Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Three Days in Albuquerque and We're Out of There

After three days in Albuquerque visiting family and eating at the best Mexican food restaurant,
Papa Felipe's, it was time to move on along our way. 

Flower pics for my flower friends.


Rose and I got our toes wet. And when I turned around mom was getting her toes wet too.

We headed north west on NM 550 towards Cuba but turned off on NM 4 towards Jemez Springs. This highway is a trip through time  You are surrounded by geologic formations on all sides. 


We had our books with us and mom was busy reading about the area that we were driving through. We had seen a TV show on NOVA last year about the Valles Caldera National Preserve and that's where we were headed.  It didn't disappoint us.

                                                Closed.  We've been seeing a lot of this.  
 We are to early for the season.
Coming down into the caldera.
                                             
In the heart of the caldera.
                                                  
If you'd like to read more about the caldera here is a link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valles_Caldera_National_Preserve

Then it was on to Bandelier National Monument.  We had seen many pictures of this place but they don't do it justice.  After driving down into the park yesterday in the afternoon we decided to camp in the Juniper campground for the night. The campground is in the park but about 3 miles from the ruins. This morning we were back in the park even before the rangers were at work.  We wanted to walk to the lower ruins before it got to warm.  Our timing was perfect, not only was it cool but we were the only people on the trail.  We spent about an hour walking the trail which is a lot for mom, we stopped several times to on our way up to the ruins, to rest but the way back was down hill and there was no stopping for rests then.

Devastating forest fires here a few years ago.
 Outside of caldera on way to Bandelier.



Mom sitting among the ruins.

We did not walk up there.
Need I say more?



Thanks for reading our blog and see you in a few days.

Couldn't resist this one.

Evie and Joy





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2 comments:

  1. G-manMay 7, 2014 at 10:19 AM

    How 'bout that. Looks as though you are back online. Great. How's all the new equipment working out?

    Thanks for the great photos.

    I, too, traveled in the 'off' season to find a lot of places were closed. When those places are opened is exactly when I don't want to go. Seems that is the choice. Either deal with daily disappointment facing closures or be there when the great unwashed, noisy, ignorant knuckle draggers are in attendance. Plus, it's too damn hot during the 'season'.
    I still choose the off season such as you two.

    Thanks for the flower photos. You know how I enjoy those.

    Good to see that Rose is as much of an adventurer as you two. I'm impressed that she will get that close to water and even walk across it. My sweet kitty wouldn't go for that at all.
    I think your mom has it best. She doesn't have a collar nor lead around her neck and gets to sit while basking in the beauty of it all. Go girl, go.

    The geology looks magnificent. Nice to have your mom in the occasional photo to give it all some scale. With no human I can't tell what size all that is.

    Too bad you didn't crawl up into the mountain houses. Any glyphs?

    Are you still catching the occasional wildflowers?

    Have you been able to peruse my latest albums?

    Onward!!!! Looking forward to the next adventure.

    This weekend it's all about the bees up here....one day count in my garden (with photos if I can get them to stay still for more than 2 seconds) and two day festival....photos to follow.

    So glad you two are taking this trip.

    g-man



    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJuly 7, 2017 at 8:20 AM

    I love this! It's given me so many ideas to take my grandchildren for weekend trips from Denver. Thank you for sharing.

    ReplyDelete

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