Petrified Forest National Park

May 7 – 9

  Left Alamosa and headed southwest into New Mexico and our next destination. Oh my what a ride. Yep more crazy mountains and twisty turny curvy roads. Beautiful, yes, but here comes the white knuckles once again! Made our way around and through the San Juan Mountains, don't let the name fool you, them there are more of the Rocky Mountains. And just when you think things are leveling off up and away you go through Wolf Creek Pass. 

Another wild and crazy ride, but that is just the start, down you go merrily on your way getting closer to your destination and around the bend the road appears to disappear. Well, there is a road around that curve but it can't be the one we take, that goes across the dam and looks to be about 5 feet wide from here. Holy smoke that is the road!!! Oh boy! Well, fortunately it is more than 5 feet wide, it is two lanes no shoulder, giant lake on one side and well, just don't look on the other cause its somewhere down there.

 You know how when you are driving and you come to a tight spot you instinctively suck in your breath. Yep, I don't think either one of us exhaled all the way across. 

At 420 feet high and over a half mile in length, OMG!!

 And now up the mountain and phew we made it to Navajo Lake State Park, New Mexico.

This is a great campground with views overlooking Navajo Lake that just don't end. We spent several days hiking, biking, and just being. The facilities kept clean even though it is a large busy place. Few amenities in the campground itself but down at the day use area is a large marina where you can rent a variety of boats including kayaks, motorboats and houseboats, tubes, rafts and there is a concession stand. One we would go back to, especially after discovering another way to get there that isn't back across the dam. No, not doing that again. LOL

May 10

    Time to leave this little piece of heaven. We continued our trek across New Mexico to the town of Gallup and the USA RV Park which is right off Route 66. Now this was a surprise. We weren't expecting much and was using it as a one night stop. This place is great. Granted the campsites themselves were basically side by side in a gravel lot with hookups but the amenities... 

A lovely pool, store, clean facilities, laundry, great playground, outdoor cafe, water feature of waterfall and bears, and this great big chess set. A great base camp in which to explore the area. We did play a rousing game of chess, with winner being, well, we won't mention any names but she did real good, heheheh. One of the interesting things about this place was how many use it as and overnight. We got there around 2 2:30 in the afternoon and it was virtually empty, by 6 the placed as all but filled, by the time we left in the morning around 8:30ish, half were gone again. Never saw so many leave so early, usually we are among the first.

May 11

    We only had a two hour hop but knew it was going to be more of a five hour day as we were taking the scenic route through the Petrified Forest National Park. Another of those underrated National Parks. Though I shouldn't say underrated as it gets high rating, better to say under-visited. Small park in some ways, vast in others. There is only one road through the lots of pull offs to enjoy the vistas and do hiking. A lot of it is just open countryside waiting to be explored. There are trails ranging from ½ mile to well miles. We enjoyed doing many short hikes as we went along. They have a great visitor's center with friendly and helpful staff, lots of information on the park and surrounding area, and of course a gift shop. I have never seen such amazing crystallization as in the wood there. Gorgeous colors and ranging from chips to whole trees. Truly worth going through.

Our next stop took us to Homolovi State Park, Winslow, AZ (Yep got to the corner the next day, LOL).

    Homolovi was one of the homes of the Anasazi during their migration. The Hopi still consider this area as part of their homeland with continued pilgrimages. It is for this reason the state park was established; to preserve and protect the site. This was our first experience with camping in desert environment. Would have enjoyed another day or two there as there is a on going archaeological dig site that you can check out. Due to reservations at a special location we didn't have the time this time to explore. Wasn't overly impressed with the visitor center and less with the person at the check in. Very unfriendly and unapproachable, didn't want to answer questions, just did the job. That surprised me as state parks usually have great staff, perhaps she had a bad day. The campground was nicely laid out with lots of space between sites. Great roads for getting some biking in and got to see Jackrabbits. They are fantastic, with those big ole black tip ears, and are they both big and fast! Loved watching them. Got to experience an incredible sunset.

Til Tomorrow

TA!

More from Navajo Lake

Poignant display at USA RV

More of Petrified Forest

House built of the petrified logs!

Great Sand Dunes National Park

May 3 - 6, 2021

With a vow to be back, we left South Dakota, my how I loved it there and what fun we had. Oh well, on to new adventures as that is what this is all about. We headed south making two overnight stops toward our next destination: The Great Sand Dunes National Park.

The first stop was at Cabela's Campground in Sydney, Nebraska, home of the International Headquarters of Cabela's. Those of you who are into camping, hunting, fishing, etc will know the name of this chain of stores. We have been to the one in PA and what a store it is. Besides everything one could want and didn't know they needed for exploring the great outdoors, there is a wildlife museum, shooting gallery, and restaurant. We expected similar in Sydney as again World Headquarters but we were quite disappointed. Just a big store, no extras, and the small cafe they had was closed. Jeesh!

    

 But the campground itself was well laid out, level graveled sites with full hookups, clean facilities. There was a separate tenting section, large playground, and even a equestrian park with exercise ring. There was a nice walking trail and large park in front so we were happy. Relaxed, refreshed and hit the road in the morning.

Our next stop was Falcon Meadow in Falcon, Colorado, just outside Colorado Springs. Odd campground with sites stuck in seemingly helter skelter as it expanded. Clean, but odd, owners appeared to be super friendly, old hippies though not that old LOL As with a lot of campgrounds these days, quite a few that seem to have made a permanent stop. Onsite store, gas, propane and laundry facilies, true one stop shopping. Had some dirt trails in the back so got to get out and walk a bit. Interesting place to stop for a night. Not a whole lot to take pictures of.

The ride was through mostly flat lands with not a whole lot to see to the left. Except we we went through this one area where there had to be thousands of Turbines, they stretched out in all directions for miles as far as the eye could see. Right out of a SciFi movie! 

Of course, the great Rockies stayed to the right of us which had us reminiscing our trip across as we made our way to Alamosa, Colorado where we stayed at the KOA by the same name. Nice campground as per typical of KOAs, though sites could have been a bit further apart in our opinion. The usual amenities: store, pool, cabins, outdoor games such as horseshoes, mini golf, etc but these were still not open due to COVID. The facilities clean with hot water and good pressure, aahh the important things in life. Staff helpful and friendly. We stayed a couple of days so as to explore.

The Great Sand Dunes National Park. 

WOW, what a mind blowing experience. There in the middle of nowhere with snow covered mountains in the background, prairie in the front is this giant sand dune! The tallest sand dune in the county with peaks over 750 feet, another surreal feeling when there. We climbed a bit and sat watching many sand boarding (yep, snow boarding on sand). The fun was having to cross the Medano Creek which had just started running again with the warmer weather melting the snows of surrounding mountains. Crossing back over feels real good after hiking up a sand dune in the heat! Great trail across the road the takes one through forested areas which we also did. Would love to be there during the Sand Crane Migration but not this time. This is certainly somewhere to put on the bucket list, amazing, simply amazing.

Enjoy our visit to the Great Sand Dunes!

Westward Ho!!