National Parks, History of the West, New Mexico...

 Storri Lake State Park, just outside of Las Vegas NM was our next stop.  The area is recovering from both a 10yr drought and now recent  heavy rains and flooding. 




 
The lake was almost dry when we got here but within 4 days it was filling up!

The nice thing about this trip out to Arizona for the winter is we decided not to have a deadline as to when we get there.   We are enjoying our stay in one spot for a couple of days and doing  side trips. 
So here are a few within North Central part of New Mexico.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                

First Day.

Montezuma's Castle  was once a resort known for their  Natural spring baths. Its now the World College of the American West and the bathhouse is closed to the public.

Some of the original stone pools are still open to the public  up the creek from the main entrance.  Warning, the hot springs flow directly out of the hillside into theses pools and it was very HOT!  This seems to be a popular place with the locals.

Found out about it from our waitress at the local Pizza Place.

  She also told us about a place to get New Mexico style breakfast.

 Mary Ann's wasn't much to look at from the outside but a great find!  Her grandmother is the owner and cook.  Sister waits tables and gets up at 3 AM to make the tortillas, sooo..  good!!.

The question always seems to be red or green chile?
  How about half green and half red ,  its called Christmas.

 I think the best part about traveling for Randy is the food.

  He just goes along with the other stuff.  :)

 A day trip into the Sante Fe National Forest on what is considered a state highway.

 Well  about 6 miles up it turned narrow, ruff and signs of washouts alongside the road.  It was a pretty drive though and nice to get up into the pine trees and mountain streams. 

Stopped and used 4 wheel drive as the stream was overflowing and running down the road, this campsite and trailhead was washed out.

 

Was I surprised to find this old Catholic church up ahead, and the valley below.

The bottom tip of the San De Cristo  Mountain range.

 Day Two.. Fort Union National Monument.

When New Mexico became United States territory after the U.S.- Mexican War, the army relocated the supply depot from Santa Fa to a site near the Mountain and Cimarron branches of the Santa Fe Trail.  Three different sites all called Fort Union existed.  First made with crude timber to protect traders and settlers from the Indians.  The second Fort, an earthen fortification and further away from the bluff was constructed when the Civil War began.  The third which took six years to complete was used during the Indian Wars throughout the 1860's and 1870's.  Abandoned by 1891 when the railroad came through, only theses ruins remain.

Pet friendly grounds with shaded picnic area out front.

What a perfect sky for taking pictures,
 of which I took alot of!!

They are stuccoing over the ruins to preserve and stabilizes but no plans to recreate the Fort.

  The visitor center has a great little museum that depicts the history and life of an army solder on the open plains. Did you know the  Buffalo solders were used here after the end of the civil war to fight the indians?

The stockade, not sure where you would go if you escaped. 

Day Four..  Pecos National Historical Park

Another beautiful day to hike the boundary of the ruins and drive through the Pecos river valley!

Around 1450 Pecos Pueblo had become a community built of rock and mud five stories high with a population of 2,000.  In 1541 Coronado visited the pueblo but soon  left for Kansas as the indians told then stories  of the City's of gold to the east.   In 1621  the  Franciscans from Spain came and built and adobe church and mission.  By the 1780's disease, Comanche raids and migration had reduced Pecos to fewer than 300.  The last survivors left a decaying pueblo and empty mission church in 1838.

 
Visitor center model of the Pueblo.

Randy didn't think I should climb down the ladder,
 he said if I fell they'd never get me out.  Thanks!

I had to see what was down there so I did it anyway.

  Kivas were used for special ceremonial and spiritual events.

 Very little of the original rock wall surrounding the fortress remain standing. 

Remains of the church and Mission. 

                                                                        

We ended the day with a side trip to Villanuvea State Park along the Pecos River.

The park sits in a canyon right along the river  with pinion pines and scrub oak.  Quie and mostly primitive sites.  A few with electric and water.  Great for small campers and tents but not to many spots for the 40 footers.

