June 23, Day 8: Estes Park Colorado to Fort Collins Colorado

We both woke up shortly after 6 AM, checking our bodies to see how exhausted we were from yesterday’s long hike. Both agreed, we could feel it a little, but mostly we were pretty proud that we made it through 6 miles of hiking and lived to tell the tale. So, time to pack up the car, check out of the Airbnb, and head off for one more morning at Rocky Mountain National Park.

We were getting pretty good at checking in to the park at the right entry time. This morning we would take two shorter walks: one at Sprague Lake, And one on the trail leading to Cub Lake. Both were short and relatively flat. And both gave us opportunities to enjoy the day, take pictures of many, many, beautiful wildflowers, and just reflect on how lovely it is to spend time in nature.

Partway through our second hike of the day, we ran into some National Park Service and Civilian Conservation Corps workers, working on building and improving the trail with carefully crafted ways for the water to run off downhill. Both of us feel so grateful for the many, many, many, thousands of workers who work so hard to keep our National Parks such wonderful places to visit.

Today wasn’t such an ideal day: there was some smoke in the air from some fires off to the west. And we ran into the first mosquitoes that we had seen on the trip. But, even with a less than ideal deal day at Rocky Mountain national Park is still lovely.

Following our hikes, we had a lovely picnic lunch and then headed back out of the park. Today we were going to drive about an hour and a half east out of the mountains to Fort Collins, Colorado. The drive included going through the amazing Big Thompson River canyon. We were able to check into our hotel with enough time to take a little nap before heading off for dinner with our dear friends Heather and Erin and their two children, Leissi and Ian. Patti and Heather worked together at the Escondido Public Library many years ago. It is such a pleasure to stay in touch with friends even when we live far apart. And, their kids are growing and growing. We had such a fun time at their house greeting their chickens which they have been raising for four years. Then, we all headed off to a funky downtown restaurant for a lovely evening meal. Patti was happy to explore the treehouse with the kids. And cute photos ensued.

After dinner we went over to the Churn, a wonderful ice cream place. We all had delicious ice cream and then, too quickly, our time together was done. We so enjoyed seeing them again and will see each other in the future when the opportunity comes up.

Then, after a couple of errands we were back to the hotel. We need to get a good nights sleep because tomorrow we have a long, long ride. But, it was another great day.

June 22, Day 7: Rocky Mountain National Park Colorado

Oh, we woke up to a glorious morning! It was blue skies without a cloud in them and we had timed passes to get into Rocky Mountain National Park for a beautiful morning of hiking. We ate some breakfast and coffee in our Airbnb, packed our bags and headed off to the park. We waited about 15 minutes in line at the entry station, stopped to take a requisite photo with the National Park sign, and then, we were off!

In order to cut down on the traffic at the park, not only do people have timed entrances passes (ours was from 7 to 9 am), but most of the hiking is reached via shuttle buses. We understood how this worked, drove to the area we wanted to be in, and hopped on a shuttle bus, which mandated everyone wear a face mask. We were dropped off at Bear Lake. This is the trailhead for the most popular hikes in the park.  We were going on THE most popular hike.

This day we were headed up to beautiful Emerald Lake. This would be around a 5 mile round trip hike with elevation gain of about 1000 feet. On the way to Emerald Lake there were two other lakes: Nymph Lake and Dream Lake.

We joined a full range of hikers on this beautiful three hour hike into the mountains. There were many many families with small children including some that were infants and toddlers being carried in backpacks. There were also people who were our age and considerably older and then many other people in between. Some people were in great shape and had very excellent quality gear. Others had tennis shoes or sandals on and some didn’t even appear to have any bottles of water along. Everyone was off to enjoy the mountains, the lakes, the views, and the beautiful, beautiful day. For a while we hiked with great views of Long’s Peak, the highest mountain in the park.

At nearly every turn there was another fabulous view of the iconic mountains in this park. We also had a chance to see quite a few other small animals: marmots, golden mantle ground squirrels and chipmunks.

A highlight was when we reached Emerald Lake. it was a beautiful greenish colored lake with the mountains spectacularly rising right from the water. We managed to scramble over some rocks and get a front row seat where we had about as lovely of a lunchtime as one could imagine. It’s amazing how good peanut butter and jelly and Kind bars taste when you’re sitting in paradise.

The walk down was easier than the hike up. But, by the time we reach the bottom there were a lot more people walking both ways and we were tired. We ended our hiking portion of the day by strolling around Bear Lake, having many beautiful views in a 1 mile walk. Then, our legs had had it. Time to hop on the bus and start back to our Airbnb. 

