These are some of the pictures I took while in Santa Fe. We spent 6 hours walking around the central area of Santa Fe. Looking at three churches and a bunch of high priced jewelry stores. We had a good time however my feet where tired.
Some amazing stain glass windows.
This is the Lorette Chapel, the story is here
The front of the state museum is where many navajo sell jewelry.
This picture of hail was taken 30 minutes after the above picture of the plaza.
Lady of Guadalupe Church of Santa Fe.
Hand carved door header.
Think this is some of the original bricks.
Month: June 2015
Lees Ferry Natl Park – Thursday June 11, 2015
Today we drove 300 miles to Lees Ferry National Park just below Glen Canyon Dam and the place where people start their trip floating the Grand Canyon. The drive out from Navajo Lake added a little interest to the trip. At 5:00 a.m. this morning a THUNDER storm came through the area so there were several places where there was mud across the road. The highway folks had already been out and bladed the road however in a couple of spot the mud was still at least a 1/2 in thick. To say the car got dirty would be an understatement. We stopped at Kayenta to get gas and I could at least get some of the dirt off the windshield so I’d be able to drive the car after we got to the campground.
When we got to Lees Ferry campground both of the river view spots were taken. We first moved into site 44 and then moved to 46 which is right next to 44. We moved because site 46 actually angles into site 44 this way hoping no one would camp to close to us.
A little after 5:00 the people who were camped in one of the view sites showed up and left. They had left there trailer in the site all day and then left at 5:00 p.m. Rude on their part good for us, we moved into one of the front view sites, number 47.
This is site 47.
View form site 44, the first site we were in.
This is the view from our picnic table with the large metal cover to keep the sun off ME.
View to the right from the picnic table.
It is going to be warm here 85 to 95 during our stay. Plan is to leave Sunday for Jacob’s Lake, Az or Sand Hollow State Park by Hurricane, Utah.
Navajo Lake State Park, Tuesday June 9, 2015
We were on the road early today for a 300 mile drive to Navajo Lake State Park in northwest New Mexico. The drive turned out to be an extra 50 miles. I took a wrong turn just 8 miles before we would have gotten to the Pine Area campground. I saw a Navajo Lake Campground sign and I turned left. Had to drive all the way to Aztec, NM (14 miles) before I could find a place to turn around. There are two challenges in pulling a car: 1) you CAN NOT back up, not even a foot, 2) getting gas, finding a station I can get into and out of without backing up, and I have to decide as we drive by, it can be a REAL pain.
We are in site 58, our third site of the afternoon. The sites are all laid out backwards. Power and water should be on one side with the door and table on the other, most sites have the power, water and table on the same side, or the power/water are on the side where motorhomes and trailer have there door. The first site I could not get level without our slide being within 10 inches of the next sites BBQ (really 10 inches). The second site was a pull through marked a reserve site on the exit side of the pull through and an open non-reserved site on the entry. When I pulled into the site and started setting up the RV the camp host (really nice guy) came by and asked me why I was setting up in a reserved site. I said because the post over here says the site is open. Dan (the host) said it’s a reserved site and he had actually never seen the non-reserved site post I saw. He went a got a garbage bag and put it over my post really fast. He than took me around the park in his John Deere tractor and helped us find a site.
Here is the drive for today.
Here is a close up of the area we are in:
Notice the dam at the lower part of the lake. Can you see where the blue line goes across the face of the dam. Yes, the road starts at the bottom of the dam face and we drove up across the face of the dam to get to the top of the dam.
Valdaz Caldara, NM – Monday June 8, 2015
I got up at 6:15 and hiked the Frey down into the valley to see the ruins. My goal was to hike further up the valley than Jean and I had done on Friday to see the “Alcove”. To get to the Alcove it requires climbing 3 ladders and a bunch of steps for a 140 climb. Jean was not interested in going up the ladders. It was a nice hike. I was alone all morning, saw the first person 3/4 mile for the visitor’s center about 9:15. ( I’ll post pictures when I get them formatted. )
The track line on the right side without any dots was the bus ride back to the campground.
Drove the 15 mile up super volcano and into it’s caldara today. It really is a large volcano, the road across is 13 miles. When we get some internet access it’s on my list to learn more about this volcano. It is currently a national preserve (since 2000) and will become part of the National Park System this October.
Los Alamos, NM – Sunday June 7, 2015
Happy Birthday Christine, a day late.
Today was two museums in Los Alamos; a small historical museum and Ray Bradberry Museum. The small town museum told the story creating the town of Los Alamos as part of the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb.
The Ray Bradberry Museum is very high tech and more of an advertisement for the Los Alamos National Laboratory them what I would call a museum. They had a great section on the atomic bomb and then several areas showing all of the important things they are doing now and why we should continue to give the lab 3.5 to 4.0 billion a year for all the projects they work on.