The foot bridge to the trails from the campground.

The history buff in me is on overload.....  

Now on to Albuquerque, ( thank heavens for spell check!) as I can never remember how it is spelled.

Till the next ramblings, Happy Trails!!

Northeastern New Mexico

Ute Lake State Park, our first stop in New Mexico, great place to relax and nice facilities. It sits pretty much all alone on a high desert plain with the Canadian river running through it. We had the whole campground to ourselves, nice part about camping after the kids are back in school. 

Nice long pull thru sites are always a plus! 

                                                      Beautiful sunsets over Ute Lake!

  While staying here we drove into the little town of Tucumcari which is on part of old Route 66, it has seen better times.  For anyone of my generation the TV series and song get your kicks on route 66 pop into your head.  Every-time we cross its path it give me a thrill! 

 Randy had to check out the local feed and ranch store.  We visited with a very interesting couple who have been running it for 32 years.  They do a little bit of everything to try to keep it going.  The husband bakes bread, donuts and makes coffee at 3AM and smokes Barbeque for lunch. You can sit at the corner table next to the feed supplies, eat a bite and visit with the local ranchers.

                                                   The pictures say it all!

Leaving Ute lake behind we head along Route 66 toward Las Vegas, a lot of open land and I caught a lucky snapshot of antelope as Randy barreled on down the highway.

Camping outside of Las Vegas at Storie Lake. This part of NM had been in a 7 to 10 year drought and until a week ago you could walk across the lake. They started to get heavy rainfall amounts the week before we got here and now flooding is a real problem.  We have lucked out and missed the bad weather as we travel west.  I guess our delays getting to this area was a good thing.  You can't help but notice how green things are!

Planning on staying in this area for awhile as there is so much to see. 

                                            Las Vegas Plaza a history stop on the Santa Fe trail.

Will make that another story.  Hope you enjoy and will see whats over the next hill and around the next bend!

We blew through Kansas and have landed in New Mexico!

 Kansas, from the NE corner to the SW corner traveling on the back roads.  We are taking our time and enjoying the local sights along the way.  
Marion Lake sits in the rolling Flint Hills and farming is the only activity around here.  Nice camp site right on the water, lots of wildlife.  A was a good place to relax and do some day trips.

Ranch house from the cattle baron era.

Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve and the Flint Hills,  it once covered 170 million acres of North America. The vast majority has been developed and plowed under.  Today less than 4% remains, mostly here in the Kansas Flint Hills. The preserve protects a remnant of the once vast tallgrass prairie. , We were lucky enough to get on a free bus tour through the grasslands seeing a small but growing herd of bison that now make their home on the preserve.

 A side trip to Abilene,

The Eisenhower Presidential Library & Eisenhower Museum in Abilene, an interest place, it includes Dwight D. Eisenhower's boyhood home.

Behind the library is a little hidden jewel, the Dickinson County Historical Society.

The historical section of the museum depicts life on the plains during the American Pioneer and Westward Expansion Periods.  Exhibits include Native Americans, pioneers, railroading, agriculture, Victorian, and Cow Town eras and life on the prairie in 1850's Kansas before statehood.  Two special exhibits,

  A 1901 carousel manufactured here in Abilene, Kansas  as a traveling carnival ride.  the Dickinson County Historical Society was contacted to purchase and bring the carousel back home to Abilene.  After ten years and many volunteer hours, the carousel became fully restored and was named a National Historic Landmark. It is one of only twelve National Historic Carousels in the United States. We had our own person tour from George, one of the caretakers of the carousel.  He stopped  to Crank her up and around she went, playing music from an original Wurlitzer military band organ to top it off. You gotta smile at that!!

The Museum of Independent Telephony.  This exhibit area features different types of telephones and other communication devices throughout the history of telephony.  In 1884 there were nationally 6,000 independent telephone companies.   Many of these smaller companies merged to create larger companies that still exist today. 