We took the luxury of a middle of the afternoon nap. When we got up went to the local laundromat and did a week's worth of laundry. Clean clothes do not happen by magic on a many week trip. Now we have clean clothes for the next part of the journey. Dinner was easy: baked potatoes from our stash that we had brought along. And then some nice time settling in looking at pictures getting some blog posts. It was really a lovely, lovely, lovely day.

We are still having to post the photos at the end of the blog post rather than integrating with the text.  Blogspot has changed their software and many are complaining about this.  Additionally, you may not have noticed that you can click on the photos and can see them in larger format.

June 21, Day 6: Evergreen Colorado to Estes Park Colorado

We had a fabulous hearty breakfast that Jenny cooked for us in the crisp Colorado morning. We grabbed some more time to catch up as well as to take a tour of Jenny‘s beautiful home, sitting high in the mountains. We wished we had longer time, but we had to hit the road again.

We were on to Estes Park, gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. Rather than going through Denver, we took the scenic mountain route for a little over 2 1/2 hours through winding mountain roads, historic mining communities. It was a beautiful drive in spite of clouds.  Several times we climbed right into them, experiencing them as fog. Both of us had a little fear that our afternoon drive through at Rocky Mountain National Park might not be so beautiful if we couldn’t actually see the mountains because of the clouds.

But, we were so relieved when we arrived at the mountain town of Estes Park, it looked like we were going to see some blue sky as the sun began peeking through. We made a quick stop at a grocery store and then to fill up the gas tank before our entry into the beautiful Rocky Mountain National Park.  Dick had been in the park many times over more than 60 years.  Patti had come to love the park, too.

We were so grateful that our Airbnb host had given us a heads up that we would need to make reservations for timed entry into the park and so we had our timed ticket in hand and were able to easily enter the park.

We stop near the entrance for a nearly private picnic. The temperature was in the middle 50s and windy. So different than the temperatures had been in Arizona and New Mexico these last days. It was brisk, but we had warm clothes and were pleased to feel the fresh mountain air.

Then, we headed off for the next several hours for one of the most delightful drives around: the Trail Ridge Road. This road tops out at over 12,000 feet in elevation and took us through many beautiful, beautiful switchbacks, pull outs, and amazing viewpoints of mountains. The sky got more and more clear, and our hearts were more and more happy to be in the mountains. Patti pulled out “Rocky Mountain High,” John Denver's version, and we played it as we drove along looking at the peaks. Oh, those mountains are so beautiful.

We were also so pleased to begin our animal sightings in Rocky Mountain National Park. Today we saw chipmunks, golden mantle ground squirrels, elk, pikas, and marmots. The beauty of seeing these animals in the wild is just tremendous. We are hopeful in the next two days we will see even more of all of these animals, and perhaps will get an opportunity to see a bear or a moose.

Some of the areas in the park are tundra, that is very high where trees don’t grow, and the major plants are lichen and teeny little flowers. Looking down, we saw areas large trees, lakes and mountain streams. We stopped often, took lots of photos and soaked it all in.

Finally, it was time to head back down the mountain and check into our next AirBnB. This time we are staying in a historic 1914 building, built by a rich financier in this community, changing owners several times before being purchased by our AirBnB owners. We had delightful discussions with our AirBnB hosts, and met another young couple who was visiting from New Jersey.  They had just gotten engaged on their hike today. Who knows what will happen in the magical forest!

Then we made a short seven minute walk to downtown. There we went on a search for a good dinner, which we found at a café serving food from Nepal. Tasty and we ate it all up.

After dinner we walked across the street to the park where we heard a concert “Cowboy Brad.” He led a sing-along with the couple hundred  people on benches and blankets.  As part of the program we learned he honored the  search-and-rescue park rangers in the national park. There are so many fabulous staff people who help keep people safe and happy during their national park visits.

Then, it was a walk uphill to our home where we settled in for time to work on photos and see about getting some blog posts up on the Internet. We are thrilled that we have a couple more days in this delightful area.

June 20, Day 5: Corrales New Mexico to Evergreen Colorado

We woke up to a beautiful New Mexico blue sky morning, but it was already hot. It generally takes us about an hour to an hour and a half from wake up to being ready to leave. That’s how it went today. We did one last “stupid check” to make sure we didn’t forget anything. We had a little last minute chat with one of our hosts, Sue, and then it was time to head down the road.

