Coyote Creek to Bluewater

Coyote Creek has to be one of our favorite state parks in New Mexico.  First is the great scenic ride from Taos over route 64( see last posting), and then this little gem of a park--quiet on the weekdays, good hiking, and lots of wildlife.

As you can see, we are crowded at our camping spot.







 Lots of birds.  The Imperial Blue Jay (last posting), black headed grosbeaks, tons of wrens,and warblers.

This hawk was one of two that  spent hours around the motorhome hunting for meals. 

Best shot I could take with our small camera, but this gives a little idea of the great color on the bluebirds.

There were three beaver lodges that we were able to see along the creek.  The rangers indicated that they were active though we didn't see any --probably needed to get up a lot earlier.

This lodge did show fresh wood on top.

The locals that came on the weekend had a good and successful time fishing here as well.

Not sure how long this was at the campground.
The water was always running into the water trough.

Eustis is always happy to be on the road. 
He got excited by the "Watch out for Elk" signs, but we were told they migrate back to higher elevations in the warmer weather.

Maybe next time Eustis!

We made a quick one night stop at Storrie Lake State Park.  Our site backed up to what was left of the lake.  Most of the lakes are quite low---up to 50 feet or so low. 

Storrie Lake looked very sad to us, especially when the rangers told us about years when the water was so high, it went over the road.

On to Villanueva State Park

  Ah, another favorite park. 

Villanueva is on the Pecos River, which was running quite full from mountain snow runoff. The road from Route 25 was quite interesting with old adobe buildings, lots of red dirt, and slow --15mph curves.

We would set our chairs out here right at the river's edge.

The sites here were huge.  We kept thinking there were supposed to be 2 sites instead of the one.

We could hear the river day and night--a wonderful background.

They had a great, solid bridge crossing the Pecos River to the hiking trails.

We carried a lot of water on this hike.  Quite dry and temperatures close to 90.

What do you mean  "steep dropoffs?"

Long views from way up.

The river flows south through this canyon.

The green trees follow the river's edge.

 You're probably wondering why I have my phone and Kindle out during a hike.

Well, I'm glad you asked.  You see, we had no phone signal at our campsite.  We could do without internet for a few days, but I knew I would really miss my daily Boston Globe on the Kindle.

So, I kept checking during the hike for a phone signal.  And, sure enough, close to the top, there was at least one bar of signal.  On goes the "hotspot" connection on the phone and the Kindle picks up the WIFI signal from the phone. A few minutes later(it was a weak signal) I had at least one day of the Boston Globe.

The view from the top.
What do you see Jan?

With very low humidity and good elevation, the views are long and clear.  Snow covered mountains, towns, and the Pecos river.

Much easier to see where the river flows through the canyon.  Just look for the light green spring foliage on the trees.

The long wide view

 Watch out!!  Wow , that was close!

Do you see our Lazy Daze?

Finally, the end of the Loop Trail brings us back to the bridge. 

The part is over rocks--nothing to the right of the trail but the river--straight down.

On the road again.  This time heading south on Route 25 towards Santa Fe.

Great colors in the hills.

And note the heavy traffic----not.

We had a few things to check on with our Lazy Daze.  So back to Enchanted Trails in Albuquerque on Route 66/40.  A very friendly park right next to Camping World .  The owners are very much into antique RV's. 

They were happy to take Passport America for two nights--same as our last stay on the way to Santa Fe.  Passport America allows half price at campgrounds.





The trailer is a 1954 Vakasunette and the car is a
1950 Hudson Commodore named "Evelyn"

Lady Blue is happy with her furnace running fine(the thermostat needed adjustment), the refrigerator still questionable at elevations over 7,000 feet on propane( but it works), and brand new valve extensions for the dually wheels( so we can easily check the tire pressure)

And here we are , about 90 miles west of Albuquerque, at Bluewater Lake State Park.
Another favorite.  No hookups, but to us--with our Annual Camping Pass for New Mexico--the site is free.

The view from our lounge side window.

If you remember, we paid $225 for the pass.  Since dry camping is $10 per night, we were camping for free after 22.5 nights. We are now into the mid 30's nights or--we have been camping for free for more than 10 nights.  And the pass is good through March 2014!

And--don't spread this too far, but---most of the electric hookup sites do not have views of the water.

