Chama, New Mexico

On Saturday we headed north out of Taos and turned west onto NM Hwy 64. We drove over the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge and past all of the Earthships dug into the Taos Plateau. We crossed green valleys, aspen groves, and stands of pine before we dropped down into the Chama Valley. Turning north on NM Hwy 84/64 we found our way to the Sky Mountain RV Resort just 3 miles south of the small town of Chama, home to the Cumbres-Toltec Railroad. We got settled into our site which is not by the river but is up against a wood filled with singing birds. We set up our bird feeders, had some lunch and set out to explore the town. Chama is very small with a combined grocery/hardware store, a couple of cafes, and various small businesses, some of which do not look like they are open any longer. We traveled on out the north side of town and up Hwy 17 which is the route of the railroad and ends up in Antonito, CO about 50 miles away. The views were incredibly beautiful and when we got to Cumbres Pass we stopped to take a photo. Allan is standing at the summit of Cumbres Pass at 10,000+ feet but it looks like he is standing at the edge of a golf course. We turned around and headed back to Chama, saving Antonito for another day. Yesterday, we hung around the site, cooking and painting. Allan rode his bike into town and bought a $3.00 axe to chop wood for our firepit but when he gave the first chop, the blade of the axe broke off. He then headed back to return the Chinese axe and get the more expensive USA axe for $12.00. This axe worked well and he had a fire going in no time. Today we painted for a while in the morning while I started a Green Chile Stew for dinner and then made sandwiches which we took with us to Heron Lake for a picnic lunch. Heron Lake and nearby El Vado Lake are State Parks and there is camping available, some with W&E. But they did not have much for picnic people so we just pulled into an empty campsite and had our lunch looking out at the lake. Before we headed home we followed the road to the end and saw where the Chama River (right) flowed into the top end of El Vado Lake. There was a boat ramp there and it looked possible to launch the kayaks if we decide to go up the Chama River. The lakes did not look that kayak friendly and were windy to boot.

Taos Art Museum in the Fechin House

Here in Taos, we are staying at the Taos Valley RV Park. The park is completely full and it appears that some of the occupants are here for the rodeo next weekend as there are many horse trailers among the 5th wheels and motor homes. This event combined with the 4th of July on the following weekend must be the reason that I had such a hard time negotiating a time frame for our visit. There are also many river rafters who stay here while they raft the white water of the Rio Grande during the day. It is a popular park located a couple of miles south of the old town and the summer prices reflect its popularity. We are paying about $35/night with discounts for FHU. The park is dotted with small trees, sagebrush, and chamisa...which gives a wonderful fragrance to the whole area and each site has a picnic table and barbeque.
Saturday morning we headed off to see the Taos Art Museum which is located in the historic home of Nicolai Fechin, a Russian artist who relocated to the US following the Bolshevik revolution. But as we were traveling through the Plaza district, we spotted the Farmers Market and stopped in to see if we could find some good produce. We managed to find some delicate leaf lettuces and some fresh english peas. Here the peas are just starting to produce and we had finished our own crop of peas grown in my brother's garden 2 months ago. The climate always has the last say in these matters. However, the climate had nothing to do with the delicious bran muffins we found, loaded with apricot and apple chunks....so we added a few of those to our bag of goodies, along with some homemade granola.




Then we weaved our way through the plaza over to the Fechin Home and Garden. Fechin had purchased a two story adobe home which he then began to remodel, adding extensions to the home and enlarging some of the interior spaces. He painted during the day and then in the evening hours he worked on the house. He was a simple living man who enjoyed gardening, cooking, and his art. He had trees brought down from the forest to be planted around his property and many of them are still there with a beautiful garden situated around them. His own father was a woodcarver of Russian icons and he had learned this art when he was young, this skill combined with the architectual classes he had taken in art school gave him the ideas of reworking the adobe (see the fireplace above) into different forms and carving all of the doors, lintels, furniture, posts, niches, and cupboards from his own hand. The short swinging doors between the dining room and living room (photo above right) were carved freehand after making a rough drawing of the design he wanted. He used hand woodcarving tools and they are now a part of the National Cowboy Museum. There were no power tools used for any of the woodwork on the home. In the photo below right, he created a sunroom on the second floor with his own design for the windows. Every door in the home was hand carved including the doors of each cupboard and closet. His daughter was small in stature and he designed special furniture for her as can be seen in the two small chairs in the sunroom. He even designed all of the metal work for the home creating original lamp fixtures, latches, and hinges. He worked on the house for only six years when he was divorced and he moved to Santa Monica with his daughter. (An interesting aside....the Santa Monica home was purchased by Serge Bongart, another Russian artist after Fechin's death. Serge gave art lessons and Urania Christy-Tarbet, the founder of the International Association of Pastel Societies took lessons from Serge.....Allan and I then attended one of her demos at the IAPS convention where she encouraged us to look at the Russian artists in the use of color. Isn't everyone connected by only 6 steps?) Fechin's daughter returned to the house after her mother passed away at the age of 90 and began to arrange for the home to become a showpiece of her father's work. It became a Historic Site and then later the Taos Museum of Art acquired it to display not only Fechin's art but all of the collection of the Taos Artists from the early 1900's. Fechin's self portrait is to the left.





