Category: Living Simply

What an amazing park! Many beautiful arches and hikes to get you out of your car. Amazing!

Balanced rock.

I haven’t seen a squatty potty since China. So surprised to see one here in Utah!

Such a gorgeous day and beautiful landscapes.

A lot of driving but some amazing nature!

Natural Bridges

On the way to Canyon lands Needles…

Canyon lands hike

It was so cold in the canyon overnight and was below freezing. It was great to get on the road. In Moab, I stopped for gas and saw this sticker. Price of fuel is up 25% which is cutting into my budget.

Instead of going to Mesa Verde as I have been there before, I decided to go to Hovenweep which is less crowded and had a great campground. On the way I stopped at Lowry Pueblo first. I was able to see an ancient kiva, round rooms used for ceremonies.

Hovenweep

When leaving, I saw wild horses running….

This is a cute little town with a great historic district. I spent one night here to break up the trip to Hovenweep. On the way to Durango I passed the Continental divide. Now instead of the water running to the east, the water here now goes to the west

On my way to ghost ranch I found El Rito. Am art installation there is a spoof on the Mars Rover. Quite interesting.

I stopped at the Georgia O’keefe museum. She found her inspiration from the landscapes here in New Mexico.

At Ghost ranch there were trails to walk and a museum about the oldest dinosaur found in the US and the official fossil of New Mexico. A large number of the fossils were found near here when they died as rivers dried up then the rest in the resulting flood when the rains came.

It was a great time ther but less time to hike the next day due to a lot of rain.

I picked up Alycia Owen from the Albuquerque airport to drive to her home in Taos. I worked with both her and Steve in China. We spent a lot of time talking and catching up but also went sightseeing.

We went to the North Rim of the Rio Grande.

We went to Earthship. These ar homes that help to solve sustainability problems though it is difficult to solve all problems. I didn’t pay to view the houses and just looked at the outside.

The sunsets here in the desert are beautiful.

And do are the sunrises.

We went into Taos and spent time looking around the cool shops and eating Green Chili soup, which is delicious, and a New Mexico dish.

And of course, hiking in the desert.

It has definitely been hot. I went to the Petroglyph monuments and hiked the trails to look at the carvings left by the ancient Pueblos some time ago. They used stones to carve signs into the basalt rock from an ancient volcano.

I then went to Old Albuquerque Town to look at the artisans and different shops.

I then went to a trailhead in the Cibola National Forest to camp for free among the Juniper forest. Very peaceful.

I then stopped at a couple different places to hike in the morning.

One of my hikes took me along the Rio Grande.

I rolled into Tucumcari which was one of the iconic Route 66 stops. I walked around to take pictures of the old motels and cars.

A last minute change took me to Roswell. I mean, why not? I went through some of the most desolate place ever without seeing many cars or actual houses on the 2.5 hour trip.

There were many alien statues throughout the town.

I went to Roswell’s museum about alien encounters.

I then went to Santa Rosa where I went to the lake Park and then the route 66 auto museum. Lots of cool things from the route 66 era as well as the collection of cars.

I stayed at the Santa Rosa State Park. Beautiful campground near the dam!

Next I’m headed to Albuquerque.

I drove quite a distance to get to the canyons. They are the second largest canyons in the country and quite beautiful. I hiked several trails including their famous lighthouse trail. All these sedimentary layers were from when Texas was under water and materials settled. Later erosion created the features. The lighthouse was likely an arch where the middle part collapsed. It was a great hike and a little bit of a climb to get to the base. I was happy it was a bit cooler that day.

A roadrunner visited the campground. Still looking for the coyote…

I then traveled to Amarillo and my first visit was Cadillac Rancho. Of course, I had to spray paint the name of my car and me: Thelma and Louise.

Amarillo Botanical Garden

Tucumcari and Route 66 was nostalgic and a little depressing. Many businesses are run down and empty and I can imagine what this was like in its heyday. Sad that interstates have shut down much of these places. I decided to spend the night in one of the motels to escape the heat and relax a bit (and do some laundry in the room).

i then traveled to a suburb of Dallas to visit Ruth Vol who I worked with in China. We walked around and talked, catching up. We also did a road trip to see a few sites.

Dinosaur Valley State Park. There are actual tracks left in the riverbed when prints were left in the limestone and over time the other sediment that covered them was worn away. Before we got there, we saw a bunch of dinosaur statues in a a pasture (and of course there are dinosaurs throughout the town outside of the park).

At the park ar two dinosaur statues that were at the 1964 world fair.

The prints in the river. I needed to wade across to the other side. The water was cold but not very deep.

We walked to the second site that had both types of prints with rocks that you can use to walk across.

From there we drove to Waco to visit the chapel at the site of the Branch David is compound siege that occured in 1993. It was definitely propaganda that is anti government even though there were plenty of reasons for the federal government to come into it that day. Unfortunately many people lost their life that day. Maybe it could have been handled differently. However, the information on the inside was definitely cultist.

From there we headed to downtown Waco and found the Dr. Pepper museum. Interesting intersection on sodas and the int rejection with history, innovation, and culture. Getting a free drink and upgrading to a Dr. Pepper float was a highlight.

I also visited Magnolia, the site of the Gaines’ media empire after their days on HGTV.

On our walks in the neighborhood we looked for wildlife and Texas bluebonnets.