Raton

There are times an area resonates with you.  This week Denny and I are parked on the Raton (pronounced Rat-tone) Pass at the Cedar Rail RV Park.  As you can see by the pictures below, we pretty much had the campground to ourselves and boy, did we have a 360 view high up on the ridge!  The Sangre de Cristo Mountains sit to the west of us and the campground elevation is at 7888 feet.  Pretty breathtaking--literally!

Between bad weather, a bad tooth for Denny and a check engine light problem that turned out to be a couple of different things going wrong, we didn't get to explore the area as we would have wished.  There are museums in both Raton and Trinidad, Colorado which is only about ten miles north of us here, as well as state parks, the Capulin Volcano and the Sante Fe Trail (which crossed the Raton Pass).  There is history here as well as geological wonders and we will need to return to see more of it.  The townspeople are friendly, the scenery exquisite and the vibes are indescribable.

Yep, we'll be back.

A Visit to a Volcano

On Tuesday before our truck troubles started, I made the decision to visit the Capulin Volcano National Monument.  And no, Denny had no choice in the matter, by gawd we were going! Heh.

Approaching the volcano by way of Rt.64/87 you can see the crater of the volcano.  Capulin is the Spanish word for chokeberry, a type of bush native to this area. As we drove towards the volcano from the town of Raton we passed the T.O. Ranch, which a wildlife officer later told us encompasses over 300,000 acres of land on both sides of Rt.64/87.  It's an impressive spread!

Rising almost 1,300 feet above the plains, the views from the top of the Capulin Volcano are incredible.  Once you leave the visitor center (as a National Monument owners of the Golden Age card get in free) the road to the summit of the volcano winds around for two miles.  Of course, going up you are on the outside lane where there is no shoulder and crumbling edges of pavement on the very narrow drive lane.  There is only one pull over about midway up to take pictures although there were no other people at the park when we drove up so we were able to stop and snap a couple of pictures on the way to the top.

The Capulin (pronounced cah-poo-LEEN) volcano is a cinder cone volcano, meaning it was created by huge sprays of lava spewing into the atmosphere, becoming solid and then dropping back to earth forming the cone shaped mountain.  Near the top of the volcano you park at 7877 feet above sea level and then walk .2 of a mile down to the bottom of the crater where you get a close up view of the lava rock.

The two of us in the center of the volcano.  Not quite "Joe Versus the Volcano".

Walking back means a couple of stops for those of us not acclimated to being way over a mile up in the sky!  You can also walk around the rim of the volcano on the one-mile long path, but we knew our lungs weren't quite up to that yet.  So Denny and I wandered to a high point of the path near the parking lot so I could take a picture of the snow-capped Sangre de Cristo mountains, a mere 120 or so miles away.

While walking up to the nearest bench Denny noticed some movement in the brush and what we saw were mule deer foraging.  They were as curious about us as we were about them.

They say that on a clear day you can see four states--New Mexico, Texas, Colorado and Oklahoma from the highest point of the trail.  I believe it!  It was a bit hazy on the day of our visit but the views were incredible.  We were hoping to see a bit more wildlife, but the only other critters were saw were some spotted towhees.

We did have some winds that day, but Denny and I still decided to sit on the wall of the parking lot overlooking the mesas and not-quite-volcanos below us and have our picnic lunch.

For the ride home we came back by way of Rt. 72, a narrow winding state route that lead us by tiny ranches, miles of plains and mesas and herds of pronghorn antelope.

All in all an interesting day.  What was more interesting was receiving an e-mail from a new blogging friend, aka "the Other Linda", who told a story of her then-teenaged brother and a group of his friends who dragged a bunch of old tires to one of the minor volcano sites in the area waaaaayyyy back in the 50s where they then lit the tires on fire.  Seems it caused a bit of a panic for the town folk who thought one of the volcanoes had started to erupt.  Hee!  Sounds like the kind of thing a certain set of cousins of mine would have done.  And I might just have been right there along with them.

A good day, ruined by a check engine light coming on after a stop at the local DQ for a malt and a shake.  That's a whole 'nother post.

A Good Week

For once, everything proceeded smoothly in all our repairs at Connie's house this week.  Today we finished the last bit of framing for the sunscreened lattice we rebuilt for the atrium and the patio cover and as our final lunch out Connie took us to Le Crepe Michel in Old Town Albuquerque.  Because like the folks that stand at intersections with cardboard signs, Denny and I work for food.  We each had something different and tasted each other's meals which were excellent.  Connie's choice was salad and French onion soup (I recommend the soup), Denny had the crepe au porc dijon and I had the crepe a la volaille and then for dessert we shared a serving of crepe David.  I have to say that Albuquerque is definitely a great place to be a gourmand.  Or as my friend Vicki calls me, a food snob.  Heh.

After lunch we meandered the streets of Old Town, hitting the shops with art work and jewelry.  We perused paintings, sculpture made from pressed paper, statues of St. Francis carved from heavy tree branches (I wanted one badly)  exquisite glass wall platters that gleamed with the colors of the desert (I think Connie is going back for one next week).  Denny bought me a lovely pair of earrings that will forever remind me of the southwest and Connie has a lovely ring of multi-colored segments of spiny oyster separated with a delicate band of pave set diamonds on hold.  At that particular store the salesman tried really hard to sell me a beautiful ring of diamonds, hand carved garnet and opals, but our ship has yet to come in so I had to pass on that.  But Old Town is definitely a place to spend a day just browsing the beautiful handcrafted items and being entertained by Native American singers/dancers/pan pipe players and maybe even a wedding ceremony at the gazebo in the center of town.

This week Denny and I also made some new friends.  As a blogger, I make comments on other's people's blogs and Linda here in NM responded to one of my comments mentioning that she lives in Albuquerque, so we got in touch by e-mail and made plans to meet.  Of course, we met at yet another of Albuquerque's nice places to meet and chat; the Flying Star Cafe (which by the way has fabulous bread pudding!)  Linda and her husband Joe turned out to be the kind of folks that you feel you've known forever and we just talked and talked and talked.  Naturally, Denny and I spent some time extolling the virtues in fulltime RVing when the two of them expressed an interest but the conversation jumped here and there and before you know it 2 hours had passed.  One of the things I appreciated about Linda is her interest in the word vert game; word vert is that verification word that you have to type in the box before your comment will be posted on some people's blogs.  The game is to use the word vert word in a sentence.  Some of them easily translate into something recognizable, but some are a stretch so you have to hope the person whose blog  you are commenting on has a good imagination or pronounces the word the way you're thinking.  I guess you have to be there, as they say.  Anyway, Linda plays word vert so she has a twisted mind too. (Linda, if you read this I hope you understand what I mean by that!)

Tomorrow Connie will finally come by OUR place to see the new trailer, visit with Patches and be fed by us.  We have a bottle of champagne to quaff to celebrate new homes, finished projects and family.  And Monday it will be time to move on to newer if not greener pastures.  The RV Vagabonds are feeling a bit of hitch itch and even Patches has gotten bored with the scenery so it's time to head out.  We'll turn Black Beauty's nose to the north for most of the summer, where almost all of the places we'll be stopping will be new to us.  Right now that sounds real good to me.  It's time.