New Mexico, the road south

Colorado: September 26-29

Spanish Peaks area of Colorado

After three nights staying with my friends Chris and Melissa at their awesome home way up high atop Floyd Hill I was back on the road heading south.

old fashioned advertising

On my second day I turned west at Walsenburg on Rte. 12 to drive into the Spanish Peaks area and the San Isabel National Forest. The Peaks are two prominent mountains in the southern part of Colorado. A gorgeous area that still has not been overrun, that still has room to stretch. If I had the means, this is the area of Colorado I would choose to make my last stand.

abandoned ski slope of Cuchara

For now I was content to find some free camping along a national forest road south of Cuchara. Cuchara is a small town where there is a closed ski resort of the same name. This resort has now been closed for years and the main building is like it's own little ghost town with broken glass and peeling wood siding. There are occupied condos on the hill overlooking the slopes, however.

view from a hilltop near my campsite in the "Peaks"

This entire drive, along the Highway of Legends from La Veta and south beyond Monument Park (see map above), is filled with beautiful mountains, valleys and splashes of color with all of the changing aspens in late September.

across from my campsite in the Spanish Peaks

New Mexico: September 29-October 20

northern New Mexico

My campsite, though, was often in the shade of the mountains and too cold so I drove across Raton Pass south into New Mexico. My first stop was the Sugarite State Park and the Soda Pocket campground. It was scheduled to close in two days and there were only 4-5 other campers spread out in generous campsites.

One of those was a woman named Jennifer and her dog. They had been traveling for two years in her Jeep. She is a freelance writer, grabbing gigs along the way. She seems to have had a fairly successful career, but hit a personal rough patch. Interesting person, you meet people like her all over.

towards Folsom, a leaning barn

One of the great campground deals around is the New Mexico state parks. For $10 you can get an attractive site with hot showers. There are about 50 of these parks and not all of them that I've seen qualify as great, and not all have showers. Some are just RV parking lots. Sugarite, though, was one of the good ones. I had a perfectly clear night for stargazing.

a view from Capulin looking west

I made a quick visit the next day to the nearby Capulin Volcano National Monument and took the hike around the rim for some good views. I also drove through the town of Folsom where the "Folsom points" were found at an archeological dig in the 1920's, pushing back the date of humans in North America from 3000 years ago to 10,000.

antelope west of the town of Raton

Another beautiful drive west through the towns of Cimarron, Red River and Questa led me to the new national recreation area of Wild Rivers. I scored a great campsite at the Little Arsenic campground right up against the Rio Grande canyon.

Little Arsenic campsite

This is easily one of the best BLM campgrounds I've been in, costing only $7 for a site that had space, a covered picnic table and views. It was very clean with clean pit toilets and easy access to hiking trails.

a good spot for lunch on the Rio Grande

a view of the canyon from my campsite

My second day I took the daypack down into the canyon, a hike of several hours where I saw only one lone fisherman. A peaceful time along the river.








I ran into a ranger at an overlook and he told me that across the canyon on the west side it was almost all free dispersed camping (there are some private lands interspersed). A few hundred thousand acres worth of free camping!

dispersed site, west side of Wild Rivers

I crossed the tiny John Dunn Bridge to the south, then drove north some 20 miles on a dirt road before pulling over into a secluded area among pinon pines. This was as sweet a spot as you could imagine.

It rained overnight, not too much but enough to turn the dirt road into mud. Trying to drive out of that the next day was time consuming as the tires would cake up right away, leaving me to slip and slide continuously. There is zero traction when that happens.

at Bandolier...Alcove House kiva

The morning cleared and I made it into the famous town of Los Alamos. FYI, they have one of the great grocery stores in the west, Smith's Marketplace. Better than Whole Foods. Anyway, I grabbed my supplies and went down to Bandolier National Monument and their campground.

The hike over to the ruins the next morning was pleasant and I really like the 1930's-era visitor's center. Built in a different time, Bandolier now uses shuttles to get people in and out, the crowds are so great. I see this more and more. A shuttle took me back to the campground.

a tiny part of Valle Caldera

From Bandolier west it was more beautiful mountain roads with a stop at the brand new Valle Caldera National Preserve. There is a lot of hand-wringing right now about President Obama creating some new national lands in Utah and Nevada. He is also responsible for Valle Caldera and Wild Rivers. As a traveler, I love it! V.C. has a vast meadow area that has been used for many movies and t.v. shows over the years, including Longmire, the latest Lone Ranger and The Missing.

some of the ruins at Chaco

Then it was off to Chaco Canyon, a place I've wanted to see since viewing a PBS special years ago. For some reason I expected to hear the voice of Robert Redford when walking through the ruins (he narrated the special). That would have been pretty cool. For my money Chaco is the most memorable of all the ancient ruin sites I've seen in New Mexico. The campground is typically rather tight with no privacy, but it is convenient. And the host, Bonnie, was fun to talk to.

