9/5/10 Taos, New Mexico. The San Francisco de Asis Church. One of the most painted and photographed churches so I had to be a part of that. These first 2 pictures are out of order but I can't figure out how to insert them elsewhere! The Taos area was full of pueblo style buildings, lots of art, outdoor restaurants, and native history. Lots of people had dogs with them and they hung out at the outdoor eating establishments with them, too!
9/3/10 Leaving Enid, Oklahoma after the evening storm. We traveled 300 + miles today. The weather was actually one of the better riding days with the morning starting out at 59 degrees as you can see on the local cafe sign and by 11 am it was 86 degrees! The far northwestern part of Oklahoma was called "No Man's Land" for a reason. Acre after acre of sagebrush, maize, cattle grazing, rare windmill, more oil pumping, and not much of anything! It was a good day to cover a lot of territory and the "original sod house" we stopped to see wasn't open when we got there!
After lunch in Balko, OK (far northwest corner) we
ventured over the border of Oklahoma to New Mexico just missing the Texas border by about 10 miles. By then it was time to call it a day so we found T-Rex at the local KOA in Clayton, NM. This is also the home of the 12 time steer roping champion in case you didn't know that! Had a great campsite that filled up by nightfall and we had motorcycle tent campers on both sides of us. We visited with all of them and got ideas on our next destinations. One couple was going to Angel Fire, NM to a Blues, Brew, and Bike Festival and since we were heading towards Taos anyway we decided we would make that our next stop! The other guys recommended Pagosa Springs, CO when we get that far... We'll see!
Mark and I set up camp, I did laundry and he headed over to the grocery store to get grub to cook up for dinner on our one fry pan that has doubled for lots of things! We are still on propane tank #1 even! It didn't take us long to figure out why they had the wind barriers set up for the campers.... We put out table and chairs right in that corner, made up a little campfire and called it good for the night. It still takes quite a bit of time to get everything reconfigured in the cargo trailer and gear seems to "grow" as we get further in the trip or maybe we just aren't as careful in repacking each day. We try keep each thing in the same bag and same place but that's not even foolproof!
9/4/10 Back on the road again or should I say trail. We weaved on and off the Santa Fe trail.Highway 56 was our route and we went through the beautiful Cimarron Canyon en route to Angel Fire, NM. The little towns had their firemen out collecting donations on the street corners. Thought of you brother Chris!
The locals were great on giving us directions and helpful information. Everyone seems so much more relaxed around here.
One of the local towns actually before we got to the New Mexico border. Just a smattering of the road signs to figure out which highway turns into what! I tried to be a good navigator but was interested in the catfish and shrimp they were advertising! Also another one of those temperature signs so I could jog my memory later of how hot it really was on most of our journey. We have experienced such temperature swings on this trip.
9/4/10 Yes, it's still the same day! We came over the Cimarron Range, into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the Carson National Forest to arrive arrive on the Enchanted Circle. The main towns are Eagle Nest (as you see here at 60 mph), Angel Fire, Taos, Questra, and Red River. We were at altitudes of 8000 ft. plus! We didn't know if we would camp or what but set out to find Angel Fire Resort where the festival was. We heard they had camping there. But at this altitude and high winds camping was going to take a back seat!
As you can see the resort won out! No camping close to the venue and they were having a special for the Bikes, Blues, and Brew festival and we got the last room at half price to boot. When we stepped into the room (right behind the flag pole on the top floor) they had given us an 800 ft. suite so we went ahead and booked it for 2 nights and called it home base! It was a good break for Mark since he's been getting some respiratory virus thing. It was nice to use a hair dryer and not put a helmet on to go somewhere! We were at 8400 ft. It takes your breath away just to walk across the parking lot!
The music ended up not being blues but rock! It
was still great and as you can see we adopted a
new family for the night. 5 of them were from Amarillo, TX and the couple with the dogs (Becker and Zena) from Albuquerque. They were a hoot to be with for the night. We even picked out the microbrew that won the contest for the night- Marble Brewing Co.
This is the happening place for skiing and there are many destinations around the 90 mile loop.