We drove about 150 miles under the bright New Mexico hot hot sky, and then had our first stop of the day. This was a fascinating historic site. Fort Union was built right after the Mexican-American War in 1848. It was built to both protect traders on the Santa Fe Trail, and establish US presence in the new territories following the war. We had driven by the signs for this fort many times while on other trips, but today was our chance to have a look.

The fort was about 8 miles off of the main freeway, and before too long we could see what appeared to be adobe ruins on the horizon. There had been three different forts built in this area, all out of adobe. The remains here were from the third version. It was our good fortune that we happened to arrive on a weekend where there were historical reenactors present. As we were getting out of our car we heard the boom of a cannon. We were able to rush over and see a squad of reenactor troops who explained and demonstrated how these pre-Civil War cannons worked. It was quite a complex process, but very impressive. The reenactors were spending the weekend at the fort sharing their knowledge of the uniforms, tents, and weaponry. 

Dick also struck up quite a fascinating conversation with one of the regular park rangers who was also in the uniform of a private of the era. The ranger was able to give us some really quick high points about what made the fort so special. One of the fascinating things he talked about was how normally when canvas-covered freight wagons were in wagon trains, they didn’t go single file, as looks like they do in the movies. Rather they lined up for six maybe even 10 a breast, riding next to each other. When they arrived on the horizon of Fort Union, there was somebody in the equivalent of an air traffic control tower who could see the dust of the wagons coming and deployed some men on horses to go and direct each wagon to get into single file so the person on the top of the building could tell them where they needed to go to unload their freight.  Some were directed beyond the fort where traders were waiting for their goods. We were fascinated by this.

It was also at this site the largest hospital between Kansas and the west coast (at its peak having 120 beds) was located. There were so many fascinating, fascinating things to see and learn at this site, but we only had a little over a little over an hour’s worth of time today. We had longingly at the group of visitors heading off on a tour… but we had to go, deciding we would stop again on a future trip and allow more time.

We needed to head up the road because we were soon crossing into Colorado and then headed up through lots of traffic and construction all the way to just south of Denver.  Then we turned west and headed up into the mountains where we were going to visit our dear friend, Jenny, in her home in Evergreen Colorado.

The trip took longer than we wished. But, we were warmly greeted by Jenny and she had wonderful food prepared for us. So we had a feast which included shrimp, salmon, amazing salad and homemade ice cream. We both ate and ate and ate. We love visiting people who are good cooks. And then we talked late into the night catching up on each others lives and travels and pondering our life changes. It was a great great visit. But, finally we all had to go to bed. We were so glad to be in Colorado, having left some of the terrible heat behind. There was a crisp pine smell in the air and the temperature was in the 60s. Ahh. We would really enjoy our time in Colorado.

July 19 day 4: Albuquerque New Mexico and surrounding area

We woke up to such a beautiful morning in our little Casita, an Airbnb house. Dick began doing some more work on photos. The process of downloading and looking at which photos were taken during a particular day is one that he has happily taken on. Some days we only have a few photos, like a dozen. Other days we might have for 5 or 600. We both find many things interesting to photograph. Once he has taken the rough cut at photos, he identifies a number which will make this blog. He then goes into an editing program and cleans them up to be ready to shared.

In the meantime, Patti uses the "Notes" program on her iPhone to dictate the first draft of the day's events. This shows up on her laptop, which can then be copied and pasted into the blog spot blogging program. Then Dick adds some more to the text and adds in the photos. Finally, we are ready to publish one day's entry. This is why it sometimes takes a while, complicated by the fact that there always is more happening each day. But, we both enjoy reflecting upon our experiences and sharing them with you.

Once Patti was up, she brewed a cup of coffee and settled in on the front porch to enjoy the cool New Mexican morning. The bunnies were up and the quail were running around. She enjoyed a little time and then had to call Dick to come out and share the morning with her. It was just a delight!. We also had a chance to meet one of our Airbnb hosts, Sue. We heard more of the history of their Airbnb business and their travels. They’ve really created a lovely sanctuary for people to come and enjoy quiet in nature.

Soon Tomi arrived ready to swoop us off for a great adventure at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. Hank was not able to join us this morning, but wished us a great day. We enjoyed driving the scenic route to get to the center.

The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center is a fabulous organization which has museum exhibits, an amazing gift shop with authentic Indian made art, and regularly features dancers.

We were able to have an early lunch featuring some amazing Native American cuisine. The food was fabulous, tasty, and pretty healthy. We were all very full by the time lunch was over.