this is probably the worst Balloon Festival photo, ever

After a night in the town of Gallup, I once again met my good friend Scott at his place in Albuquerque for a few days. This happened to be Balloon Festival week, which should have been great, but we got some rain that weekend. Can't win 'em all.

southwest New Mexico

Southwest of Albuquerque is some of the best of New Mexico. West and south of the town of Datil is the Gila National Forest (see map), one of the largest in the continental U.S. and in a sparsely populated area.

the road southwest of Datil...it's calling you!

dispersed camping beyond this sign

Dropping south off Highway 12 it was all dirt road, some good, some bad, for about 100 miles over the next two days. Under blue skies I found some dispersed camping where the only sounds I heard that night were the coyotes. It was sublime.

Gila Cliffs

On my second day driving south through the forest I saw only three other vehicles before I hit pavement and traveled up to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. It's an interesting site and worth a visit. Personally, I didn't think they lived up to all of the hype.

downtown Silver City

More pretty country along the road down to Silver City, a town with a great historic center. It seems to be chock full of artists and galleries. I was able to spend a few hours in the public library getting caught up and buying my Mexican car insurance and printing it out. Very important.

moonrise at City of Rocks

Later that day I drove down into another of those great New Mexico State Parks; in fact, my favorite so far, City of Rocks.

looking down on City of Rocks

campsite #10

Although it got somewhat busy over the weekend, the weekdays were relatively quiet with lots of space between me and my nearest neighbors.


I was able to get site #10, an excellent spot and a major reason I stayed for 6 nights, the longest I've stayed anywhere so far on this trip/blog.

City of Rocks

I hit near perfect weather and this was also the first spot since early July where it wasn't cold at night or in the morning. The days were in the low 80's with a cooling breeze, and it couldn't have been more comfortable.

tarantula

One of the most exciting things that happened was that a big, furry tarantula scampered right through my campsite one day. It looked like it was headed to Mexico.

historic downtown gift shop

I spent my last night in New Mexico in a hotel room in Las Cruces, having dinner in their historic downtown at La Posta, a very good Mexican restaurant. The gift shop downtown has a Billy the Kid connection, hopefully you can read the sign in the photo.

Washington south to Colorado

Washington: September 8-15

the Washington route

I crossed back into a part of Washington near the coast that was flat rural country with dairy farms, corn, blueberries and other tasty stuff.

along the east side of North Cascades

That afternoon I headed west towards North Cascades N.P. Beautiful and lush...and rainy. It dropped down to about 45 degrees at the highest elevations so I went further east until I hit sunshine and 60. Good enough for my first night back.

historic marker

Grand Coulee

Some 30 years earlier I had visited the Grand Coulee Dam and it sounded like a place worth seeing again. The closer I got the warmer it got, into the 70's! After all the chilly, rainy weather over the 1500 miles between Whitehorse and Washington nothing could have been more welcome.

south of the dam

After watching a film and walking around a bit, I kept south then west to Wenatchee which is right in the heart of apple country. I was looking forward to this, dying to sink my teeth into a Honeycrisp right off the tree. This turned out to be harvest season and you could buy 10 pounds for $10. And the peaches! As sweet and juicy as any I've ever had.

Wenatchee Lake

The town of Wenatchee has gotten noticeably larger in the last 30 years, like a small city, but the area around it was overflowing with orchards. The touristy, Bavarian town of Leavenworth was just to the west and it was quite busy on the day I was there. It was an excellent day, though, and even I couldn't resist some window shopping and some free tastings in the various culinary shops, including one called 'Cured'. After that I found a free national forest campground up near Wenatchee Lake, primitive and peaceful.

Silver Springs Campground

The next day I continued west, cutting south before nearing Seattle. As long as I was in the neighborhood, why not check out Mt. Rainier N.P? I spent the night in the Silver Springs Campground minutes north of the park. Big, big trees.

gorgeous day to view Mt. Rainier

Being a Monday, the park wasn't too terribly busy and the day was crisp and clear. Perfect for viewing the mountain from anywhere.

a common sight in this area of Washington

Further east I made my way into Washington wine country. Wine tastings were my mission for the day. From Yakima to Walla Walla there are now countless small boutique wineries and one day wasn't nearly enough to do it justice. Three or four days might take care of it, but I did my best.

me, two guys, the owner

My third stop was Cooper Estates. When I walked in the owner was there tasting wines with these two other guys that are in the picture. No one seemed to be feeling any pain and I had no trouble joining in the fun (I already had a bit of a buzz going from my first two stops).