After walking the garden and peering in at Fechin's studio, we walked back through the plaza to Antonios for lunch. Of course after lunch we had to try the desserts and Allan had the flan while I had a tres leches cake. My cake was so huge that I could only eat half of it, so we brought the rest home in a doggie bag. Allan is giving this flan a first place for presentation but it only moved into second place for taste and texture.

On To Santa Fe

We picked up the rv from storage last Friday night and it took us four days of cleaning and packing to get ready for take-off. Here is the rv in front of our house (which has now been painted sage green and white) and the length of the rv takes up the entire width of the property. We said goodbye to our neighbors and headed off on Wednesday morning early. We took a new route up through Payson and although it was a little slower due to the up and down nature of the road, it was also very scenic and we were surprised to find that the Upper Mongollon Rim was forested with lakes and small meadows. We arrived in Holbrook right before lunch and since it was Wednesday, all the cafes in town were serving $1.00 tacos, so we had a few tacos and went rockhounding in some of the surrounding rock shops. We managed to find some nice petrified wood for our cactus garden back home and saw a very old roadster at one of the shops. The OK RV Park in Holbrook http://www.okrvpk-llc.com/ is a good place to pull in for the night with long pullthrus and FHU, but it is not a destination unless you are looking to do some serious rockhounding in the surrounding areas or you are hankering to see the Petrified Forest National Park. We were on the road bright and early the next day and arrived in Albuquerque at the Enchanted Trails RV Park. http://www.enchantedtrails.com/ We got the PA rate of $15.00 for the night but it was on an all dirt pull through site. In comparison, the Casino RV park on Hwy 25 has grass and walking paths around some small lakes with more modern FHU facilities. We arrived in Albuquerque in time for lunch, so we headed down to old town where we knew of a great carne adovado at the Cactus Cafe. They did not let us down and we had a wonderful table on the shaded patio. Friday morning we got a later start as we did not have far to go. We arrived in Santa Fe at the Trailer Ranch RV Resort www.trailerranch.com around eleven and got a beautiful site along the back wall in the shade. We set out all the patio furniture and just kicked back for the afternoon, reading and napping. Steak on the barbie for dinner. Today we did some grocery shopping; first at the farmers market where we picked up some chile/corn/cheese quiches and other baked goods for breakfasts later in the week. Then we headed over to Trader Joes to get yogurt and finally we stopped in at Sunflower where we found the rest of the items on our shopping list. We spent the rest of the afternoon reading, needlepointing, and napping. Four days on the road and we have done nothing but eat, read, and nap. Is this great or what? But lucky for all of you out there....we are gearing up to check out some of the local sights. Los Alamos, Bandelier National Monument, Santa Fe Plaza, and Canyon Drive are on our to see list. But for now....have to get ready for chicken on the barbie.

RV Parks from Albuquerque to Las Vegas

We headed out from Albuquerque on Monday, 6/1 and made it to Gallup, NM early in the afternoon. This view is from the front of our rv looking out into the desert while we were parked at the USA RV Park. http://www.usarvpark.com/ We always seem to use this park when we are traveling to and from Arizona/New Mexico. It is just 16 miles from the Arizona border and has nice pull throughs with reliable FHU's.
The following morning we headed off to the J&H RV Park in Flagstaff, AZ. Once again we arrived early, so we headed downtown for some lunch and grocery shopping. Also we stopped in where our crv was stored and payed them some more money to keep it until December. The J&H RV Park is really a well run park and has a wonderful off leash dog area and a dog wash station near the office. http://www.flagstaffrvparks.com/
On Wednesday we had a very long drive to Las Vegas caused by the fact that we did not take the rig over the dam, but went through Bullhead City and up the Nevada side of I-95. The grade up and then down to Bullhead City was hard on the truck and I doubt that we will go that way again. But we finally arrived at one of our favorite parks, the Oasis RV Resort with their pool and spa surrounded by palms. Really it is an Oasis in the desert for us. http://www.oasislasvegasrvresort.com/ We spent a couple of days washing clothes, rugs, and sheets. We also managed to visit Trader Joes to stock up on dog food for the boys as we will not be near another Trader Joes for months. We went to the strip one evening and had the buffet at the Bellagio and later thought that it was not as good as it had been in the past. Is this a function of old age or maybe it really was not very good. Anyway we took the cameras with us and got some interesting photos of people and buildings and interior spaces for later paintings.
On Saturday we headed off for Tonopah and only made it as far as Beatty when we discovered we had a flat tire on the rig. Oops. Lucky for us we had just arrived in Beatty, so we found an old run down tire shop where the owner put on our spare for $10.00. Allan gave him twice that we were so grateful he was there to help. He suggested we get some better tires on the rv as the ones we had were not up to the job. We have been intending to do that but we were trying to wait until we got to the NW. We stayed in Tonopah for the night at the Ramada Tonopah Station & RV Park. This is 30 amp E and water. Just a place to park and not much else.
But we were glad we stayed there as the weather turned nasty with high winds and rain in the afternoon and evening.

