Mixed emotion and transition time

This is our last week out West.  We have shifted up to Santa Fe today after a packed week of family and errands in Albuquerque.  And even got in our Vietnamese food fix twice!  

First of all, we were very happy to celebrate Jan, Karen, and Nancy's mom, Vivian's 95th birthday.  Even with oxygen and a newly fractured arm, she has a feisty sense of humor, and keeps all of us in line.  

We were able to get all 3 sisters together, and their husbands to enjoy a celebratory lunch.

Left to right, Tom, Karen, Nancy, the birthday girl, Jan, and CT
Happy Birthday Viv!!

We enjoyed getting together with all, Karen and Tom even came down from Taos, and enjoyed a nice visit this past week.  We all hope to get together one more time in Santa Fe before we make our way east.

Which brings up the emotion and transition.  Jan and I have become very fond of the West, funny with neither one of us growing up out here.  And it's interesting that her two sisters have moved out west as well, both in New Mexico.  The weather, low humidity, views and vistas, and few crowds call to us.  But we still like our winters in Florida, so it comes at this time that we ease out of our traveling time and towards our winter time.  We are starting to make lists of things to accomplish this winter, mostly on the motorhome, and start to look forward to seeing all of our Florida friends.  But honestly, not so much to the humidity, traffic, and sitting still for so long.

We have a few more stops on our way, Amarillo where we usually get our oil and filters changed at Speedco, to see our daughter Kelly in Dallas, stop in Atlanta to see friends, our dentist and a doc, set up an appointment in Ocala to have our transmission filters and fluid changed, set up a meet with Chris to see about Guardian Plates for our slide out corners, and finally pull into our winter home at Royal Coachman Resort in Nokomis, FL by early December.

If you're not familiar with Speedco, we have been using them for our oil changes, fuel filter changes, and chassis lube for quite a few years, mostly in Amarillo, although we have used other locations as well and have always been pleased.  They are like a Jiffy Lube for big trucks and motorhomes as well.  They are quick, affordable, encourage you to watch, and have done a good job for us.

We have an Allison transmission which I would say the vast majority of diesel pushers have, there are different sizes, but generally they are pretty much the same.  They require a filter change every 75,000 miles or 3 years, and a change of fluid every 300,000 miles or 4 years.  Well, time flies and it's been 4 years and 50,000 miles so we are due.  We liked the Detroit Diesel/Allison shop in Ocala where we had our engine's valve lash done and will try to have them do it on our way into Florida, and if that doesn't work we will do it on the way out next spring.

One of our bigger projects this winter will be to install Guardian Plates on at least two of our four slides.  Monaco coaches have an inherent issue with their slide corners.  The way Monaco elected to construct them made them susceptible to moisture penetrating the bottom corner and many have experienced slide floor rot that translates into huge bucks to repair, so the answer is to inspect and caulk very regularly, and even then moisture may still get in.  Well, Chris Throgmartin, and his wife Ingrid, have been manufacturing awning fabric replacements for RV's for some time in the form of Stone Vos, and Chris is very active in the RV community at many shows and rallies.  Chris founded Talin Manufacturing when he invented a clever and permanent repair for our slide corners called Guardian Plates.  We have set up an appointment to meet with Chris and have him measure our slides for the plates and will order as many as we need, and install them this winter.  He is located in Brooksville, FL right along our way.

So Jan and I are arranging all this, deciding our route back, all the while sad to leave the West, and at the same time looking forward to getting to Florida.

Our week in Taos over, now on to Albuquerque

We had a nice visit with Tom and Karen, one of Jan's sisters, who is building a house in Taos, NM.  We had stopped in the spring with the grandkids and can certainly report that a lot has been happening since then.  It is an almost finished house now.  

Quite a view from the upstairs porch

Jan and I needed to find something to do while Karen and Tom were tied up, so we decided to go way up a dirt road that they had used to go horseback riding last year.  We went past where they had mounted up and encountered a few ruins of a long time ago gold mining town along Bitter Creek that was active in 1899.  It only ran for 18 days until a flood ruined it.  I guess the gold take wasn't much.  We learned that they would lay dynamite in the ground and blow holes to determine what the soil and rock were comprised of so they knew whether to dig there or not.  We had never heard of that before, but the area was filled with many, many test holes.

