Out of Our Rut Blog Welcome Page

Welcome to the Out of Our Rut blog landing page.

Who we are:

We are a couple of former engineers that lived and worked in the Rochester New York area for over 30 years. When we were laid off from two different companies, one day apart, we took that as a sign to change things up. We had built a beautiful home on 50 acres and loved the place, but with plenty of time on our hands, we began to travel more and realized that when we were on the road for weeks on end, we didn't really miss all the “stuff” we had back home. Plus the work involved with maintaining our home and property seemed to be the only reason we would head back home. That prompted us to get out of our rut and sell 95% of our possessions and our home and move into our 38 foot motorhome and travel the country full time starting in June of 2016.

Chris and Jack Hiking in Washington State

At Pullout Along Rugged Oregon Coast

Our mission:

To explore the country with a strong bias towards outdoor activities. Our passions are hiking and geocaching with some mountain biking on the side. I am an avid photographer. I guess working at Eastman Kodak for 32 years had an influence in that. And while we live in a motorhome and stay in many campgrounds, we really are not campers. We seldom have campfires and don't have a corn hole game. We rarely stay at a campground for its amenities. We pick a place that is near where we want to explore. We think of it more like our home happens to have wheels and can move around. Our desire in these travels is to slow the pace. We didn't want to see if we could get to all the National Parks as quickly as possible. We like to keep a travel day to less than 200 miles and if the place warrants, stay for a week or more.

At Geocaching Headquarters in Seattle for #10,000

The blog:

For friends and family (as well as us) to keep track of what we have been up to, we have created this blog. It chronicles where we've been and what we've done as we wander around the country. Each stop along the way will, at minimum, get mentioned in the blog. Some longer stops in areas we enjoyed may get multiple blog posts in order to give that stop it's due. Generally the blog has lots of photographs as I find it difficult to eliminate photos I like. The blog will talk about the campground to some extent, but it shouldn't be considered a campground review. We seldom seem to exhaust the things we want to explore before we exhaust ourselves and need to move on. That means we may completely skip some activities or places in an area that others may consider essential. We look at that as a reason to come back in the future.

Pretty Sunset in Quartzite Arizona

At the Window in Big Bend National Park

This landing page:

The problem with just about any blog is that fact it is chronological. This is fine since that is how the events occurred in real life. But since our blog is so much about a given location, it can be difficult for somebody to find a specific blog post for a given location. I even find it a challenge to remember when we happened to be at a given location if I wanted to look something up. For instance, if someone asked about Twin Falls Idaho. I know we stayed there but it might take me awhile to figure out that we were there in June of 2017 to get them to the right post. If I could only look at a map of all the places we have stayed and have an easy way to get to the relevant blog post.

Since I already use Google My Maps to keep track of our locations, I have created a special map that has all of our stops since going full time. None of the routes are included in the map since that just seems to clutter it up and don't really add value. By clicking the link below the map, an interactive map with all of our stops will open in another window. This map was improved in 2026 to better accommodate the number of years we have been travelling. The current year will shown at the bottom of the key but all prior years will be shown in a different layer with each year being a different color. If you click one of the years in the key to the left, all the stops from that year are highlighted on the map -  which is a convenient way to show the route that from that year. It is also possible to move around the map and zoom in an area of interest.  Clicking on any pin on the map will pop up the name of the location along with a link to the blog post(s) associated with that stop. Since I am nearly always 2 or more weeks behind in the blog, some of the most recent map points may not have a link to a blog, but they will in time. 

So if you want to see what we found to explore in a given area, this should provide a much easier way to find the blog post.

Click HERE to open interactive Google map

Our Tenth Year of Fulltiming in Review

Wow, we’ve reached a milestone in our fulltime adventures - one decade on the road! I still remember sitting in our home of 16 years in western New York waiting to hear from our real estate attorney to confirm that the closing had gone well and the proceeds would be deposited into our account the following day. We were officially homeless except for the 38 foot motorhome with Jeep in tow. We had spent the previous 9 months or so selling, donating or trashing 95% of our worldly possessions. We had found room in the rig for everything we thought we should bring with us as we start our travels. We had a few boxes of keepsakes to store in family members’ basements in Ohio. The plan was to live in our ~450 square foot “home” and travel the country. There weren’t any real set goals except to experience what other parts of the USA had to offer. We also didn’t really have a timeline in our minds other to enjoy as many places as we can and try to set a pace that actually permits us to get a feel for a location.

In those past 10 years, we have camped 3652 nights at over 450 places. While writing this blog post, I got to thinking, how often do we spend just one night in a place as we passed through an area on our way to a distant destination? Or how often do we spend a couple weeks or months at a place? Well, I have a spreadsheet with all the underlying data and we used to be engineers with analytical skills so we should be able to answer that question.

