I’ve been getting behind. Today is catchup day. Here’s where we’ve been:
Snow and lake at Carson National Forest
Shiprock. We drove almost all the way around it and couldn't get close. It's enormous!
Four Corners: Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. I have a foot in each.
Driving south from 4 corners, we encountered some sheep in the road. A dog was trying to herd them, but they weren't paying attention.
Tomorrow we go to Canyon De Chelly. I hope for lots of pictures.
Marilynne
Taos Pueblo is a real town where people live and work in old, old houses and allow the tourists to come see during the day. Today was very quiet. It poured rain yesterday and the place was muddy.
Don’t you enjoy the contrast between the historic home and the pickup?
I truly enjoyed the friendliness of the people of Taos Pueblo. They seemed to want me to know and understand about the village. It didn’t feel like a tourist act.
Marilynne
Taos, New Mexico, is my choice for our vacation. (The Carlsbad Caverns were Roy’s.) The road north from White Sands and Alamogordo is long and runs through the desert so there isn’t much to see. There weren’t many towns along the way and those we saw seemed to be returning to the desert dust.
Deep blue sky and puffy white clouds
The closer we got to Taos, the more clouds we saw.
The sun was playing hide and seek, but this cloud gave clues to where it was.
We began to climb into the mountains.
As we began to climb into the mountains, we met the Rio Grande River.
Later, I asked someone if this was the same Rio Grande River that ran between Texas and Mexico. They said it was. I admit to being skeptical. We stopped for a while to stretch our legs.
Where there's water there are fishermen. He never looked away from what he was doing.
Fall has come to the mountains. They’re brightened by these trees with bright yellow leaves.
So pretty.
When we arrived in Taos, the clouds were moving in and it began to rain. Cold rain. It snowed at night in the higher elevations and the wind feels like it was just there at the snow a minute or so ago.
Today has been cold and rainy. I shopped around the square and bought a fashionable new scarf to highlight my dull looking, but very warm, coat. It looks great when I wear jeans.
We drove out to the bridge that spans the Rio Grande Gorge just north of town. The wind was so strong and so icy cold we were afraid we’d be thrown into traffic so we didn’t stay long and I didn’t get a picture.
Tomorrow we leave Taos and drive West, hoping to be at Shiprock or Four Corners before dark.
Marilynne
I can tell this one better with pictures. We drove to White Sands National Monument (and used our Lifetime Passes) because I wanted to see if it was true – that the sands are truly white. Here are pictures to show you.
At first it doesn't look like much.
Where they clear the road it looks like a snow plow has just been there.
We see tracks in the sand, lizards, birds, small animals.
I'm surprised to see people on the dunes. Won't it hurt them? No, the wind will blow the marks away.
Here the dune is clean. No marks, but the ripples made by the wind.
We leave White Sands behind and go to Alamogordo, New Mexico to see the Space Museum. It’s a glass cube situated on the side of a mountain – a desert mountain. I didn’t take pictures there, but I looked at so many. There are the photographs of everyone who made a significant contribution to the goal of outer space. There were lots of photographs, including a lot of photos of people who helped develop missiles. Missiles technology had to mature before we could send men into space.
Marilynne