Today we headed out for Verdi, NV....just 2 miles from the CA border on I-80. All went well until we pulled into the rv park and looked at our tires. The spare was now going flat. Uh-oh. Not much to do on a Sunday so we unhooked again, pulled in our slides and went in search of air for the tire. Now we are back in Terribles Gold Ranch Casino & RV Park http://www.goldranchrvcasino.com/ and hooked back up. This is a beautiful park, but a little more expensive. There are walking trails which we took advantage of right away to work off some of the stress of the tire. Ginger was so thrilled to be out walking that she was leading the pack most of the time. Tomorrow we check our tire before we leave and hopefully it still has its air. And for those of you who are wondering about the Groovin' part of the title, it refers to the new ipod that we have hooked up to the truck speakers so we can listen to our music. Yep, singing to Joe Tex down the highway. Or a little Lyle Lovett. And yes, even a little Dolly Parton.

A Taste Of Taos

Today we drove from Gallup to Taos, a trip that Mapquest said should take 4.5 hours (if you are driving a corvette). We however were driving a Ford 250 with a 4 slide Montana attached, so the drive took us 7 hours. And since we made this trip 30 years ago, someone added more mountains than we remember between Santa Fe and Taos. But now we are here in the Taos Valley RV Park http://www.taosrv.com/ and it is a charm. Expensive yes, but what in Taos is not expensive? The photo of our rig against the clear blue sky is not enhanced in any way. Yes the sky is very blue and clear with puffy white clouds just asking for a Georgia O'Keefe to put them on canvas. The air is fragrant with lilacs which are planted among the sage. The rv sites have been placed within the natural vegetation instead of clearing the area and covering it in gravel. What a concept. So after a short nap, we headed into the town to eat. We decided to eat at Lamberts which is a fine dining establishment and we wanted to celebrate our return to Taos and Allan's upcoming 66th. Allan started with a corn chowder, followed by a filet and grilled asparagus, ending with a bread pudding (you are right, the bread pudding is not on his diet). I was very good however, starting with a romaine salad in fresh raspberry puree dressing (yum, yum, yum) sprinkled with dried apricots and almonds, followed by a chicken rolled in pistachios and stuffed with spinach, accompanied by grilled mixed baby vegies, and completing the meal with creme brule. We haven't eaten like this since I do not remember when (probably when we were employed?). We are looking forward to exploring Taos and the surrounding areas in the week to come.

Breaking In The New Kayaks

We stopped for a couple of nights in Gallup, NM where we are staying at the USA RV Park http://www.usarvpark.com/ along I-40 or Rte 66. We had read about a beautiful lake at Bluewater State Park and thought it would be a good chance to try out the new Citibots from Folbot http://www.folbot.com/ . So this morning Allan set up the two new boats taking a little extra time for the learning curve as they did not go together the same way as the Yukons that we used to have. But while he was doing that, I made a picnic lunch and we loaded everything in the truck and set off. First we went to Lake McGaffey which was closer to us but it was not much more than a mudhole thanks to the local drought this year. So we went back to the highway and continued East to Bluewater State Park. The lake was very low and very choppy as well, due to some strong winds coming straight across the mesa. But we put in and the little Citibots bobbed around a little more than the Yukons would have done but they were just as secure feeling and very easy to handle. The seats were much much more comfortable but the cockpit was smaller of course so there was not as much room for the dogs while paddling. As you can see in Allans photo, Alice is looking at him to see if he knows what he is doing and in my photo, Ned is hanging over the side ready to puke. After a bit we gave up and went ashore. The wind was way too combative and the scenery was not inspiring. But the lunch was excellent.