Turns out, roughly a quarter of our stops are just for one night. That might sound like a lot but it only represents around 3% of our nights camped. This is a big country and when we are repositioning from one part to another, there are times where we are just trying to make distance so we might do a series of one night stops. We try to limit our travel days to 200 miles or less so it’s hard for us to cross the country quickly. About 40% of our stops, we have spent between 2 and 6 nights. This duration of stop might be to simply break up the tedium of driving long distances several days in a row. But it also might be some sort of stop for service on the motorhome that takes a few days before we can continue on. Frequently we will spend a few days to see some areas that have a handful of things we want to see or do but don’t require a longer stay. Our next stop duration is between 1 and 2 weeks which covers another quarter of our stops. These are places that we felt justified spending some time to explore. Often we wish we could have stayed even longer but maybe it was a state park that often has a 2 week maximum stay limit. There were a few times where we overestimated what there was to do from a stop and wish we had reduced the time spent there but those are fairly infrequent. We are pretty good at finding things to do.

I next broke the stop duration into longer stops with the following categories: 2 to 4 weeks, 1 to 2 months, and 2 or more months. These represent a smaller percentage of our stops but account for a just over half of our nights. For the longest duration stay of 2 or more months, we had 11 stops that equals roughly one third of our nights. Just over half of these were at a winter destination in either Florida or Arizona. But 5 of those longer stops occurred during the summer travel season. A couple of those were “forced” upon us when COVID messed up everyone’s travels but some were planned to take advantage of visiting friends and sights back in western New York or exploring the mountains of western North Carolina. We feel we have done a reasonable job of slowing the travel pace when it makes sense and moving somewhat faster when needed.

Below is the travel map from year 10. As you can see, we have pretty good range both north to south and east to west. I am including a link below the map that will actually open up the underlying Google Map I used to document our journey. This will permit you to zoom and scroll around. Plus clicking on a pin for any location will open a popup window with link to any blog post written for that stop.

Click Here to Bring Up Interactive Map of 10th Year Travels

It’s clear from the map that we have done a pretty good job of covering the country north to south and east to west. We started out year 10 in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan having just completed a 2 week Habitat for Humanity build in Marquette. We had headed to the far western side of the UP and spent about 2 weeks exploring before heading south into Wisconsin. The two weeks we spent camped there was mostly spent in Oshkosh at the annual air show. That stop rates near the top of our list, not just in the past 12 months but in the past 10 years. It ranks right up there with the Albuquerque balloon fiesta or the Lake Havasu fireworks festival. From here we headed into the Minnesota for around 5 weeks exploring the Twin Cities and some of the beautiful state parks in the northern portion of the state. Then we headed into eastern North Dakota for a week or so to experience some of the best geocaching we have seen in Gilby.

We then headed back into Minnesota to visit the North Shore before entering Wisconsin to check out the Apostle Islands on the northern side of the state. In central Wisconsin we got to get up close and personal with a cranberry harvest. The next 4 weeks was spent with short stops in Iowa, Illinois and Indiana and longer stays in Tennessee and Georgia before making it back to The Great Outdoors in Titusville Florida. After nearly 6 months of sitting still, we were ready to start traveling again as spring approached. After completing a couple of motorhome repairs in western Florida and South Carolina, we were ready to start our travels west. Mainly following I-40 through Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma and the northern panhandle of Texas taking 3 weeks to get to New Mexico. Here we plan to explore the mountains in the northern portion of the state with 2 weeks in Taos, 1 week in Los Alamos and as I write this post at the beginning of 2 weeks in Santa Fe.

Like in the past, I’m including the “heat maps” that help to show how long we have stayed in the various states. No real surprise that Florida is the “winner” again but we did camp in 16 different states the past 12 months. We finally added Oklahoma to our list as full time travelers. The second map shows a similar map but for the full 10 years. At this point we are up to 46 states. We have camped in 3 of the 4 remaining states but New Jersey and Delaware were from a little before going fulltime in 2015 and we have camped in a rental RV in Alaska way back in 1995! One last heat map is showing all 10 years but this time broken down into the county level to better see what parts of the states we have camped in.

Heat Map for Year #10

Heat Map from 10 Years of Fulltime

Same As Above but Broken Down to County Level

Of course I have the table that helps show what it costs to live this lifestyle. It doesn’t include costs that we would have if we lived a “normal” life in a sticks and bricks home. So healthcare, groceries, dining out and other entertainment isn’t part of the table. But it does show how many stops we had, the number of miles on both the motorhome and the Jeep as well as the fuel for each. It’s clear there has been an uptick in both the number of stops and the miles driven in the motorhome. This is simply a function of the route and pace we picked. Other than our extended stay at TGO, we have only had 10 stops where we spent more than 7 nights. To some extent our travel plans built in the pace that led to the faster pace and higher miles.

