Where are Cheryl and Dennis?: October 2017

Friday, October 27, 2017

Heading home for a month

October 24 – Oct. 27 – Heading home for a month

Tuesday – We spent the day just hanging around the campground and walked some of the trail. One of our neighbors told us about a little Indian market located at a gas station near I-25. We checked it out and purchased some homemade bread baked in adobe ovens and some earrings.

Wednesday – Left Cochiti Lake this morning and headed to Enchanted Trails Camping Resort west of Albuquerque. We stayed here one night to prep the camper for storage.

Thursday – This morning we hitched up the camper and took it to the storage facility about 8 miles west of the campground. It will stay there until we return in the end of Nov. or early Dec. We then left Albuquerque and headed north to Santa Fe. Took I-25 to Springer then turned onto 412. Stayed one night in Salina Kansas. Got home around 10:00 Friday night.

Temps: Saturday it was a little colder and very windy. Otherwise the weather has been great with highs in the low to mid 70's. It gets cold at night with temps in the low 40's.

Where we are parked: Enchanted Trails Camping Resort, 10 miles west of Albuquerque. 135 sites, 115 with full hookups. Mixture of 20/30/50 amps, restroom with showers, Dump station. All sites are pretty level.

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Exploring the Santa Fe Area

October 20 – Oct. 24 – Exploring the Santa Fe Area

Friday – Spent most of the day at the campground. We went into Santa Fe to a Walmart to purchase a new TV. When we moved the camper on Wednesday I left the bedroom TV hooked up. It fell and pulled the Co-axial port out of the TV. No way to fix it so we purchased a new one.

Saturday – Headed northeast of Santa Fe toward Mora. On the way we stopped at Pecos National Historical Park near Pecos NM. This is another native indian site however no cliff dwellings. The site is located in Glorieta Pass in the Sangre De Cristo Mountains. This site was a major trade location for the many bands of natives. Later the Santa Fe trail came through this pass bringing settlers west. The site includes many partially restored pueblo buildings and a Spanish church has well as a fully restored Kiva that can be entered.

There is also a Civil War site nearby but we decided to skip it as it was cold and windy that day. We continued our drive northeast and ended stopping at Las Vegas NM. We visited the old town square which included an old restored hotel. We had lunch then headed back to the camper.

Sunday – We stayed at the camper and listened to the Packer game on the radio. Also took the wash including the bed sheets to the laundry mat.

Monday – Hot springs day! We drove the hour and a half up to Ojo Caliente to the Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs Spa. We arrived around 11:00 and spent about three hours soaking in the many outdoor mineral spring pools at the Spa. It was a wonderful, relaxing day.

Temps: Saturday it was a little colder and very windy. Otherwise the weather has been great with highs in the low to mid 70's. It gets cold at night with temps in the low 40's.

Where we are parked: Cochiti Lake Campground Army Core of Engineers Park

Pecos National Historical Park

Scenes from Cochiti Lake Campground

Dennis and his new hat!

Ribs! Yum!

View from the Visitor Center

Lake Cochiti in the background

Thursday, October 19, 2017

Cochiti Lake Campground/Santa Fe/Bandelier

Monday October 16 – Thursday Oct. 19 – Cochiti Lake Campground/Santa Fe/Bandelier

Monday – We left Albuquerque in mid morning and headed north toward Santa Fe. On the way to Cochiti Lake Campground we stopped and had a nice breakfast at San Felipe Casino. Once at the campground all the electric and water sites were taken. We settled on a site with no electric or water but had an awesome view. Decided to do another test of our solar power system and do wash. Again it performed awesome and we did two loads with hardly any loss of volts.

Tuesday – Took the Rail Runner Train from Kewa NM to Santa Fe. The Kewa station is only 10 miles from the campground. Its a 50 minute ride to the Santa Fe station and then you are within walking distance of lots of Santa Fe attractions such as the Plaza and the Lorreto Chapel with the spiral staircase. There is also a free shuttle that travels through town with several pickup points. We spent most of the day walking around, visited the farmers market, checked out the shops and some of the old churches. At the farmers market we got into a lengthy and very enjoyable conversation with a couple from Texas. They have a house in Lubbock but spend a good part of the year traveling in their fifth wheel. Part of the joys of travel is meeting new people. We invited them out to the campground to check it out as well as our solar setup.

Wednesday – Took a short drive to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Park. We hiked the Cave Loop trail then took the one way trail through the slot canyon. Both trails totaled approximately 2.5 mile round trip with a 640 feet elevation change. The slot canyon trail is a little difficult in spots but it was fun scrambling over the rocks and slipping through the narrow slots. At the end of the trail you are on top of one the buttes with a view for miles around. On the cave loop there is a cave that was dug out of the soft rock by prehistoric peoples. Very cool.