Then, we were so glad that we caught part of the Zuni Nation’s traditional dancers. We saw several dances of old and young dancers wearing beautiful regalia and sharing some of their culture with those who came to the center. It really was special to see this dancing. A big highlight was an eagle dance that was done under a mural that was featuring an eagle dance. We were so glad to be able to photograph the dancers when they were finished.

Then, we went inside to a couple of exhibits looking at Pueblo people and their history. There also was a fascinating exhibit focusing on Pueblo women and their accomplishments. There were so many beautiful exhibits, films, art work and things to learn. 

One of the biggest highlights was quite an exhibit of Storyteller pottery. This was displayed along with interactive audio which told many stories depicted in the pottery. Patti has some replica pieces of the Storyteller pottery, but these were exquisite!

Tomi was able to give us some additional information out of the history that she and her husband, Hank, had from working with the local Native American tribes in their gardening and Hunger-Grow-Away projects. For many years they have had very close friends in the local native communities. And, Tomi was able to show us one of the large outdoor garden areas that they worked with people to create. It was very special to get some more of the background information about this amazing center.

And of course it was extra special for Patti and Tomi to explore this together. We had to get our pictures taken in front of this fabulous mural.

There were also some artists who had their work on display for sale at the center. We were enchanted with one artist's work that particularly featured a turtle and paintings on its back of a hummingbird and dragonflies. Dick and Patti decided we must bring it home and put in a certain corner of our house where we have many indigenous pieces of art. It’s a beautiful piece and the artist was also happy to pose for a photo.

Then, it was off to our respective homes for a little afternoon nap. At one point we were hanging out in the living room and Dick announced “I smell rain." We ran outside and indeed saw a big cloud had passed by and rain was coming on down. It only last for a couple minutes, but was very welcome before quickly drying up.

Then, off for dinner at Joe’s Pasta House with Tomi and Hank. So nice just to enjoy meals with friends. The food was good and the company was great. Then, all too soon it was time to make our goodbyes and head back to our Airbnb. Tomorrow we had another long drive. But, what a lovely lovely day it was enjoying a taste of New Mexico.

Blue Corn Enchilada

Chicken Dance

Eagle Dance

Artist holding different pot

June 18 Day 3: Williams, Arizona to Albuquerque, New Mexico

We woke up to another hot Arizona morning. This time we were able to have leftovers for breakfast in the group gathering area in our funky hotel. Breakfast was oatmeal with some good coffee. Some good food to travel down the road. We had a lovely discussion over breakfast with a couple of guys from Sweden. As Patti walked into the breakfast room, she recognized the Scandinavian language and a great talk ensued. Always nice to exchange travel stories with fellow world travelers.

We made a stop for a couple-mile round trip hike to see the Keyhole Sink and Petroglyphs outside of Williams. This was a delightful walk through Ponderosa Pine Forest and ended in an area with some ancient petroglyphs. While there we had very nice chat with a couple of women hikers.  We exchanged photograph services. We love to take advantage of an off-the-beaten-path hike.

Destination for today is Corrales, New Mexico, a suburb of Albuquerque. We were headed off to visit one of Patti‘s friends from nearly 40 years ago, Tomi, and her husband Hank. We always enjoy when we can have a chance to spend some time together.

The drive was fine. A few times we hit some really bogged down construction. Never so much fun. We also had to make a stop at Target to pick up a couple of electronic devices that we didn’t bring from home. We’re getting closer to having what we need.

We passed the time by listening to a fascinating audiobook called Code Girls about the brilliant young women who were code breakers in World War II. Fascinating stories. Nice to share a book together that we would both enjoy.

We were pleased to settle into a new Airbnb (new to us). This charming place with great air-conditioning also has been designated a wildlife sanctuary. We were so pleased to check in and be ready for a couple of days in our next home. It is a lovely little Casita on an acre property that has beautiful landscaping, plants, animals, and birds. Dick spent the first hour enjoying capturing some photos of the bunnies (Desert cottontails) which were adorable, and some of the many Gamble’s Quail that run back-and-forth outside our window. We are going to enjoy the wildlife.

Tomi and Hank brought over a light dinner and we spent a very delightful time together catching up on our travels and what’s been happening for them. They also enjoyed seeing the animals here, both being very big animal lovers.

And so day 3 brings us to New Mexico. Many more miles to go and many more states to see, as well as more license plates to spot as we’re driving. We were now seen over 30 state’s plates. Let the games continue!