Condensed Stats for Last 6 Years

The other line item in the table is the amount we spent for camping. This year wasn’t our highest year but it does come in second place. Since we have 10 years of data, I was curious what a plot of average dollars per night looks like over the decade. The chart below shows that data with the blue line. It’s clear that there is a fair amount of year to year variability but I also noticed that there is a definite upward trend in the costs over time. The red line represents the trend of the raw data and it obviously is increasing. Since we haven’t changed our camping style to higher end RV resorts versus state parks or Elks Lodges like we typically like to stay at, I can only assume the slope is a function of inflation over time. The good news is the slope of the line represents 63 cents per day increase each year. That increase equates to $230 more spent camping each year so I’m not too concerned that it will have any bearing on how or where we camp.

Graph Showing Average Cost per Night to Camp for 10 Years
Blue Line Average Data, Red is Linear Trendline

Like years past, we like to use our anniversary blog posts to highlight our favorite hikes or bike rides of the past 12 months. I was initially concerned there really wouldn’t be many. It’s not like we had traveled to Glacier National Park, the Adirondacks, the Green Mountain of Vermont or other classic “hiking” destinations. But after going through the past blog posts as well as my notes from places we’ve more recently visited that don’t yet have a post written, I was pleasantly surprised and fondly remembered quite a few hikes and bike rides that made the cut. For each hike I will give a brief description of the hike, a favorite photo from it and a link to the blog post which will describe it in more detail. In chronological order here are the top 8 hikes and bike rides from year 10.

• Escarpment Trail - Ontonagon MI

Situated in the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park of far western Upper Peninsula of Michigan, this park is beautiful and this trail was the best of several we tried in the area. AllTrails lists this as an 8.2 mile out and back hike with over 1600 feet of elevation gain. the trail follows a ridge that overlooks the wonderful Lake of the Clouds and the Carp River. There are several named peaks along the ridge with lots of rock outcroppings to take in the scenic valley below. The last section of the trail drops 400 feet through the woods and we suspected it wouldn't be nearly as scenic so by skipping this we keep it to 6.5 miles and 1360 feet elevation gain.

Blog post with Escarpment Trail Hike

View Along Escarpment Trail in Porcupine Mountains

• Bean and Bear Loop Trail - Silver Bay MN

The North Shore of Minnesota along Lake Superior has a lot to offer outdoor enthusiasts. Bean and Bear Loop Trail is a 7 mile long hike with just over 1000 feet of elevation gain. The trail goes 2 miles before hitting the loop portion of the hike. In another mile, you have reached the first of the two lakes. Since we took the loop clockwise, Bean Lake was first. There are beautiful views all along the ridge overlooking the lakes. We had the start of autumn colors but I suspect spring wildflowers would be nice too. 

Blog post with Bean and Bear Loop Trail Hike

 

Bear and Bean Lakes Lined Up

• Lakeshore Trail - Cornucopia WI

Part of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, this trail follows the rugged shoreline of northern Wisconsin along Lake Superior but from 70 feet above the water. The constant churn of the lake has eroded many sea caves all along the cliff wall. With the curves in the shoreline, there are many opportunities to look below and see the caves. The trail is an out and back that starts at Meyers Beach (where parking is somewhat limited) and goes for 5.4 miles to a primitive campsite. The last sea cave viewpoint is about 2 miles out and is well worth hiking that far. We continued nearly 2 miles beyond that and found the trail to be okay, but nothing special. Other more unique options to see the caves is by kayak or even hiking on the frozen lake in the dead of winter.

Blog post with Lakeshore Trail Hike

Sea Caves Along Lakeshore Trail

• Beach Bike Ride - New Smyrna Beach FL

The town of New Smyrna Beach is right along the Atlantic Ocean in central Florida. While not technically a trail per se, there is a 5 mile stretch of beach where cars are permitted to drive the sand. It would be possible to bike on the car "lanes" but the sand is much firmer for bikes on the ocean side of the vehicles. You must pay attention to the tide to successfully bike here but the morning we went, we had low tide, light winds and cool but sunny conditions. To the south we found the beach was bikeable even beyond the car permissible area - but e-bikes are not permitted beyond there. We went until the sand became too soft to easily ride. Back to the north and beyond our starting point is Smyrna Dunes Park. Bikes are not permitted on the long boardwalk in the park but worth a look. In total, we managed a 16 mile bike ride that was quite unique.