Thursday – Today we went to Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos. It was an 90 minute drive to the park through some beautiful country. This park is the site of many ancient cliff dwellings carved out the of the cliff faces. As you walk the trail you can see many of the old opening to the dwelling spaces in the cliff, some of which you can climb a ladder and enter them. We walked the main trail then took the trail to the Alcove House. The Alcove House is 140 feet up the cliff face and is reached by a series of wooden ladders. Dennis opted to stay behind while I climbed the ladders. Whew! It was a workout! But I made it and though the site was a bit of a disappointment the view from there was really nice. On the way home we stopped briefly in Las Alamos. We stopped at a store to look for t-shirts. The ladies in the store commented on our Tomista's t-shirts we were wearing and directed us to another great restaurant that would be on our way home. We stopped at Gabriel's and ordered the guacamole which was prepared table side. Dennis had the green chili stew and I had pozole, a pork and hominy soup. Everything was delicious.

Temps: Woke up to 39 degrees in Albuquerque. Temps reached the upper 70's at Cochiti Lake. The remainder of the week was highs in the mid 70's to lows in the 40's.

Where we are parked: Cochiti Lake Campground Army Core of Engineers Park – Site 47. There are 60 sites with a mixture of electric and water, just electric and no services sites. Includes restrooms with showers. All sites have a shelter and picnic table. On Wednesday we moved to a site with electric and water. Campground fees - $12 no electric, $20 with water and electric. We used our national senior pass and only paid half.

Cochiti Lake Campground Site 47

SANTA FE

Roasting peppers

Street vendor on the Plaza

Beef Carnita

Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Park

Bandelier National Monument

Sunday, October 15, 2017

Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta

Wednesday October 11 Thru Sunday October 15 – Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta

Wednesday – We made it to my bucket list event! Arrived at the Balloon Fiesta RV Park around 12:30. Turned into the wrong driveway but eventually got turned around and made it to the RV Park check in. Our spot ended up to be way on the south end of the park in section 30. The ground was a little crooked but we were able to level the camper so all was good. The nice part about our site was we did not have anyone in back of us so we had a clear view to the north sky to see the balloons. Our friends Jim and Bonnie were parked in an area west of us along a cemetery. That was a really good spot as well and if we come back again we are going to try and get a spot there. There were no events that evening so we just hung around the camper.

Thursday – On Thursday and Friday of the Fiesta are special shapes days. We went to the morning launch and the evening glow on Thursday. It was awesome! There were about 500 balloons registered and we found out most of them launched in that morning. In the evening there were many special shapes balloons. The balloons inflate but stayed on the ground. Once it got dark the balloons lite up when the propane burners fired. We attended the evening glow with Jim and Bonnie.

Friday – We decided to watch the morning launch from the campground. I woke up around 6:30, looked out my window and the balloons were already going up. We had a ringside seat as the wind was out of the north that morning and a lot of the balloons came south right over the campground. There was a landing area, the box, just to the west of the campground and many of the shapes landed there. Later in the morning we went to a Walmart to purchase a few groceries and use the Wi-Fi. We went out for supper with Jim and Bonnie and her sister and husband.

Saturday – Again we watched the morning launch from the campground. The wind was pretty claim and many of the balloons just hovered over the launch field. Some of the eventually drifted our way and landed in the box. Some of them even landed on the campground roads. Later that morning we took a drive north to check out a Army Core of Engineers park, Cochiti Lake, halfway between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. We may go there when we leave Albuquerque on Monday. On the way back we drove the Turquoise Trail around the other side of Sandia Peak. Near Tijeras we drove the Singing Road. It was a bit of a disappointment as it was only about 100 yards long. But it was neat while it lasted! Saturday night was another glow and fireworks. We went to the launch field to watch but it turned out it was too windy to put up the balloons. The pilots did a candle glow where they fire up there gondola burners. We stayed for the fireworks which were worth the wait.

Sunday – There was another Mass Ascension scheduled for this morning but again the winds did not cooperate and no balloons launched. All and all this was an awesome experience and well worth attending. We are staying here today. Tomorrow we will head north to Cochiti Lake Campground.

Temps: Its been typical high desert weather with lows at night in the 40's and 50's and daytime highs in the upper 70's and low 80's. 80 degrees is not bad if your in the shade but the sun and still very warm. Thursday morning when we were at the balloon fiesta launch it was only 50 degrees and we FROZE!

Where we are parked: Balloon Fiesta Standard RV Park south of the Alameda Blvd. No hook-ups. Our site was slightly crooked but we made it work. There was water and waste truck service for a fee. No dump station.

I will apologize for the barrage of photos but I could not help myself.