Up the Sandia Mountains

A note about the pictures.  Most of these were taken with my iPhone which doesn't take great long distance shots.  So I didn't even try.  The picture of the mountains and zoom of peak I took after we got home with my bigger camera.

Another note.  We did this trip in the Honda.

Now on with the show.

We went up the Sandia Mountains.  We are staying in the town of Bernalillo which is at the junction of Highway 25 and NM 550.  550 goes west from here but if you go east that road winds through the mountains and comes out on top of Sandia Peak.  That trip includes about 8.5 miles of dirt road most of which hasn't seen a road grader in a long time.  If you take this trip be sure to fill your gas tank before you start, don't ask me how I know this.  We coasted down the other side on fumes to the first gas station we came to.

The blue line is the way we went up the mountain

 and the grey line is the way we came home.

View of the Sandias from our campground at the Coronado Monument. 

 Rio Grande in the foreground.

See those antennas at the crest?

That isn't the road you see in the picture, that is a layer of rock.  

The road is on the other side.

On our way.  Those are oak and maple trees.

Maybe someone can tell me what this is.

Lots of butterflies. 

Yes sport fans we made it all the way to the top.

The top of the mountain belongs to the National Forest and if you park your car and get out you have to pay.  It was crowded and I was feeling cheap so we just toured the parking lot and kept going. Next time (if there is a next time) we will take this trip on a weekday not on a sunday of a three day weekend and we will park and walk around.

We've been here at the Coronado Monument Campground for two weeks taking care of Dr. appointments and waiting for our mail to catch up to us.  One more mail pick up and we'll be leaving here later this week and heading to a higher elevation seeking cooler air.    

A cool creature, a walking stick. 

 I've only seen one of these 

before and that was in Willits, CA.

Here is a picture of my first grand baby. 

 His name is Willie Mays, the Say Hey Kid.  Hi Willie!

One more thing.  A few post back I mentioned that we would be registering the Honda in New Mexico and I would get a driver's licence too.  Well on further investigation it was easier to just pay the tags for the Honda and the RV in California because NM wants to inspect your vehicle for smog every so often and  our county in CA where the cars are registered doesn't require that.  Also my drivers licence is good for another 5 years when it will automatically renew for another 5 years.  In the long run it was easier to just keep going like we were.  So that is what we did.  Now waiting for tags to arrive in our box.  The reason we were going to establish residency here in NM was so we could get a pass for their state parks system which would allow us to stay in them for almost free.  Oh well we'll just buy the nonresident pass and we will still come out ahead in the long run.

Be back soon.

Evie