Santa Fe.

Again, the plains were wide open and you could seemingly see forever.  For some time, the railroad tracks were next to the highway.  We saw lots of eastbound trains, mostly container cars and truck-on-train cars.  The trains were long and had four or five big engines on the head end.

There aren't any big towns out here and darned few little ones that have people in them. I'm glad I'd filled up with diesel fuel yesterday, because we went 160 miles without seeing any available.  I guess if you're away from the interstates and the trucks that use them, you'd better be careful.

I stood in the middle of the four-lane main drag in Vaughn and took pictures both ways.  No cars came along to rush me.

Both before and after Vaughn, we saw antelope in the fields - usually singly, sometimes in pairs, once in a small herd.  After Vaughn, we saw a cattle watering trough with an antelope drinking from it.

Shortly after Vaughn, we saw about four police cruisers attending the wreck of a FedEx double-trailer truck in the median of the four-lane divided highway. The front trailer had landed on top of the upside-down cab.  Not nice. The road was straight and level there; the driver must have gone to sleep or had a front-axle blow-out.

We arrived at this campground around 10:45am and checked in. Then we went into town and stumbled upon the visitor's center.  The wacko attendant there told us, with great emphasis, where *not* to eat and why (too many locals eat there, the lines are sometimes long). We got the point.

We toured the little church next door, San Miguel Church (Catholic). The adobe walls, now covered with stucco, were erected in 1610. It is the oldest continously used church in the United States.  At one time it had a three-tiered bell tower. A furious wind rocked the bell until the bell motion tore up the adobe and the tower fell. The bell is now displayed in the gift shop next to the church. It was cast in 1365, which makes it the oldest bell in the US, and was given to this church in 1848.

Then we went across the street and up the block to the Guadalupe Cafe for lunch. We both had the sour cream chicken enchilada; D had hers with green chili and I had the red (hot!!). The food was good. Dolores had a glass of New Mexico Chardonnay and I had the local Pale Ale.  Not bad.

Then we hiked past the plaza to a tram tour. It was about to leave on its 2:00pm run, so we hopped in. It developed that the driver/narrator was an old submarine officer from my era, so we had a small chat afterward.  It was a good tour; Dave seldom stopped talking and had many stories and facts to tell us.

Then we walked back past the plaza to the cathedral. They're working on the entryway and front yard, so we had to enter at the rear.  It's quite a building.  The archbishop at the time of its erection (Lamy) was the prototype for Willa Cather in her novel, "Death Comes for the Archbishop". A town down the hill is named for him.

Afterward, we went to the Loretto Chapel (once used as the chapel of a school by the Sisters of Loretto, who taught there). It has an amazing wooden spiral staircase that makes two complete circles on its way up to the balcony. It is unsupported and defies current engineers as to how it stands. There are no nails in it, only wooden pegs.  The legend goes that the sisters needed a stairway to replace the ladder they had to use.  An old man with his donkey appeared and volunteered to make it. He toiled away without assistance until he completed it.  The sisters offered to pay him, but he left without pay and without leaving his name.

We wandered through a few galleries and came to the conclusion that there are no souvenir stores in Santa Fe, only galleries. Also, there are more sculptures around town than you can imagine.  Dave said there's more sculpture per capita here than in any other place in the US.

Then we stopped for a soft drink.  It felt good to sit for a moment. Then we came back to the trailer in the dusty campground. 

We thought about what to do next while watching the last of the news.  Dolores decided to look in our copy of the book, "Road Food", and found the little cafe we'd just seen down the road listed.  "Bobcat Bite" is a very small cafe (five tables & the counter) that looks as if Humphrey Bogart could come in and order a cup of coffee. Dolores had the pork chops and I had chopped steak, both with hash browns, salad, and garlic bread.  Lemonade tasted good with it.  It lived up to its book reputation. We sat at the counter with a window in front of us showing a couple of hummingbird feeders. We watched hummingbirds while we ate.

Now full, we went back to the little house in the dusty campground and did computer chores (me) or watched TV (70 channels on the cable here).

 

Open new window with today’s pictures.