Not only free, but we had a fantastic dinner and we both sat on the same side of the table(with the extension for you Lazy Daze fans)and then----


WATCHED THE SUN SET

Taos and Route 64

From Heron Lake State Park , we traveled east on Route 64.

A scenic highway headed for Taos with views of snow covered mountains, including Mt. Wheeler at 13,161 feet.  No longer the desert, we have tall pines, and aspens.   The Taos citizens say that the best time of year is the Fall with beautiful yellow colors.

This road brought us to over 10.500 foot elevation.
Remember, you can click on any picture to enlarge.

Descending to 8000 feet, everything flattens out with sagebrush and not much else.  Out of nowhere comes this huge gash in the land and the Rio Grande River Gorge Bridge.  In the distance is Taos Ski Valley , again with Mt. Wheeler.

The river is 650 feet down below the bridge and over 800 feet in the distance.  Impressive sight.

We are looking forward to seeing Jim of http://jimbosjourneys.com  . You see his blog listed to the right.
We met Jim ,with a bunch of other really great Lazy Daze owners, in Quartzsite.  Since then, we have been following Jim through his blog.  

One addition for Jim since we had last seen him, was Chica.  Chica is a very friendly, very small chihuahua. It seems that Chica adopted Jim at a campground and though Jim tried to find an owner-nobody came by to claim her.  You can see pictures of Chica on Jim's blog, escpecially in her new overcoat for their travels into Colorado and Canada.

We have come to love the adobe style of homes.  Great examples in Santa Fe and here in Taos.

Had to visit the Kit Carson home.  As kids, we grew up with Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, Kit Carson and others.  It was quite interesting to discover Kit Carson was every bit the western adventurer we saw on television.  Born in Missouri, started trapping beaver quite young, led Fremont on his trips --discovering the Oregon Trail, Indian agent.
He couldn't read, but he spoke Spanish, French, and a bit or more of 10 Indian languages.

The kitchen area of the Kit Carson home.  Jim has more pictures of the home and Taos on his blog.

The main section of Taos is called The Plaza.  Most shops seem to be located around or close to the Plaza.

Again, we like a adobe style.  Also note the ristras( bunches of dried chiles) hanging.

We couldn't take pictures inside, but this was a well stocked and displayed store of western clothing.

Was very tempted to pick up a Stetson hat.

A good display out front, but no saddles for sale here.

Early May is apple blossom time in Taos.

This view from the main street of Taos shows the mountains of Taos Ski Valley not too far distant.

We had a recommendation from a local for Michaels
Kitchen and Bakery , just up on the left.  Had wonderful tacos and burrito lunch with Christmas.

That was a new term for us. Christmas means it is served with red and green chiles.







On the way into Taos-close to the bridge--we saw some very unusual homes.  After asking, we went back to explore Earthship.  They had a visitor's center and we  were very impressed with these self contained homes that have been built around the world.

This house was being worked on by a good number of young workers.  The construction uses a lot of recycled trash, like tires, cans, and various colored bottles.  The tires are very important in setting up a buffer that allows passive heating and cooling.

The homes use solar/thermal heating and cooling, solar and wind electric power, water harvesting(each home had a cistern), contained sewage treatment and food production.  The home we visited had a large, year round garden with great looking swiss chard, cucumbers, tomatoes and more.  They were also experimenting with a hydroponic fish tank and vegetable setup.

As this is being built, you can see the tires(which will be completely sealed), bottles and cans.

You can see much more of this company on
www.earthship.com

On the way back to town, we headed up towards Taos Ski Valley.  There is a quaint, very small town on the way called Arroyo Seco.  Some very nice shops in very old buildings.  This tile mosaic was on one outside wall.

How many of you remember old dodge trucks like this when they were new?   This one is actually a store icon.  I love looking inside these old vehicles to see the shifters(floor shift in this case), seats and dashboards.  Still runs and is registered.

We took a recommendation from Jim and headed a few miles south to camp in BLM land on the Rio Grande.  A short distance from the visitor's center on Route 68, there are a number of small campgrounds.  The first two seem the nicest and a strong flowing Rio Grande is very close to the camp.

A view of Rio Bravo Campground from a hiking trail above.

Leaving Taos, we continued on route 64.  Again, a very scenic route climbing almost to 10,000 feet again.  Many sharp curves , hairpin turns, and steep grades---but a beautiful road.  We came down from the high road to Angel Fire Ski Area.