Blog post with bike ride along beach

Ponce Inlet Lighthouse

• Rock Garden Trail - Palo Duro Canyon SP Canyon TX

About a hour hour southeast of Amarillo, Palo Duro Canyon is an incredible place in the otherwise barren landscape that makes up this area of north Texas. There are other more popular and strenuous trails here that likely would have been even better than Rock Garden, but we were there during an early heat wave and this trail seemed to be a safer choice for the one day we had available. We only went as far as needed to get to some excellent overlooks on the Rock Garden Trail - which is about 1.5 miles up the trail. We modified the return hike to come across the Lower Comanche Trail to the Mesquite Campground and then back along the Cottonwood Trail to the parking area making a 5.3 mile loop with just over 1000 feet elevation. By getting a very early start we finished around noon with a temperature of 88 degrees. Whether it is this trail or the more popular Lighthouse Trail, Palo Duro Canyon is well worth a visit.

No Blog post written yet

View of Palo Duro Canyon from Rock Garden Trail

• Cebello Mesa Trail - Taos NM

Taos has a wide variety of hiking trails. Two of them made our list of favorites but they couldn't be more different. Cebello Mesa Trail is north of town along the Rio Grande River. It drops 700 feet in the first mile as it works down toward the bottom of the canyon and near water level. Once past all the switchbacks, the trail is relatively flat as it continues upstream for another 3 miles or so. There are several back country primitive camping sites along the way. It definitely has a desert like feel with all the prickly pear cactus in bloom. We made it out 2.7 miles to the second camping area. While eating lunch at the shelter we realized a storm was rolling in from the north. We decide to error on the side of caution and head back since the climb back up the side of the canyon would be a tough one. We made it back to the car just as it started to sprinkle. Beautiful area and trail, just be careful of the unpredictable New Mexico weather.

Blog post not written yet

Heading Down to Rio Grande River

• Williams Lake Trail - Taos NM

This trail starts at Taos Ski Valley in the mountains northeast of town. One of the more popular trails in the area, this 4 mile out and back trail gains 1000 feet in elevation which wouldn't be too bad but it starts at just over 10,200 feet. Roughly 4500 feet higher in elevation than Cebello Mesa makes a huge difference in the landscape and vegetation - not to mention the impact on our breathing. Maybe it's just the views are breathtaking? The grade of the trail is fairly consistent the whole way up to the pretty alpine lake. There was still some snow on the surrounding peaks and if you venture beyond the lake, you will treat yourself to a nice waterfall. Better yet, there is a German restaurant near the trailhead and ski lift to treat ourselves to lunch and a beer after a 4.9 mile, 1300 foot elevation gain hike. 

Blog post not written yet

 

Williams Lake

• Bayo Canyon Trail - Los Alamos NM

Los Alamos is quite the unusual town. Sitting up on a high mesa, there are multiple canyons carved in the area all around town. Bayo Canyon Trail is a loop that follows one of these canyons on the north side of town. The 4 mile loop has about 500 feet of elevation gain and being in the vicinity of 7000 feet, it isn't too strenuous. It was unreal how you start near a busy roundabout in town and after a half mile you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere except for the expensive homes perched on the top of the canyon walls. We follow the loop in a counterclockwise direction which starts with a gradual decline into the canyon. As we get further into the canyon, it is a bit confusing because the other side (the return trail) is only about 1000 feet away but across a 250 foot canyon. For a while it isn't at all clear how we will get over there. The solution was clear once we made it to the canyon floor at a point where it has widened up a bit. We cross the valley and find the one challenging part of the trail - coming back up over 300 feet in just over a third of a mile. We have to take the spur trail out to the viewpoint of the canyon. It only adds a quarter mile or so to the total hike and is worth the view. The return trail is a much wider path and from this vantage point we can easily see the trail we came out on. Incredible to such a remote feeling hike in a town.

Blog post not written yet

View Over Bayo Canyon

Below is the map that shows all 450+ stops in the past 10 years. Clicking on the link provided below the map will bring up the Google Map that permits you to zoom and pan around to get a closer view of a location you might be interested in. I had recently run into a limitation with how Google Maps functions and needed to completely rework how the map data is presented. As it turns out, the new format is actually much more user friendly. Each calendar year has its own color. If you hover the cursor over any of the years, those stops for the year will be highlighted showing what our general route was. For stops in the current year, the stops are still shown as individual blue dots. Clicking on any of the pins will open a popup window with the name of the stop, what year and a link to the blog post(s) written for that location. If you aren’t familiar with our blog posts, think of them as more of a what there is to see and do in an area but not as a campground review. A post may mention the campground but generally my writing is geared toward hiking, biking and general sightseeing in an area. If you enjoy hiking, biking or geocaching, these blog posts might be worth a look. I also generally tend to take lots of photos (working 32 years at Eastman Kodak has something to do with that!) and often will have plenty of pictures to help you experience an area like we did and maybe will even convince you that place is worth a visit.

