"I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life – and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do." – Georgia O'Keefe
As I write this post I am drinking a cup of hot coffee (not the iced coffee I usually drink this time of year) while the snow is blowing horizontally outside our camper windows in Monticello, Utah. It’s hard to believe that we were actually warm at some point last week! Here’s where we were:
Tuesday & Wednesday (5/14 & 15) – Carlsbad
After all all-day drive from San Angelo, Texas, through harsh, scrubby landscape dotted with wind farms and oil wells (ugh, the smell!), we arrived at Brantley Lake State Park. This is where we met up with Hal & Val, our friends and camping buddies. Although it seemed like we were camped in a moonscape, I loved the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere. We parked next to Hal & Val in site 12 ($18 a night, electric & water only).
The next morning we headed to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, about an hour’s drive away. It was a gorgeous, sunny day, and perfect for the outing. You can get down to the caverns two ways: (1) walk down through the Natural Entrance (shown below), which takes about 45 minutes, or (2) take an elevator from the visitor’s center down to the Big Room area. Either way, it’s about an 800-foot descent. We all decided to walk down, but as soon as we got close to the entrance, I could smell guano (the caverns are home to about 200,000 bats, which fly out of that entrance every night), which triggered my allergies. So Hal & Val walked down and Dave and I took the elevator. It was a magnificent wonderland in the Big Room, and brought to mind Lord of the Rings. Alas, I have no good pictures to share.
One of the rangers told us that the bats fly out around 7:15 in the evening, so we decided to head to the nearby Guadalupe Mountains National Park for a look around before returning. It was at the end of the day, so we barely made it to the visitor’s center before they closed. El Capitan looked majestic in the late afternoon light (shown above with Val and Romeo).
We arrived back at the Carlsbad Caverns amphitheater around 7, and the ranger gave a talk about bats. (Fun fact: for us, the default position of our hands is open. For bats, it’s closed. That’s why they can hang around indefinitely, and when they die they do not fall. At Carlsbad Caverns they fossilize and become part of the cave. Yuck.) The ranger told us to keep our voices down and put our cell phones away so that the light and noise would not distract the bats. At about 7:45 they came out, and it was mesmerizing to watch them as they whirled at the cave entrance and then headed away in an undulating column into the twilight sky.
Thursday (5/16) – Roswell
In one day and a distance of 70 miles, we went from the sublime to the ridiculous. We were intrigued by the International UFO Museum and Research Center and Dave wanted to “call the home planet,” so we drove straight there as soon as we arrived. The museum was a strange combination of fascinating and silly. I kept thinking they could use more money and a good curator. However, they did have fun toys in the gift shop!
That night we stayed at Trailer Village RV Park, which featured an earthling-sized green alien pointing heavenward at the entrance. We stayed in site 52 ($34), which featured full hookups and a foul wind blowing in from a nearby farm. The smell kept us inside most of the time. We were happy to head out the next day.
Friday & Saturday (5/17 & 18) – Santa Fe
Santa Fe was a delight from start to finish, and I was sorry that we had only a few days there. What a beautiful place, with a European feel in the downtown area. Right from the moment that the harsh desert landscape of Roswell and environs slowly gave way to majestic red hills dotted with green, I knew I would like the place. We checked into our campground, Rancheros de Santa Fe, in the early afternoon. The campground was nice, although the road through it was challenging to the shocks! We had site 36, with full hookups, and it was $35 per night with a Good Sam discount.
Because it was Friday, the Georgia O’Keefe Museum was open until 7 p.m., so I dragged my companions there with me. I think they all enjoyed it, though. Her most famous works are in other museums around the world, but there was plenty left to enjoy. My favorite exhibit was actually Alfred Stieglitz’s photos of O’Keefe. I left inspired. Afterward we wandered the plaza and enjoyed a meal in a little Oaxacan restaurant. We were surprised by how quiet the streets were on a Friday night, but apparently that is usually the case.
The next day we ate breakfast at Cafe Fina, which had been recommended to us and was only a mile from the campground. It was jam-packed with people, so we ended up sharing a table with a couple of delightful locals, Ian and Marsha. They told us a lot about the area, and mentioned an art show that was happening that day. We decided instead to visit Canyon Road, which has 70 art galleries lining an area that covers about half a mile. I went off on my own, and enjoyed conversations up and down the road with friendly artists and gallery owners. I could have spent days there. After that we visited—what else?—a bookstore called Collected Works.
After a quick dinner at home we met my friend Tiffany, who now lives in Santa Fe, at the Wild & Scenic Film Festival at The Screen. We never would have known about it if she hadn’t filled us in. Apparently there are events like this every night in Santa Fe. My kind of place!
The next morning I met Tiffany for an early breakfast at Cafe Fina again (the scones are to die for!), where we enjoyed a couple hours of catching up. It’s been years since we’ve seen each other, but the conversation flowed like a river. I was sad to leave, but we had to get on the road that day. There is so much to see and do in Santa Fe that I know we’ll return!
Sunday & Monday (5/19 & 20) – Mancos, CO
After a very long day of travel, which included a stock-up shopping trip at the Super Wal-Mart in Durango, we arrived at the Riverwood RV Resort in Mancos to discover it was mostly empty. It was a new RV park—so new it really shouldn’t have opened. There were no picnic tables or fire rings, nor was there a folding table or place to hang clothes in the laundry room. In the main office, there was no real furniture, just plastic chairs. But we had our choice of full hookup sites at $39 a night.
However, what had been merely windy earlier in the trip became a winter storm. Overnight and into the next day it snowed, something we couldn’t have imagined at the end of May! We learned in the morning that the road to Mesa Verde National Park (the whole reason we were there) was closed. So we lounged around in the morning, then went out to lunch in town. While there, we checked again on the park website and discovered the roads were open, so we decided to go. It’s a 20-mile drive from the park entrance to the top of the Mesa loop, which takes about 45 minutes because the roads are all switchbacks. The scenery was breathtaking, especially covered with snow. But the road was clear and all was well until we came out of the museum near the top to find snow coming down hard. We wanted to see the famous Cliff Palace (shown below), but by the time we got to the viewing site there was practically a whiteout. Dave was wishing for 4-wheel drive on the pickup, but we got down the mountain just fine.
The next day we left for Utah and what we hoped would be warmer climes.