Didn't get pictures, but it looked like a great ski center for the winter

From Angel Fire, it is a short drive of about 10 miles or so to Coyote Creek State park.

Eustis, our mascot from Eustis, Maine, was enjoying our one lane road into camp.

Our camera is a small Sony Cybershot.  A great little camera for many things, but not easy to get pictures of birds.

However, this Imperial Bluejay? was very cooperative.  We also have seen many yellow finch, black headed grosbeak, bluebirds, and two large yellow tailed hawks that seem to like hunting in the field next to us.  On site is also good fishing and three active beaver lodges.  We are at about 8500 feet.

Heron Lake State Park

It would have been a 5 mile hike from our camping spot in El Vado Lake to this spot in Heron Lake State Park, but driving was almost 30 miles. 

Along the way , we stopped in Chama, NM for laundry,post office, banking, and a little lunch at the recommended High Country restaurant.  Very friendly people in Chama.  Met some nice folks at the laundry-one of the nicest laundries so far on the road.  One gentleman had gone to the same school as Jan and I back in Mass.  He sent us up to a Wildlife Management area just a half mile beyond the laundry.  A beautiful spot with views of the snow covered mountains. It would be free camping at this time of the year---well marked.  In the fall it is a tagging spot for the deer and elk brought in by hunters.  We were already heading for the state park. so we passed on it for now.

All said , we were happy to visit Chama. Also met a gentlemen at the post office who insisted that we follow him home to show our Lazy Daze to his wife.
A very nice couple, maybe future LD owners.
As you see from our picture, this is what we see quite often from inside our Twin King Lazy Daze.  We often have this kind of view in state parks and Corps campgrounds--one of the big reasons we bought Lazy Daze and this model in particular.

Our kitchen is almost exactly like our kitchen in our 28 foot fifth wheel trailer.  As you can see, Jan is quite happy to be baking brown edged cookies in her oven.   I am also quite, quite happy that Jan is baking brown edged cookies in our oven.

Yes!  Quite, quite happy!

It is Spring up here at 8,000 feet.  Besides leaves on bushes and some trees, we have found a number of small ground plants that have quite colorful flowers.  They are usually only a few inches high.

Most of the trees here are Pinion Pine ,Ponderosa Pine, and other pines, as well as varieties of Juniper.

Wish we knew the names of some more of the bushes, trees, and flowers.  We have learned a number, but others escape us.














These yellow , cheerful flowers were growing out of a rock on the trail. 

We were lucky to see a number of these folks on our walk the other day.  At first, we were thinking deer, but these are much,much larger than the deer we had just seen at El Vado. 

These two were big enough to jump up on to ride like a horse.  We believe they are actually Elk.  Any of you in the know, can let us know.

There were about eight of them here in broad daylight.

The signs on the trails indicate that there are a good many more than this in the area.

We have been camping in our new Lazy Daze for about 135 days or 4 and a half months.  In that time we have camped in 32 different campgrounds.  Of those campgrounds , we have been at 3 different boondocking spots(no hookups or facilities-water, electric, or sewer dumping)and no developed camping sites) for 33 days.

 Also7 private parks, 11 state parks,1 county park,2 Corps of Engineer parks,2 Harvest Hosts,and 3 National parks. A number of these have been dry camping spots.

Right now we have enjoyed our annual pass for New Mexico Parks( $225 for the entire year.)  As of now we are camping for free.  We are in a no-hookup or dry site(yes ,this beautiful site) for free because we have passed 22.5 days at $10 per day normal fee.  We will stay in New Mexico state parks for perhaps 2 more weeks(free) and then our pass is good until the end of March 2014. So, we might stop this way in the fall and winter to take advantage.  Dry camping--like here-- means no hookups on the site, but there is a designated camping spot and water and a dump station are usually in the park or close by.



As well as keeping our camping costs way down, we have also seen our mileage change in our new LD. So far, in four and a half months , we have only put about 3600 miles on the Ford.  We used to travel in what we called the wagon wheel effect.  We would travel from campground to campground, set up, and then use our truck to travel all over in every direction to look at the area.  Now, we travel in a straight line so to speak.  We leave a campground, and on the way , we take care of grocery shopping, laundry, banking, sight seeing, gas fillups, before we stop at the next campground.   So far, it is working great for us !