Tag: Raton

Back with internet so more about NM and into CO

We are at a nice little RV park in Del Norte, CO called Woods and River. We got a lovely shaded RV site right on the Rio Grande. The only problem is there is a major mayfly hatch going on! I am talking enough mayflies to make every trout in the river gain a half pound without really trying. Mayflies by the hundreds! Add to it the cottonwood fluff that is coming down, and we look like we are in a blizzard. We haven’t been able to stay outside, but at least I can get a good river view out of the motorhome front window. However their in-park WiFi is bad, and my Verizon Mifi is experiencing network management, so I have to tether to the phone. It is a pain. We drove out a few miles to a BLM site, and the Mifi is screaming fast! I will try to mostly catch up on my pictures.

The nearby town of Del Monte, CO has an old fashioned drive -in movie! We had a great time watching “In the Neighborhood,” a musical with modern, rap style lyrics and lots of dancing. It was a great show, but we got back way past my bedtime! Worth it though.

I left off with the Dawson cemetery on Saturday, 12 June. We continued along the road to Cimmaron. The town has really invested in tourist infrastructure with lots of signs and historic markers. I particularly liked this old mill.

There was lots of beautiful country, as one might expect. I took pictures of the views, not the towns. Every town was crowded. Taos was dreadfully crowded, and we didn’t get out of the car at all. I was bummed because it was one of my favorite places. Interestingly the Taos Pueblo has been cut off for COVID precautions. The road is closed except to key card access.

Palisades Sill
Bighorn sheep were grazing along the road
The views go for miles
Even the meadows were lovely.

On Sunday we headed to Capulin Volcano National Monument. Nice place. The views are amazing.

The view from the top of Capulin National Monument are spectacular
A nearby much smaller cone to show the shape
Capulin’s cinder cone core

The next day we packed up leisurely and went to Del Norte, CO as I noted in the first paragraph. Tuesday we took off on more sightseeing, this time along the Silver Thread National Scenic Byway which is basically highway 149. Much of the road parallels the Rio Grande, and I particularly wanted to see the headwaters. Couldn’t quite get there because a creek had the road flooded, but we did get a decent long distance view.

Crystal falls was a highlight

Click on this link to hear the falls in a video.

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Slimgullion was a massive landslide 850 and 450 years ago
Views into the Weimenuche wilderness
The Rio Grande headwaters are at the end of the farthest lake
Mining history everywhere! This was a bentonite clay mill.
The Slumgullion Pass was high!

I will continue with our last two days in Del Norte later. This has been hard enough. Hopefully the Mifi will have good service.

 

 

 

 

Oklahoma and into Texas and New Mexico

We spent the last day, 9 June, at Canton Lake in Oklahoma driving to Boiling Springs State Park. The park doesn’t have hot springs like the name implies, but it has bubbly natural springs that have been an attraction for thousands of years. The park is small, and it was really, really hot, so we mostly just drove through, stopping at some of the sights. The park facilities were mostly built by the CCC in the 1930s. The big pool and wading pool have had updates since them, but the buildings are still mostly CCC work. The National Park Service did the architectural work, and it is pretty obvious.

A church group was enjoying the big conference center, also built by the CCC
A wonderful old water tower built by CCC

We left Canton for our first Boondocker’s Welcome stay on 10 June. We stayed at a working ranch just barely into Texas off I-40. BW is a subscription service for overnight stays offered by volunteer hosts. There is a $50/year charge for the service, but no charge for the location unless there are other amenities offered. In our case, we got a halfway level site with a gravel base, 50 amp service (!), and nice views for no cost. The hosts get “paid” with a membership in BW themselves. The electrical service was nice because it was still hotter than hell! We could have used our generator of course, but the lack of noise was nice. I gave them a thank you gift – two bowl cozies made with a great camper fabric with a red background. It turned out the wife of the couple was also a member of the FB group RV Quilters, just like me. We had a nice chat.

The forecast was for significant wind on 11 June, so we left our BW site by 7:15 to get as much driving as possible in before the winds got extra bad. It was over 300 miles to Raton, our next spot, and some of it was white knuckle driving. I can handle 20-25mph steady winds without issue, and up to 30-35 in a pinch, but we eventually got winds so gusty we had to pull off the road for a couple of hours. It was NOT a fun drive, but we eventually made it.

The Raton KOA is the lowest level of KOA, a Journey. This category is for locations oriented towards those passing through, not those looking for many amenities. They gave us a tight 30 amp back-in site with nice trees for shade, but we had to position the rig very carefully to fit; it was not designed for a 40’, 4 slide motorhome! We made it, but there was no option to open the awning! Luckily the trees were quite nice, and I sat in the shade for a few hours each day. This KPA has pull-through and 50 amp sites available, but those are held for the overnighters. It was rather amazing watching the park transition from mostly empty to completely full in 3 hours each day. Every morning the first folks started leaving around 6:00 am (yes, I wake up ridiculously early!), and the park was empty again by 10:00.

Since the drive in was so tough, we ate dinner at the Colefax Ale Cellar, a brewery with good sandwiches and better beer. We ended up buying some of their great dark beer to take with us. It is hard being a stout and ale drinker in a world of IPAs, but they had some good ones.

We got around the next day to drive to a long loop to Cimaron, Eagle Next, Red River, and Taos. It was a great trip! I always stop and read all the historic markers, and we accidentally found one about the town of Dawson, an old Phelps-Dodge mining town. What a serendipitous find! The drive in was lovely. The community was a classic company town with a population of 6,000. When the mines closed in 1950, some parts went to other company towns but most was just razed and the debris removed.

Not much left of the town

The community was infamous for two horrific mine explosions, one in 1913 and another in 1923 with a total of 383 miners killed. The company provided the metal crosses since so many were immigrants away from their families. Some families added traditional markers later. The cemetery is maintained by an old settlers group, and they have big gatherings every 2 years.

The old cemetery was well kept and poignant

I have really bad internet here, so I will leave the rest of our trip for another post.