March 10-12, Vegas to Santa Fe, sort of
By Chris Ransdell
Originally we planned to spend 1 night in Vegas and then drive to Farmington NM for an overnight road stop on the way to Santa Fe. What we ended up doing was staying 2 nights in Vegas because we like it and the Casino Royale was a decent place to stay (and I worked some).
When we got on the road Tuesday morning, there was some temptation to make up for that extra Vegas day so we didn't book a room in Farmington. It was, as expected, a very long haul from Vegas to Santa Fe but it took us on a drive through tour of Zion national park and was not an unpleasant day overall. Another thing we went by was the Navajo Generating Station in AZ. By itself it wouldn't have been very interesting but after driving by it I noticed a strange electric railroad next to the road. It looked like some sort of bizarrely misplcaed light rail line complete with modern concrete ties and catenary weights. Of course it turns out to be a nearly 100 mile long railroad that does nothing but connect a coal mine and the generating station. They must have done a lot of math to determine that they would eventually save enough diesel to pay for such expensive infrastructure. One token Zion pic below.
Dinner ended up being in Farmington and didn't end up being the Mexican place we tried to navigate to. The street numbers just didn't match up with what the GPS said and when we gave up looking we were at a Buffalo wild Wings which we have gift cards for. So Brian had Buffalo mac and cheese (yum) and I had a Pepperjack steak wrap that was disappointing. Going over a mountain pass in NM (in the dark) we counted 16 rabbits, several experienced near bunny death experiences in front of the car.
I tried something for the first time and let On Star book a room for us in Santa Fe. The Hilton was very nice and the price seemed good for what it was. Only when we arrived did we realize it was at a casino. ugh. We are going to have to have a nice long gambling break now because there has been a lot already this trip but it is fun for us. We got in so late the first night that we went straight to bed.
Wednesday, after a delicious breakfast, Brian headed out to do laundry and I got 3.5 hours more work in and it was good new stuff to work on. In the afternoon we headed to Bandelier national monument. I knew nothing about Bandelier NM but it was relatively close and the hotel guide said it had hiking trails. It turned out to be a gem of a stop with some amazing cliff side ruins and lots of challenging ladders to climb on some of the trails. We did the main loop (1.1 miles) and added on the spur to the Alcove house which added one mile and a lot (140 feet) of ladders to climb. All the pics are from Bandelier.
Only on Wednesday did we start to think about what would be involved with camping near Carlsbad caverns, our next scheduled stop. Well, it turns out the middle of nowhere has very few campgrounds and at this time of year a lot of campers. There was little chance of scoring a site late on a Thursday when the reservable campground nearby was booked solid so we have made schedule changes. We now have reservations for Brantley Lake state park in New Mexico for 3 nights starting Wednesday the 18th. This is leading to some spontaneous thinking as we now have a lot of time before we swing down to NW Texas. For now, we are headed to Black Rock Mesa, Oklahoma. It is the highest point in OK and someplace I have wanted to hike for a long time. I even like the utter nothingness of the pan handle of OK. So tonight should be our first night camping and tomorrow our first big hike of the trip. Never did make it into Santa Fe exactly.
Originally we planned to spend 1 night in Vegas and then drive to Farmington NM for an overnight road stop on the way to Santa Fe. What we ended up doing was staying 2 nights in Vegas because we like it and the Casino Royale was a decent place to stay (and I worked some).
When we got on the road Tuesday morning, there was some temptation to make up for that extra Vegas day so we didn't book a room in Farmington. It was, as expected, a very long haul from Vegas to Santa Fe but it took us on a drive through tour of Zion national park and was not an unpleasant day overall. Another thing we went by was the Navajo Generating Station in AZ. By itself it wouldn't have been very interesting but after driving by it I noticed a strange electric railroad next to the road. It looked like some sort of bizarrely misplcaed light rail line complete with modern concrete ties and catenary weights. Of course it turns out to be a nearly 100 mile long railroad that does nothing but connect a coal mine and the generating station. They must have done a lot of math to determine that they would eventually save enough diesel to pay for such expensive infrastructure. One token Zion pic below.
Dinner ended up being in Farmington and didn't end up being the Mexican place we tried to navigate to. The street numbers just didn't match up with what the GPS said and when we gave up looking we were at a Buffalo wild Wings which we have gift cards for. So Brian had Buffalo mac and cheese (yum) and I had a Pepperjack steak wrap that was disappointing. Going over a mountain pass in NM (in the dark) we counted 16 rabbits, several experienced near bunny death experiences in front of the car.
I tried something for the first time and let On Star book a room for us in Santa Fe. The Hilton was very nice and the price seemed good for what it was. Only when we arrived did we realize it was at a casino. ugh. We are going to have to have a nice long gambling break now because there has been a lot already this trip but it is fun for us. We got in so late the first night that we went straight to bed.
Wednesday, after a delicious breakfast, Brian headed out to do laundry and I got 3.5 hours more work in and it was good new stuff to work on. In the afternoon we headed to Bandelier national monument. I knew nothing about Bandelier NM but it was relatively close and the hotel guide said it had hiking trails. It turned out to be a gem of a stop with some amazing cliff side ruins and lots of challenging ladders to climb on some of the trails. We did the main loop (1.1 miles) and added on the spur to the Alcove house which added one mile and a lot (140 feet) of ladders to climb. All the pics are from Bandelier.
Only on Wednesday did we start to think about what would be involved with camping near Carlsbad caverns, our next scheduled stop. Well, it turns out the middle of nowhere has very few campgrounds and at this time of year a lot of campers. There was little chance of scoring a site late on a Thursday when the reservable campground nearby was booked solid so we have made schedule changes. We now have reservations for Brantley Lake state park in New Mexico for 3 nights starting Wednesday the 18th. This is leading to some spontaneous thinking as we now have a lot of time before we swing down to NW Texas. For now, we are headed to Black Rock Mesa, Oklahoma. It is the highest point in OK and someplace I have wanted to hike for a long time. I even like the utter nothingness of the pan handle of OK. So tonight should be our first night camping and tomorrow our first big hike of the trip. Never did make it into Santa Fe exactly.
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