Santa Fe, NM – Saturday June 6, 2015
Drove 41 miles into Santa Fe to see the sights. There were three mission churches Jean wanted to see and a couple of museums. We ended up seeing all three churches and then spending the rest of the day walking around the shops at the Santa Fe Plaza. There are hundreds of shops to walk through. It is really hard for me to understand how all the jewelry shops can all stay open and make a profit.
Pictures of the churches ( when I get pictures formatted I’ll post them here ).
I put them HERE.
Bandelier National Monument – Friday June 5, 2015
This morning we got up and went down into the valley to see the ruins. With limited parking in the valley the county is paying for a bus shuttle system to ensure people keep coming to the park. My guess is there may be 30 – 40 parking spaces at the parks visitors center. Visitors can drive their own cars into the park before 9:00 a.m. and after 3:00 p.m. We left the campground at 8:30 and drive to the visitor’s center, there were about 20 available parking spaces. The shuttle system allows 100’s of people a day to be in the park. The shuttle starts at a county visitor’s center in White Rock, NM. They have a lot of parking spaces for visitors and even spots to park your RV. The RV spots have power available for $20.00 a day if you’d like to leave the A/C running. The A/C is important if you have a pet who can not ride into the park on the bus. This a really great idea. The $20.00 will than allow you to stay in this RV parking area over night.
Jean and I spent 3 hours walking along the interruptive trail viewing the ruins: ( when I get some pictures formatted I’ll post them HERE ). Pictures from today start half way down the page.
Bandelier National Monument – Thursday June 4, 2015
We were up early today and on the road by 7:00 a.m.. I wanted to get to Bandelier early because of the limited choice of campsites. This campground is an older national park like campground which means there will only be a few sites we’ll be able to fit into. We got here at noon and got the only pull through site in the park ( lucky Harry and Jean ) site 55.
Paying for the site was an interesting endeavor. Most things here are pay by credit card machine this includes entry into the park and camping.
Here are the registration instructions on the campground map.
TO REGISTER: Choose a vacant site (DO NOT put anything on the site until the site is paid for) and return to self-registration area at campground entrance. Follow directions posted by the fee machine. Place
receipt from machine on dashboard. Note: Machine give $1 coins for change.
If you wish to extend your stay you must do so after 12:00 Noon.
Camping fee is separate from the ENTRANCE FEE.
Campers must stop at the entrance station to show valid entrance pass upon every re-entry into park.
Two paragraphs below this on the registration instruction sheet the instructions say; “Campsites must be vacated by 11:30a.m. unless payment has been made for the following night.”
My first question is how can I extend my stay if I must make the “extend your stay you must do so after 12:00 noon” but I must be, ”vacated the site by 11:30 a.m. unless payment has been made.”?
Second question, “DO NOT put anything on the site until the site is paid for,” When I find the site I want how do I know that someone else has not selected this site and is at the pay station paying for the site. If I get to the self-service credit card pay station and someone else has already paid for the site I have to find another, this could be an interesting challenge when 10 people are driving around the 3 campground loops looking for a site.
Another great opportunity is at the automated pay station. On the payment machine it says you can use a credit card $1.00’s, $5.00’s, $10.00’s and $20.00’s. On the sign about three feet to the right of this payment machine, in the middle of the instruction for registration it says, “ DO NOT USE $20.00’s” You’ve got to love the great ability of our government.
Oh yea, on the receipt which is printed from the automated payment machine it says we have to be out of our site by 11:00 a.m., Thanks that is really useful information.
Bluewater Lake State Park, NM – Wednesday June 3, 2015
View from camp.
We are here for another day and will move on to Bandelier National Monument early Thursday morning. The plan is to stay there through the weekend before moving on.
Camping in New Mexico is really great. The state parks and nice and have both reservation sites and none reservation sites for drop in’s.
Here is the pricing structure:
$10.00 for basic site
$14.00 for site with electricity and sometimes water
$180.00 for an Annual Camping Pass (good for 13 months) all basic sites are free, electricity and water site is $4.00
$100.00 for an Annual Camping Pass at age 62
$225.00 for an Annual Camping Pass if you are from out of state.
We purchased an Annual Camping Pass when we here in October and it has more than paid for itself.
High today should be 85 with low of 52.
Pictures From Days Past – Tuesday June 2, 2015
I’m a little behind in posting pictures I have taken.
Here are some of the pictures from our tour around Homoliva ruins.
These were large villages with over 1200 rooms at one of the 4 sites.
This is a drawing of what the village might have looked like:
Some of the rooms where rather large.
This is where they think this kiva was and some of it rebuilt.
And of course there are always lizards:
I also got him out on the side walk, Look at the length of his rear toes.
There is a lot of pottery around these sites and it is illegal to remove anything from the sites, so people place the things they find on flat rocks.
There are a lot of these rocks around the sites, it’s really kind of cool.
Winslow, Az.
This was fun, Jean and I had stopped by here several years ago. At that time we texted the kids, “Standing on a Corner”. I think Brian was the first to answer, “Winslow, Arizona”