Click Here to Open Interactive Google Map of All Stops

Back to New Mexico

Map of this blog's locations click this link to open the map

Coming out of Amarillo Texas, we continue west on I-40 heading to New Mexico. We have plans to spend over 6 weeks in the state. Our first reservation isn’t for 3 nights  and the plan is to split those between two different Elks Lodges - Tucumcari and Las Vegas (NM not NV). It’s only 109 miles to the Tucumcari Elks Lodge. We fit in 3 stops along the drive to find geocaches in three more counties. We pulled into the Tucumcari lodge and were surprised to see 5 other rigs already there. Fortunately there are a few more spots so we will be able to have electricity. We hadn’t found a whole lot to do here or in Las Vegas to help decide where to spend our extra night. I realized that there were 3 more counties to the south that we haven’t found caches in and it didn’t seem like an area we would ever have a reason to visit in the future. With that in mind, I talked Chris into spending 2 nights in Tucumcari so we could make the drive to pick up the extra counties tomorrow.

After the lodge opened, we headed into the bar to register and pay for our camping site. We chatted with a couple of other traveling Elk while enjoying a beer and then headed back to the rig to have dinner. Tucumcari is on Route 66 and apparently has some great old neon signs at some of the businesses in downtown. As the sun set, a storm was approaching but it didn’t look like it would be here too soon, so we head downtown to see what the lights were like. We had a map with the popular spots to check out. I was somewhat surprised to find there were probably a few dozen other people with the same idea.

The Blue Swallow Motel on Route 66

Tepee Curios

We were able to park in one location and with a bit of walking, make it to most of the places. In the distance we could see the sky light up with the lightening but the storm was keeping its distance.

Roadrunner Lodge

Americana Motel

I’m glad we were able to do this visit at night with the lights on instead of just during the day.

La Cita Mexican Foods

Back to the Blue Swallow

The last business to checkout was over a mile down the road so we decide to drive in case the storm actually moved in closer. It turns out the storm stayed away but at the last business we drove to wasn’t even open so no lights there. Since the storm passed us by, we had a quiet night at the lodge.

I picked a couple of geocaches in each of the three counties and came up with a route and strategy for the drive. Chris looked at where I was planning to go and decided to stay home instead of doing a 120 mile drive in what looked to be a completely desolate part of New Mexico. It actually was a fairly interesting drive simply from the terrain. The initial 25 miles was definitely generally flat, desert terrain with the occasional outcropping of rock. If the fields were being used, it was just by ranchers for their cattle. As I continued south, I could see what appeared to be a huge cliff jutting out of the landscape for dozens of miles to the east and west. It wasn’t at all clear from a distance how the road I was on would get up the cliff but it curved a bit and climbed over 600 feet. On top of the plateau, the landscape was completely different. The land was almost perfectly flat and it was clear this area was being used to grow crops. It wasn’t clear what is grown here.

My first stop was the town of Melrose along US Route 60. This is a rather busy east/west thoroughfare which was dramatically different from the earlier part of my drive.

Melrose Mural

Fighter Jet in Melrose Park

From here I head west to pick up the other two counties. They brought me to some interesting old buildings. There is the much larger town of Fort Sumner just a bit further west and it looked like there might be some places to see here, but I still had a rather long and deserted drive back to Tucumcari so I stuck to my original plan.

Vacant Building

Former Church with Geocache Behind It

Inside Old Church Without Grafitti

By the time I got back, our rig was the only one in the camping area. Several of the rigs last night must have been a group traveling together. I had seen an add on Facebook for a food truck at the local Tractor Supply Store serving fish fry. That’s not the type of food we expected to find in New Mexico but we gave it a shot and found it to be rather good. Maybe it was run by transplanted Midwesterners? The next day was the drive to the Las Vegas Elks Lodge. We have stayed here for one night before but it was in the fall of 2020 during the heart of COVID. The lodge was closed but the 4 camping spots were open. It’s only 82 miles to the lodge and this time we found one other rig in a site when we got there. Based on the large auxiliary propane tank sitting next to the motorhome and all sorts of things sitting outside the rig, it looks like this person has been here for quite some time. Given we are now at an elevation of 6500 feet, I suspect the winters might be a bit cold here.

We head into the bar to register and pay. They had typical bar food available but we had heard there is a great Mexican restaurant within walking distance of the lodge so that sounded like the better option for dinner. Sure enough, the front door was less than 100 feet from our rig. There is a fence in the way so we had to walk nearly 400 feet to get there! Kocina de Raphael was definitely an authentic Mexican place. It was fairly busy inside but we discovered they did a much bigger take out or drive through service than those who eat in. We really enjoyed our meal which is likely going to be the first of many over the next few weeks.

