It takes a good, long while to escape the State of Texas. After all, it is about as big as France and its economy is the same as Canada. We stopped in Amarillo to eat at a famous Burger joint, The Golden Light Cantina— a must on any burger-dive beer joint bucket list. Here’s some snaps…
We finally found the right Comanche trail and sneaked into New Mexico – it was a long way to Tucumcari (you know the song). There is an interesting effect in this area with the newer I-40 and the old Route 66 crisscrossing across the landscape, like a dance between spirit and efficiency. So much lost for such a gain. We made it to Santa Rosa, NM and its famed Blue Hole It was chilly and the few visitors that were there were wearing parkas and not swim suits. After wandering around the hole, Douglas felt at least someone should properly experience the Blue Hole in spite of the weather.
Afterwards, we rolled into an Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) water management area and campsite. After we got settled and listened to the wind howl and the cold air breathing against our mobile metal lunchbox. Around 9pm, I saw some light outside and lifted a curtain and saw two sets of campers attempting to put up their tents in the gusting winds. In the morning, I looked out the window and they were nowhere to be seen. Over and over again in our travels, we’ve seen ‘fair-weather campers’ attempt to battle winds and put a tent up at night…the result is always the same.
We reset our van for travel and headed to Cochiti Lake and Kasha-Katuwe- Tent Rocks National Monument. We arrived mid-afternoon after passing thru parts of the Pueblo de Cochiti Indian Reservation at another ACE campground. Later, we pointed the van at Santa Fe and headed there for dinner. The place we intended to go was all booked up, but they kindly recommended a Spanish restaurant a few blocks away, and it was cracker. The former was Pascal’s and the later was LaBoca. After dinner we strolled the beautiful streets of Santa Fe, listened to music and window shopped some fine art. There is something about Santa Fe that feels like home to Lisa and I. I remember telling Lisa shortly after we met that I want to live in an adobe. So I guess it is still on the bucket list. We hopped in the campervan and drove back thru the Indian reservation at night.
On Sunday morning, we got a jump on it and headed to Kasha-Katuwe, aka Tent Rocks, National Monument. It sits on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land. From their website, “The cone-shaped tent rock formations are the products of volcanic eruptions that occurred 6 to 7 million years ago and left pumice, ash, and tuff deposits over 1,000 feet thick. Tremendous explosions from the Jemez volcanic field spewed pyroclasts (rock fragments), while searing hot gases blasted down slopes in an incandescent avalanche called a pyroclastic flow.
Precariously perched on many of the tapering hoodoos are boulder caps that protect the softer pumice and tuff below. Some tents have lost their hard, resistant caprocks, and are disintegrating. While fairly uniform in shape, the tent rock formations vary in height from a few feet up to 90 feet.”
This monument is amazing…