This is an example of just one

Anchor Cabin was built in 1895 overlooking many of the placer mines and remnants of it are still present today.

What's left of Anchor Cabin

Then on the way back out the road, we went in about 30 miles, we found another mine opening, but we were both chicken to actually go in:-)

Would you go in?

But we did find a nice peaceful place for coffee.

Another day we went to a tiny little town about 40 miles away that Tom had discovered, that was reported to have the very best Mexican food in the whole state.  So we figured we had to go see.  The 4 of us loaded up in the truck and took off.  The town is El Rito, NM, population 800.  It is also the site of the Mars Polar Lander.

The whole town with the Mars Polar Lander in the foreground :)

The restaurant is a tiny hole in the wall called El Farolito.  

I said it was tiny

We were amazed, it was absolutely delicious!

Inside shot

Together we ran the menu, we had chili rellenos, tacos, enchiladas, burrito, tamale, and killer sopapillas!  It was awesome.

The tamale and burrito

The sopapillas were fantastic with warmed honey!

 It was absolutely worth the drive.  We love these out of the way hole in the wall finds.

The weather was quite good, 60's in the day, down to the 30's at night, but a bit windy, which is kind of normal for the Southwest.  But it did yield some pretty sunsets.

Sunset in our campground in Taos

We had a wonderful visit, but Karen mentioned that she had discovered a new restaurant in town, Jalapeno's Tacos and Beer, a simple small joint with really good food, in fact we all went there twice while in town.

Crispy crab tacos

The awesome fish street tacos

And delicious lamb street tacos

Yeah, I know, back to food for awhile:)  We also had a nice surprise when Walker, Tom and Karen's son, our nephew dropped in.  We had a short but nice visit with him and enjoyed a nice breakfast at yet another restaurant, don't worry, no pictures.  So with quite a bit of time spent up at the house project and lots of visiting, our week in Taos came to an end, and we have moved down to Albuquerque to visit Jan's other sister, and to celebrate her mother Viv's, 95th year birthday!

Getting chillier, and on to Taos

Our last week was a whirlwind.  And with the evening temps dipping into the 20's, we still had a few things on our list to do.  

Our site as the sun went down

One was go up to Kennebec Pass, 11,683' on the Colorado Trail.  We have been there several times before, but this time was to have a picnic and Jan was going to walk over to the pass itself, and I wanted to go the other way for a bit.  It is about 13 miles from the main road, Hwy 160, the first several miles is paved then dirt, then as you go higher and higher the road becomes quite rough, narrow, and very steep.  But not scary:-)  When we got there there was only one car already there, but in a few minutes, two more arrived.  We had a lovely lunch sitting on the tailgate of the truck enjoying the spectacular view!

Our lunch spot!

The whole view

I walked down the other way as I said and took a few more pictures while Jan went over to the pass.

The Colorado Trail

I caught Jan returning from the pass

Then we got to do a good deed.  In the one vehicle that came up after us were 2 girls that were going to mountain bike the trail back down into Durango.  Quite a ride, 22 miles, mostly downhill but with about 4 miles of severe uphill.  I guess you have to pay the piper.  Anyway they came over and asked if we would perhaps drive their car down the mountain for them?  They explained that they had a shuttle meeting them in Durango to take them back to their vehicle, but they were sure it would not be able to get up the mountain, and they were not relishing a 5 mile hike back up to their car.  We, of course, said sure we would, so I drove their vehicle down while Jan drove our truck, and we left it at a much better spot for them.  They did report they had a wonderful 3 1/2 hour ride and got their car okay.

Another hike we wanted to do was Hermosa Creek.  We had never done any of it before so we went to scope it out.  It is accessible way behind the Purgatory Ski Resort, after driving through a ford on the creek to the parking area.  On the way we ran into a bunch of cowboys moving a herd down the mountain for the winter.