The next day we will head up to Taos for a 2 week stay at a private campground just outside of downtown. We have a bit of a routing dilemma. The most direct route is north on State Route 518 which then cuts up and over the Taos Mountains. It looks to be a rather curving road which gets up to 9450 feet in elevation. The alternate route is along Interstate 25 west into Santa Fe and then north into Taos. This route is less curvy and crosses the mountains at 2000 feet lower but is much longer at 145 miles. We did a bit of research and found that the route up and over the mountains would be fine as long as there isn’t snow - not much chance of that with the heat we’ve been experiencing in early June. We head out Saturday morning for Taos. It was a beautiful drive and not at all difficult. The engine temperature rose a little during the climbs but the motorhome did fine too. I expected to have a line of cars behind me which would force me to pull over at times to let them pass, but the traffic was rather light. We pulled over once near the beginning of the climbing simply to check the car was still properly attached and then again at a large pullout with a beautiful view.

Viewpoint Along State Route 518

We pulled in to Monte Bello RV Park early afternoon and got setup for our 2 weeks. This campground is about a 6 mile drive to downtown Taos and is rather small with only about 20 to 25 sites. But it does have great views of the mountains. The one odd thing about this park is they charge for electricity even though we will only be here 2 weeks. Our typical experience has been that places only do that for stays over a month. We decide to put our solar panels and lithium batteries to work and setup to run all the kitchen appliances off of battery power but still be able to use the washer and dryer or air conditioner from shore power as needed. This should reduce our power usage and we’ll be a good test of the system.

Our Home for 2 Weeks Outside Taos NM

Panoramic View of Mountains Behind Motorhome

Having had a rather short travel day and it still being fairly early, we head out to explore a nearby attraction. The Rio Grande Gorge Bridge is just about 5 miles west of camp. There is a rest area on the far side of the bridge and a few trails to view points of the bridge from the side. It is an impressive gorge dropping 600 feet to the river below. There is a sidewalk on either side of the road with a few viewing platforms jutting out to improve the view but the bridge is closed to all pedestrians. We would later find out that nine months ago they had a dramatic increase in the number of suicides and have closed the sidewalks. There was even a vehicle parked along the side of the road just west of the bridge every time we drove by to visit a place to the west of camp. I suspect this is some sort of mental health professional available if the need arises.

Gorge Bridge View

Looking Downstream

There were quite a few vendors setup in the rest area selling jewelry, rugs and other native crafts. There are trails that follow the rim of the gorge to the south and we have a geocache to find about half a mile in that direction. Most visitors get their look of the bridge from near the parking lot. A few more will venture out maybe a quarter mile to get a different perspective, but beyond that, most people turn back.

Cactus in Bloom

Chris Follows the Trail

This is a rather desolate landscape with some cactus and a few smaller shrubs and bushes but there isn’t a great deal of life although we did spot a cool looking lizard along our walk. Since the rim of the gorge isn’t a straight line, the view back towards the bridge or downstream keeps changing so even after finding the cache, we continue south.

An Even More Distant View

Eastern Collared Lizard

We ended up going nearly 1.5 miles before turning back. The trail seems to go on indefinitely but we were getting hungry for dinner. On the way back we noticed something unusual just to the west of the rim, so we head over to investigate. From a distance it looked to be some small flags blowing in the wind. As we got closer, we saw there was also a series of rocks forming a spiral on the ground. Based on the writing on the small flags and the items at the center of the labyrinth, it seems like this may be some sort of makeshift Buddhist prayer spot.

Buddhist Prayer Spot

Stone Spiral

The following day, we drive into downtown Taos to walk around and check out some of the shops. Being a Sunday, there were a lot of visitors doing the same thing.

Lifesize Bison Art

Nice Mural

One of the first shops we stopped in was a sporting goods store. As we looked around, I spotted a pair of hiking boots in my size in the clearance rack. I wasn’t really in need of another pair, but these are a brand and style that I typically wear and they were 50% off. I tried them on a decided I would get them as spare boots. There was also another pair of hiking shoes in my size with the same discount. Chris and I have a pretty good collection of hiking gear under our sofa. It was all found at various points in our travels for greatly discounted prices. But with the addition of these two pairs, I am told I cannot get any more regardless of the price!

Beautiful Adobe Buildings

Nice Stonework Too

We spent a couple hours checking out more shops and admiring the beautiful architecture of Taos. We ended up picking a place to have lunch. Michael’s Kitchen and Bakery had good reviews. We weren’t the only ones with this plan either, but we only had a 20 minute wait before being seated. It was an excellent meal.

