Monday, 31 March

Ellen in a snow field

Had French bread and cheese for breakfast and headed out of town to the Santa Fe National Forest.  We did a 3.5 mile loop trail but it included two 1,000 foot climbs.  The trailhead was at 8,450 and the summit  was at 9,450.  There was a bunch of ‘huff & puffin’ and a renewed motivation to drop 20 or 30 pounds.

Rio Grande Gorge

We’re headed north to cross the suspension bridge over the Rio Grande.  The gorge is amazing because its in the middle of very flat land.  The gorge isn’t that wide but it must be 500 feet deep.

We didn’t spend a lot of time in Taos.  -  We walked around the plaza square of ‘Old Taos’ and saw more art galleries.  We drove south and spent the night in Las Vegas (New Mexico, that is….).  We ‘splurged’ on a hotel to make sure we had a ‘Jacuzzi’ to tend our weary bodies……

The Plaza at Taos

Hyde State Park

At 9400 feet on top of the mountain and Hyde State Park just north of Santa Fe

Sunday, 30 March

We still woke up early and had coffee and bagels in the room for breakfast.  We drove to “Old Albuquerque and walked around for a couple of hours.  We found several Cathedrals and Chapels.

We then went over near the Rio Grande River and walked for a couple miles there.

Next stop was the National Petroglyph Monument.  We did another 2 mile hike and we saw hundreds of petroglyphs.

We drove up to Santa Fe and spent several hours walking around the old section of town, which was also the end of the old “Santa Fe Trail” that started in St. Louis.  We also walked up and down “Canyon Road” which had over 100 art galleries on it.

Ellen lighting yet another candle

We ‘cheaped’ out again at a Motel 6, but made up for it at a fantastic Mexican restaurant nearby.

Official Start

Beginning our one week tour of New Mexico.

Saturday, 29 March

Saturday, 29 March

We’re still getting up early.  We stopped at a grocery store and picked up a bagles, cheese, bread, fruit, etc.  We found a network of trails south of Springerville part of the Apache National Forest.  We did five miles in Murray’s Basin. 

We got into New Mexico just a little after noon and drove to “Pie”, New Mexico for lunch.  The food was very good and we loaded up with ‘Pie to go” to have while we watch the Wisconsin game tonight.

Down the road to Albuquerque we saw these huge satellite dishes and stopped to check out the VLA (Very Large Array) which is a network of radio telescopes used to research deep space.  There are 28 units in an array up to 16 miles across.

We’re now headed into Albuquerque and looking for a place to bed down early so we can watch the game.  We used YELP on the internet to find a place and we’re going to stay at the “Crossroads” motel.  It’s not very fancy, we found out it was used several time in the “Breaking Bad”.  The hotel was clean and cheap.  It was fun to stay there.  We ordered a pizza from the “Brick House” and watched Wisconsin win!

Catching UP

Here's some notes from earlier in the week:

Friday 28 March

While visiting Ellen’s brother Jim in Tempe, AZ we’ve been staying at Ellen’s other brother Greg, who has a house in Gilbert about a 20 Miles from Jim’s house.  Each morning we’ve been going out for walks.  On Wednesday, we drove into Tempe and then walked along the lakefront in front of ASU.  On Thursday we went to “Water Park” in Gilbert and on Friday we walked around the neighborhood where Greg lives.

We picked up the rental car around noon on Friday and left Tempe about 1.  We took Highway 60 up through Globe and had a nice Mexican dinner in Show Low.  We ended up staying overnight in Springerville.