Tomorrow we are going to do the Enchanted Circle through those little towns that are nestled in the high mountains and along streams, creeks, and rivers.
9/5/10 Off we go. All along the roadways especially in OK, and NM we saw sunflowers decorating the sides. There were big patches of purple, yellow and red bush like flowers, too. Such diverse terrain in the high ranges.
I don't have many pictures of the day trip because my battery on my camera went dead. So we bought a disposable one for the day and I can't download real film! The church on the t0p of the blog was in Taos. We loved the town of Red River which is a big destination for Texans. Got to listen to local music at an outside cafe and even bought myself a Carhartt jean jacket! We made the whole circle and stopped at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial State Park just outside of
Angel Fire on the way back. They were also having a reunion of the "Ride To The Wall" where we were staying at. We had a more quiet night at the hotel tonight since most of those rowdy bikers were gone and families were heading out at the end of Labor Day weekend!
9/6/10 Off we headed west towards Colorado. Boy did we have some great scenery through the Sangre de Cristo mountains. The Carson National Forest was huge and we climbed up over 10,000 feet in areas. The new bike handled it well! You can see the driver looking down where we are headed to. The temperatures dropped and the wind picked up so we added an extra layer up here!
9/6/10 Crossing the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. 600 feet up from the riverbed!
We traveled through the last central/northern part of New Mexico towards Colorado. We had lunch in a small native road stop restaurant and had homemade Mexican food in Tierra Amarilla. One of the local men was sitting next to us and talked about all the good trout fishing around the area. There was a big bike rally here in the 4 corners over the weekend so there were lots of bikers going by!
Heading out of the Carson National Forest and towards Charma- on the border of New Mexico and Colorado. Leaving the sagebrush and seeing the mesas in the background. Great riding!
This was one of the best temperature riding days we've had. It stayed in the 70's-low 80's most of the day.
We have arrived in Colorado! It's hard trying to 
take pictures going 60 mph! Mark is patient with me trying to grab pics of all the road signs as well as the scenery! Needless to say there are a lot of deletes on the camera but I think I'm over 1000 keepers so far. It will be a good journal of where we have been because it's starting to become a blur on some of the days!
We are on our 13th state today and have over 5000 miles on the odometer!
this cool campground on the San Juan River in Pagosa Springs, CO. After chatting with the manager about his friend from Monroe, WA and the stories of his grandson taking over his ranch in Texas, we set up camp right here next to the river. The temperature was great during the day but by 7 pm we were starting a fire and trying to stay warm. We use our old maps as the paper to start the fires! We laughed at our little tent set up as we watched a 45 ft. semi motor home pulling a 30 ft. trailer that had a jeep and motorcycles in it set up a few spots from us. That's what the rich Texan retirees do! We bought some "canned goods" at the campstore and cooked us up some home made Southwest stew!
9/7/10 Well, the weather just got colder over the night. I thought I was cold in the Black Hills, SD but this night I was in all my leather riding gear and an extra coat and stocking hat. We woke up to frost on the picnic table and saw that the forecast was for thunderstorms and rain chance over the next couple days so we listened to our camping neighbors and decided to go into town. We had heard lots about the Pagosa Springs Hot Springs from campers and Dad and Linda so we opted to "experience" the real thing. We stayed the night at the resort and had 22 natural mineral hot springs pools that varied from 88-114 degrees. We spent the entire day in and out of the pools and worked on refreshing our tired bodies and help heal Mark's cold and congestion. It was just what the doctor ordered and we woke up to a downpour on Wednesday morning. We visited in the pools with our past camping neighbors and listened to all their stories of the various places they've lived and jobs they've held all over the USA. We have really enjoyed visiting with all kinds of people.
Off to Durango, CO today. Only 60 miles down the road but my driver is not feeling so great and we want to try and get our 5000 mile service done there at the only dealer around the area. We made a "reservation" to stay at another P.E.O. B&B for the night there.
Addendum: We are in Durango and have the Harley in for part of it's 5000 mile service so I've had the 2 hours to work on the blog! That's time management! Besides the BBQ joint we are at is really cool and Mark gets to listen to country music on the jukebox....
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