Our campsite is at an elevation of 7150 feet and I’m sure our bodies are still acclimating to the higher elevations since we’ve only been above 3000 for the past week prior to arriving in Taos. The high desert is quite interesting from a weather standpoint. Even though it might get close to 90 degrees some days, it tends to cool off very well overnight. In fact there are nights where we need to close windows because it was getting too cold inside the rig. It also seems like every afternoon the winds will pick up. Not just light breeze type winds but strong gusty winds in the 20 to 50 MPH range. We saw one camper’s slide top awning being blown and one day the wind direction was lined up with our motorhome such that our slide topper sounded like it might be shredded and so we simply pulled the slide in for a few hours until the winds died down. One time the winds were so strong that it created a big dust storm that made the mountains 6 miles away nearly disappear from the dust in the air.

On our first Monday in town we take a day trip to Angel Fire New Mexico. It’s a little under and hour drive east of camp. This is a pretty interesting town. It is located at the southern end of a valley further up in the mountains and sits about 1400 feet higher than our campground. There is a ski resort there with lots of trails. During the summer months, it is very popular with downhill mountain bikers. But there are also some hiking trails. Visitors may hike the Enlightenment Trail for free. It is a little over 10 miles out and back but comes with a steep cost of over 2100 feet of elevation gain. Plus it starts at 8600 feet and climbs to over 10,600 feet. While we may have adjusted somewhat to the higher elevation of Taos, I don’t think we are ready for this.

The alternative we went with was to pay for a day pass on the chair lift so we can do the trail in the downhill direction. Tickets go for $26 per person but we think it will be worth it to make it to the top with minimal effort. We arrive in the large parking lot with just a few other cars. The first chair lift we see was clearly not running and didn’t even seem to be complete. Fortunately this was a new, larger lift they are constructing to be opened for the upcoming winter season. The one we want is hidden behind some of the many buildings that have other services like restaurants, bars and rental places. Being a Monday morning in the summer most of the facilities were closed. We signed the waiver forms and bought our lift wristbands that will allow us on the chair lift as often as we want. This pricing model works much better for the mountain bikers than hikers, but that was the only choice. We walk over to the lift and are given instructions on how to get on and get off.

Our Lift to the Summit

On the Way Up

Much Steeper Near the Summit

We checked out a few of the views from up top and went over to get a picture with the bears. There was also a geocache hidden up here over 20 years ago now. We had looked at previous finder’s logs over the years and saw that this one was in very bad disrepair. The Tupperware container had started to deteriorate and was a mess. We checked and saw the cache owner had dropped out of caching a year after placing this one so they weren’t going to perform the required maintenance. We had a spare container with us in the rig, so we had brought it along for the ride to the top. There wasn’t much of the old cache to salvage but we were able to clean up all the old pieces of plastic, replace with a new container and logbook before heading over to the trailhead for the Enlightenment Trail.

At The Top

Hiking Trail This Way

The trail starts on the south side of the chair lift but only does that for a quarter mile or so before crossing underneath the lift and will proceed down the rest of the way on the north side.

Bicycles on Way Up ... 

... Followed by the Riders

A large portion of the hike is in the shade of the huge pines but occasionally there are openings that provide for excellent mountain views.

View from Trail

View of Trail

The trail has plenty of switchbacks to keep the grade manageable. There were some rocky parts while the wooded sections tended to be covered in leaves and pine needles. There was one stretch that must get more water from runoff or a seep, and this area was quite lush with lots of wildflowers in bloom.

Raven

Mountain Bluebells

We were plenty of shady places with fallen trees to use as benches for a snack.

Columbine

Indian Paintbrush

With so many different downhill mountain biking trails, we come across them from time to time. At no point do they share the same path since that could be a safety nightmare. Occasionally we would hear cyclists holler to one another from a distance but we never saw them up close. The one trail crossing has a bridge for the cyclists to cross over our trail and it looked like it would be neat to see a rider to go up and over. We waited for a few minutes but there weren’t a lot of riders so we didn’t get to see them go over.

Bike Trail Crosses Over Hiking Trail

Bike and Hiking Trails Side by Side

We came across a few people hiking up the trail but not many. We got back to the car for lunch, and had gotten in 6 miles and a minimal 350 feet up elevation gain to go along with the 2000 foot descent. After eating, we switched gears and headed back to the lift to go up again but this time just to get a better look around the summit. Part of it may have been to feel like our lift tickets had more value by going up a second time.

Pond Crossing

There are definitely some pretty views up here. We grabbed a beer at the Summit Haus and sat on the deck enjoying the beauty of Angel Fire. The only complaint is they had the music system cranked so loud that it was impossible to talk and for certain songs with a lot of bass, the whole deck seemed to shake. Not sure if the architect had designed for continued shaking all day long. The good news was the songs were all one we knew.