5 wines, 4 wineries. The Portteus Zinfandel was 

was my fav. check them out on-line

The wines I was tasting along the way were not cheap, some going easily over $50 so I was trying not to go crazy with purchases, but buying something at each. Anyway, the cheapest they had at Cooper was a rose for $25 so that's what I bought. The guy in the white shirt asked me as I was leaving which of the wines I liked best. I said, well, the cabernet was really good ($50+). He said, I'll buy you a bottle! No, I can't take that, I protested meekly. Then the owner said, hey, I'll pay for half. Okay, then. So, that was cool.

the Whitman Mission land. The Oregon Trail cuts right thru

east of Walla Walla, hops was being harvested

I grabbed a room in Walla Walla but decided against more tastings...it was an expensive habit.





Nearby is the Whitman Mission, a national historic site (stamp). The Whitman's came out to "save" the Cayuse Indians. After half the Indians died from measles in 1847 they killed the Whitmans and some others. The end.



Idaho: September 15-20

Nez Perce museum

My first stop in Idaho was the Nez Perce National Monument where they had an interesting movie and museum with many great artifacts.

Idaho south over to Yellowstone

I spent three nights camping around the Dworshak Reservoir, one night paid and two for free, though I kind of paid for it with more rain. There is a visitor's center at the dam of the same name where the ranger was able to set up a short film about Lewis and Clark. I love their story.

looking south at the Salmon River valley

More rain as I drove south to the lake resort town of McCall. After that, I got some good weather on into Ketchum (way too rich for my blood) and Hailey (probably also too rich, but very pretty. I wouldn't mind living there).







So many rivers and canyons in this part of Idaho, all of them worth a roll of film, metaphorically speaking.

looking north, Sawtooths on the left...awesome!

Silver Creek camping

I ended my day at a free campground called Silver Creek West. There are clean pit toilets here and several camping spots cleared out in a meadow-like area next to the stream. Silver Creek is legendary for fly fishing and the only other people staying here were Ross and Rose, a young couple from Coeur d'Alene, who happen to be fly fishermen-people and guides. We shared a beer as they told me how they've been traveling and spending every dime before going back to work...whenever. Kindred spirits! They said even Hemingway fished this creek back in the day. I would come back here anytime, especially if I ever learn to fly fish.

this is a sculpture

a view from atop one of the cones

The next morning I took a couple of hours to tour the Craters of the Moon. They have a nice loop drive and I hiked up a couple of the cones and craters.

The sculpture is called Homage to the Limber Pine by Jason Middlebrook. Made of steel and slate, it was an unexpected sight but very well done.


Wyoming back to Colorado: September 20-23


I entered the town of West Yellowstone around 4pm. By September 20, about half of the park campgrounds had been closed for the season so I was directed up to a national forest campground called Rainbow Point. Very pretty next to a lake, but fairly crowded, unfortunately.

the Madison River

big daddy...I was way too close

Once it warmed up enough I started my Yellowstone-Teton whirlwind tour. I saw many, many buffalo in several areas of the park, but the only other large animal that day was an impressive bull elk. The elk, which was across the Madison River some distance from the road, actually stopped traffic. Having lived with elk in Evergreen for 16 years, I kind of shrugged it off.

Gibbon Falls

Lower Falls of the Yellowstone

I was able to enjoy several of the falls, including Gibbon Falls and the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone.

the Tetons

Zipping on down the road into Teton the skies got a bit clearer making for some beautiful views of those awesome mountains. To live in a place like that would be heaven.




















The Teton visitor's center had a forecast posted calling for 4-5 days of rain so I drove south through Jackson Hole ($$$) to a roadside campground. Where the rain caught up to me, anyway, and it dropped to 38.

back home

a forest road in Colorado

From here the goal was to get back to Colorado. Which I did, the skies turning Colorado blue before finding a campground just north of Granby.

I was back in Golden the following afternoon, ending my first trip north to Alaska. 13947 miles in 90 days. Almost $90/day. Gas was in the neighborhood of $35/day for the time I was in Canada and Alaska. One, it's more expensive in both places, but I also put in so many miles in so short a period of time. A combination of starting too late and having lousy weather kept me moving.

summer trip up and back through the northwest U.S.

I would certainly go back, as I'd love to see more of the glaciers and wildlife, and maybe do some overnight camping to get a better feel for the immensity of nature up there. But not every year...I'd go broke!

My initial thought is to take the vehicle up to Prince Rupert and hop the ferry along the Inside Passage, jumping off at various points to camp and explore. Then get off at Haines to drive the rest of the way. Dawson Highway, for sure. Maybe Yellowknife again. Anyone interested...maybe in a few years.

Oh, this is not the end of the blog. As I stated at the beginning of this trip, this blog will keep on trucking as long as I do, as the name implies. Next up, south into both New and Old Mexico.