May 30, 2003

Start:   Rancheros de Santa Fe CG, Santa Fe NM
End:     Rancheros de Santa Fe CG, Santa Fe NM
Miles:   0
Hi Temp: 96.8
Lo Temp: 55.2

The high temp must be wrong due to proximity to the gravel base the trailer is sitting on. In town, it was in the mid-80's.

Late last night, we decided that Santa Fe, with its infinite number of galleries and studios and a number of museums, many of which are art museums, is more an art center than anything else.  It has history, but we saw the historic places yesterday. We're not heavily into art, so let's do something else.  We decided to take a trip to Taos and see what developed. 

We rose and had a pancake and bacon breakfast in the little house in the dusty campground.  Then, off to Taos.

We decided to take the scenic route, involving NM503 and NM76. We saw some great scenery as we went up and down over the ridges northeast of Santa Fe.  Some of route 503 narrowed to a single lane, especially in the little towns along it.  Most of it was decent two-lane. Then, in Truchas, we missed a turn.  The road slowly devolved from two-lane paved to two-lane gravel, to a wide lane of gravel, to a single rutted lane that forded small streams.

We turned around and went back to where three local folks were sitting by a small stream.  They laughed, I laughed, and we agreed that it was a pretty good case of lost.  Then they told me where I'd gone wrong & I headed back to Truchas.

Onward on 503, then 76, winding through the mountains that separate Santa Fe and Taos (a spur of the Sangre de Christos, if I get it right). Then we came out of the woods and into Taos. We stopped for directions, then headed north on US64 through town, at about five miles an hour.  The traffic was fierce. At the north end of town we missed the turnoff for Taos Pueblo; we said to heck with it and went to the bridge over the Rio Grande Gorge.

The Rio Grande at this point has scoured out a deep canyon out of the flat, level, plain around it. The gorge at the bridge is some 560 feet deep. The single long span and two short spans to the canyon walls pass over it at this point.  One wonders how long the river has been digging there.

Neither of us wanted to go back through the Taos zoo.  So we went on northwest to Tres Piedras, then back south on US285. At NM567, we turned east to go down into the Gorge.

NM567, a paved road, was flat across the plain near the Gorge, then a sign appeared warning us to use lower gears and be very careful and the road changed to gravel.  We dropped it into low and let the truck ease down the steep gravel grade. We stopped in a couple of places to take pictures. There were two hairpin switchbacks going down. The road reached the bottom at a narrow old steel bridge across the river to NM570.  On the shore, several people including a few wearing bikinis were taking tubes into the water to float downstream.  A sign showed that rafting trips leave from this point.

We followed gravel NM570 along the Rio Grande southbound (downstream). We went slowly and took several pictures of flowers and bushes and the river.  The river is 30 - 50 feet wide at this point, and quite shallow.  Most of the surface is rippled by the rocks underneath the surface.  There were people canoeing and fishing as we went along.

NM570 merged into NM68 still going downstream. NM68 is a paved road and this part of it is in the Rio Grande Gorge National Park. There are several campgrounds along the river, many with 5ers and other trailers in them.  We could come back here some time to stay.

We entered Espanola, lots of traffic again, and merged into US285/US84 south.  At Santa Fe, we stopped at Tomastino's restaurant.  It features New Mexican food and has a good reputation in the town.  We both had chicken enchilada again, D with green chili and me with red.  It was as good or better than the place yesterday.  Then we got some money from an ATM and a few groceries from a "Smith's", which had a lot of Kroger items on the shelf - I don't know what the story is there.

We fueled up for our trip to Durango tomorrow. While pumping, some sort of squall line came through.  I found myself being buffeted from all sides at once. Dust flying everywhere, and no place to hide.  Then it subsided and I finished.  At the campground, we called Bill to see how he's doing.  He was in the middle of dinner at Bonefish in Centreville, VA, with some of his friends. He said he's doing well and that some mail had arrived that we should have. We arranged that he'd send it on to Bend and we'll pick it up there.

Then the near-standard evening routine started - download the pictures from the camera and put them where they belong in the machine. Then do this log while charging the camera's battery for the next day.

Soon, we'll settle down with books.  We'll get an early start tomorrow for Durango.