View from Summit Haus Deck

Ski Patrol in Summertime

View of Valley Below

We finish up and head back over to the chair lift. I’m guessing they don’t have a lot of people riding back down since the majority of the visitors here are bikers. There are some great views of the valley from up here on the way down. We even spotted a biker or two making their descent.

Heading Back Down

Cyclist Descends

We made it safely off the lift and headed back to the car for the hour drive back home. It was a fun way to spend 6 hours in the mountains.

In the Home Stretch

The next day we had some of the most severe winds we’ve seen here. Our bodies were a little tired so we took a day off before heading out for another hike the following day. The Slide Trail is a fairly popular hike to the southwest of Taos. On our way to the trailhead, we stop at an historic church - San Francisco de Asis Church in Rancho de Taos. Built in the early 1800’s it’s a beautiful adobe style building set in a fairly residential area.

Wall of Home Next to Church

We arrive to the parking area to find it quite full with cars. We didn’t expect that for a Wednesday morning. We walk around to the front entrance to check out the grounds.

As we approached the front door to see inside, we realized there was a funeral mass in progress. That would explain the large number of cars. It also kept us from going inside.

Restaurant Across Street from Church

The Slide Trail is a 2.7 mile out and back hike with 550 feet of elevation gain. It follows part of an old road (NM 570) that experienced a rockslide in 1993. It was determined that clearing the debris was not worth the effort to reopen the road but it has now been turned into a hiking trail. There are two trailhead options - the lower and upper. Generally we would prefer to start the hike low and have the climb at the beginning of the hike. However, getting to the lower trailhead from Taos is a much longer drive since you must get on the other side of the Rio Grande River and there aren’t all that many bridges over the river. Since the trail used to be a road, we knew it wasn’t going to be too steep so we opted for the easier drive to the upper trailhead. When we start to follow the signs, the terrain didn’t look all that interesting but in several hundred feet, we begin to see what we are heading towards.

Beginning of Slide Trail

First View of Gorge

Our timing was reasonably good in that doing this in the early morning, much of the trail is in the shade of the huge cliff walls. As we continue down, it is very easy to see where the trail (former road) is. We are following the Taos Pueblo River as it heads into the Rio Grande River. At the start of the hike, this smaller tributary is about 250 feet below us but the trail will descend faster than the river so we will eventually get to 20 feet above the water.

Trail Visible Along Gorge Wall

Taos Pueblo River Below

Apache Plume in Bloom and Featherlike Seed Heads

We have one geocache to look for on our way down. Of course, we run into another hiking group just as we were looking for the hide. We started to talk with them and discovered that one of them has a daughter that lives in Rochester NY - what a small world.

Huge Culvert Found While Looking for Geocache

We get to a point on the trail where it gets quite narrow. We suspect this is the location of “the slide”. The vegetation has grown so much here that it was like going into a green tunnel for 50 feet or so.

At Slide Location

Dragonfly

We finally make it to the lower trailhead and find a car parked so we know roads do reach this spot. Technically this is where the trail stops, but we were curious what else was in this part of the canyon. We found a faint path that got us to the water level of the smaller river.

At Lower Trailhead

At Water Level of Taos Pueblo River

We were feeling good enough and knew the hike back up wasn’t going to be too challenging so we continue down the dirt road to see what we could find. There is a small camping area and even a camp host. It was about a half mile to the Taos Bridge which crosses the Rio Grande. There is a large parking area as well as a boat ramp. Not sure if this is a launch point for river rafting or simple pleasure boating and fishing. From here, the remainder of Route 570 follows the edge of the river while another road heads up the western side of the gorge wall climbing over 800 feet in about 1.5 miles.

At Water Level of Rio Grande River

Taos Bridge Over Rio Grande

After a little bit, we decide we need to make the hike back up to the car. We saw some more of the salt cedar in bloom that we had seen a week ago in Texas. As we approached the area of the slide from below, it was a bit more apparent.

Salt Cedar Blooms

Approaching "Slide" from Below

Of course, being later in the morning, we had lost much of the shade from the gorge walls but it still wasn’t too hot. With our side trips, the hike ended up being 3.5 miles and 700 feet of elevation. But in all it was a very pretty hike.

Cactus Bloom

While writing this post, I got to thinking about the imagery in Google Earth. Would if possibly have aerial views from before and after the slide since this didn’t take place all that long ago. Sure enough I found imagery dates of September 1991 and October 1997. I positioned the viewpoint to be looking up the canyon. It’s pretty obvious where the slide was even though the resolution wasn’t all that great 30 years ago.

Aerial View of Gorge Before

Aerial View of Gorge After