Stepping outside the back door you are transported back in time, discovering several early Dickinson County buildings. This will give you an experience of how life for the early settlers would have been. 

This area is complete with actual rescued and restored buildings from the local area. The buildings include the Volkmann Log Cabin built in 1858, the Pritchard barn, the Acme Telephone Office, the Burklund Store complete with retail items from the era, a saw mill, farm machinery, a blacksmith shop, and the 1901 C.W. Parker Carousel. Did you know Abilene Kansas was established first and Abilene Texas came second? 

Next stop Liberal Kansas,  Seward county Fairgrounds was supposed to be a quick in and out just for the night stop.  After talking to the only other camper at the fairgrounds we decided to stay another day and go to the Air Museum and see the yellow brick road.  Liberal is a small town of 20,000 which sits on the largest Helium field in the world.  During WWII they had an airfield and a training center for pilots. No signs of that now.  I learned that at the Mid-America Air Museum with over 100 planes on display.

Seward County historical Museum.

I like to know the history of the areas we travel through and find the local Museums full of information.  Liberal is located south of the Santa Fe Trail and the broom corn capital of the world.  Before plastics, a good quality broom was made from the straw of broom corn.  The museum has a Spain bit from the era of the Coronado 1500 expedition.  Found in 1950 by a local rancher just north of town. How close we are to his traveled route.  It’s true, the Smithsonian authenticated it. 

We toured Dorothy’s Kansas home and a cute private collection displaying the events in The land of OZ.  I started humming “I’m off to see the wizard…… and Follow the Yellow Brick Road!”  I saw the movie as a little girl at the Palace Theater.  It was scary and a special event for us!  You all know I mean “The wizard of Oz”.

That’s way too much for this report but it’s hard to condense all the cool things in Kansas!

So next stop New Mexico via the corner of Oklahoma and Texas.  Hoping to drive parts of old Route 66!  Happy Trails till next time!

Summer is over, heading west.

Where did it go?  

Every year I say the same thing and every year it seems to goes by a little faster. 

As I write this report today I'm celebrating my 45th wedding anniversary.  It seems like  yesterday that we meet on a trail-ride.  Horses were the common interest and growing up on a farm in rural Iowa.  How lucky to now be retired with family and friends to share life with!!

 Back to the present... 

 

 

We spent time experiencing the Midwest Old Threshers Reunion camping in Mt. Pleasant, Ia in the new little 19ft bunkhouse camper with grandkids, Dad, Mom and brother Randys family. My brother David and Barb came to!

 

This is a five day event with so much to see and do I could write for ever about it all.  Giant steam engine demonstrations, teams of draft horses doing it the way the farmers of the mid-west did when my dad was a kid.  When you tire of walking take a ride on the Steam locomotive or the electric car that weaves through the grounds.  Get off at pioneer village and visit the saloon with dancing girls.  You may even get caught in a wild-west shootout or a train robbery.  Every night their is music at the grandstands.  All of this can be had for a $25 wristband.  Camping is $18 a nite. 

 The log village with authentic pre-civil war buildings and period dressed volunteers demonstrating the daily life of the time. The kids loved the medicine man show. Milking cows, gathering eggs from the hen house and making rope.  

 

Dad with his "B"

 

 

 

 

All aboard lets parade, its noon!

 

 

 

 

The cavalcade of power starts everyday at noon with the whistle blasts from the steam locomotives all going off at once. Its exciting to see the proud old-timers and the new generations of kids and grand-kids proudly parading the things of the past.

 

 

 

 

We are now on our way west in the RV and taking our time wandering through Kansas.  More on that in my next report. 

 

          I'm missing the kids already but looking forward to the new journey ahead.  I did say to Randy as we headed out, are you sure you don't want to turn around and go back?      

 

 Moments of summer with kids,  they make me smile and laugh and feel important!!

They are a hoot!!!!  Until next time, I hope you find something to make you smile...