It was a beautiful day and it was a great peaceful hike that we will go back and do more of next year, including bringing our fishing rods, we turned around at about 1 1/2 miles.

Hermosa Creek

Our coffee spot after the hike at the trailhead

We took another turnoff on the way back and went even deeper into the wilds and got a super view of Engineer Mountain.

Then Jan especially, wanted to go up on Missionary Ridge.  It is on a long gravel road about 27 miles up to the east of the Animas Valley, and had some incredible views from above.  Not a really comfortable road for this chicken, but we went all the way to a gorgeous little lake, Henderson Lake, way, way up the road.  It was pristine, as clear as a bell, and we even gave it a shot fishing for a little while.

Henderson Lake

Look how clear the water is!

We worked our way back, and stopped for coffee on the way.

What a view of the Animas Valley!

Our coffee spot

So after another excellent lunch at one of our favorites, Rice Monkeys, we called it done in Durango and headed down to Taos.

Our lunch spot on the way to Taos

Wow, only one week left.

Hard to believe we have already been here a month.  Time really flies for us while in Durango, one of our absolute favorites.  But the nip is in the air, fall and winter are coming which means we need to be making our way to Florida:-)  But that's not until December, so there is still a lot of time to make our way to Albuquerque and Taos to see family, include a quick stop in Santa Fe, because we can, and then cross the country to Atlanta for more visits and the dentist, and finally down to our winter digs in Florida.

So we have been busy, even made a list for the things we want to do before we head out. We made a long drive over to Big Meadows Reservoir for a picnic and a hike around the lake.  It's a favorite, but it is pretty far from Durango, almost 100 miles, but it's a gorgeous drive, and since it goes through Pagosa Springs, it would give us a chance to see if Harvey got off all right.  We left fairly early on a beautiful, but blustery day, and amazingly as we come into Pagosa, here comes Harvey in his motorhome going the opposite way.  He was also a day late from what he had told us, so we made a u-turn and tracked him down at a gas station getting fuel for his trip east.  We had enough time to give him a hard time, a necessary duty:-)  So we wished him a safe trip and off we went up and over Wolf Creek Pass to Big Meadows.  

A gorgeous day, looking back or west towards Pagosa Springs
from the overlook

When we arrived at Big Meadows, the wind was whipping, so we decided to have lunch first and see if it would lessen before our hike.  Well, it didn't, but most of the loop is out of the wind, so we did the open area across the dam first, and even though we wondered a couple times if we'd get blown over, we got into the trees on the opposite side and out of the wind.

Even some horses grazing along the lake

The rest of the way around we were pretty much protected from the wind, so it was a delightful hike.

It was a beautiful day

On the way back we drove up to Lobo Overlook, 11,760', which was gorgeous, but there we actually thought the wind would blow us off the mountain, so we had our coffee in the truck.

Looking across at Wolf Creek Ski Resort

Our view for coffee:-)

As the cooler weather has come in, we have gotten our fire pit out which has made cocktail hour a lot more pleasant, our view is even more awesome when our toes are warm!

The view from our site

Fort Lewis College is located in town on a mesa overlooking Durango.  It is a small school with a very pretty campus, and has been in this location since 1956, although the school began in 1891 in Hesperus, CO as an Indian Boarding school.  We go up and park at an overlook to have coffee several times while we are here.

Yesterday was an absolutely stellar day, clear skies and the visibility which is almost always good here, was spectacular, so we decided to make a day of it.  We drove up first to Andrew's Lake to do a hike and have a picnic lunch, then over Molas Pass into Silverton to walk around and check out the last of the season sales.  Didn't buy anything although we were close, but had a great time.

One of our views going around Andrew's Lake

Silverton

Then we decided to go north to the old Eureka mining site.  

The old Eureka mill ruins

We found an interesting little slot canyon with water flowing out of it and gave it a look, couldn't believe we'd never poked into it before.

Jan looking for gold

Looking out

It was a great day and to top it off we stopped into beautiful Havilland Lake for our afternoon coffee.

What a view!