Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country, Day 18

 Friday, September 26
And return Saturday

We spent the night at another RV Park, this one the Back Forty RV Park in Quanah, Texas.  Very not memorable.  I have no notes and I honestly can't remember a thing about it, good or bad. From my pictures it's just a flat spot with gravel and RV hookups. Blah.

Returned on Saturday, taking the google maps recommended route of I-35 South in Denton to Lewisville, where we pick up the 121/Sam Rayburn Tollway to home.  It's like the two sides of a right triangle instead of the hypotenuse.  But it's faster. Really faster. And NO traffic lights.
 

Trip notes:
1. Current drive times indicate that for every three hours google time, add an hour for our time. And if the road is up mountains, add a another hour.

2. Always stay in Tucumcari (or nearby, at the State Park) and eat at Las Chaparitas.  

3. Go back to Canyonlands someday and take the Jeep down the dirt roads.

4. Avoid private RV parks like the plague.  A few that we've stayed at have been very nice, but in general they suck.  KOAs maybe be the exception to this--we've stayed at some pretty nice KOAs--but even those were crowded and uncomfortable.  Remember--anytime you're staying at a private RV park that has permanent or seasonal dwellers, you're basically staying at someone's home.  You have to be on your best behavior at all times; very careful not to upset the locals. And who wants that?

Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country, Day 17

Thursday, September 26

 

 

Cochiti Lake, farewell.

Good-bye to parks and lovely views. We returned to Tucumcari for the night at an RV park--Blaze-In Saddle RV Park, to be exact.

It was a nice place but very crowded and cramped. The manager was very nice.
Little or no shade, which is to be expected in the desert. It was convenient, but had some road noise.  There was a dog run but no place else to walk dogs.  I noticed one of the permanent residents come home, let out their dogs--loose--to run and take a quick dump outside the dog park.  They called the dogs back and, I guess, went inside. I didn't see them again. And luckily, Molly didn't see them at all.

I don't remember anything else about the place. It was just blah.  But for supper, we returned to Las Chaparitas restaurant. Yummy!  This time I had Camarones Diablos (or some such thing.)  And I asked for charro beans instead of the rice, so they brought me out two bowls of beans. What they called a salad was pretty lame, but with $1.95 of avocado topping it, it was better than most restaurant salads.

Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country, Day 16

Wednesday, September 25

For our second day at Cochiti Lake, we decided to risk the long drive without Molly to see Bandalier National Monument. We left at about 10:30 and did not return until after 3:00. Which sucked. Except it was such a very great place!

The drive to get there--and back--was horrid.  We had to go up a huge hill to get to the suburbs of Santa Fe; I was driving and I didn't get a good start on the way up, so by the time I reached the top my speed was down below 50. In a 75 mile per hour zone!  Bad driving, I say so myself.  (Luckily I was in the truck climbing lane, stuck behind a big truck that wasn't doing any better.)

The parking lot was full but we were able to squeeze into a spot in the overflow parking area. The visitor center was so crowded that all we did was visit the restroom and show our pass. But when we got onto the trail to the ruins, the people thinned out nicely. And everyone was very polite.

 

There's a long canyon wall where there are dwellings all down it. So cool. And ladders you could climb up and look in.

Next to the canyon was a mostly dry creek and a wooded area, then the opposite wall. And in the wooded area, very close to the visitor center, I saw a Hepatic Tanager!   New life bird!

 

Later I took Molly for a long walk, almost to the boat ramp. The only reason we didn't go all the way is there were warnings about blue-green algae in the lake and I didn't want Molly drinking out of it.  Stupid me forgot her water dish!

We saw an interesting animal down there. It was a little larger than a squirrel, thicker bodied, and with less tail. But it was nowhere near the water, so I don't think it was an otter.  Maybe just a squirrel.  No good picture.

Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country, Day 15

Tuesday, September 24

Leaving Ruins Road for Cochiti Lake COE Campground. We got a late start on purpose because it was only a 3-hour drive but the check-in time was 3pm.

Cochiti Lake was almost the exact opposite of the RV park we'd just left. It was quiet, with few people. No road noise. Birds. Lovely.

 

 

 

 

 The lake is very low but we could see it off in the distance from our camp site. It's a Corp of Engineers campground, built when they built the lake, and a little aging but well kept up.  It's very large and spread out, with lots of camping loops. Not excessively crowded, but enough people that I had to keep Molly on a close leash.

There was plenty of walking along the roads, which is usual for a Corp Campground, but there are also a couple of trails. I didn't find them until the second day, so we never took one.  Sadly, it was very hot. We did a good bit of walking, but we didn't especially enjoy it.

Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country, Day 14

Monday, September 23

Long drive but maybe not as long as we were expecting. Actually in distance it wasn't that bad, but the slowdowns and all the shitty little towns with speed limits pushed our drive time up to a little over four hours.  We ended up not taking a lunch break because there were no rest areas expect the little one way back in the Ute Mountain Indian Reservation.

Always mountains ahead and in the distance, but the only significant elevation change we experienced was at the beginning, getting down out of the Canyonlands and Moab rocky scenery. We went alongside El Sal Mountains, but not close enough to have to do their ups-and-downs.

And so we arrived at Ruins Road RV Park. It's smack dab in the middle of the little town of Aztec; it has no view; not great as far as amenities and lot spacing, and it's 99% permanent dwellers so it feels like you're in someone's back yard.  But it backs right up to the Animas River and has a tent area there, somewhat private from the RV sites.  Molly and I will go walk back there in the evening.

The river:

 

After getting set up, I tried to go jogging with Molly on down Ruins Road to the Aztec National Monument Site.  Note right now: although it's called "Aztec", it was not built by the Aztec peoples of South America, nor did they ever come anywhere near this area.  Apparently that term was indiscriminately applied by the Spanish explorers to cover all native sites.  It was built by ancestral Puebloans, the same ones who created Chaco Canyon.

(Apparently the modern day tribes don't like their ancestors being called "Anasazi"; it's somehow a deragatory term.  So the correct term is "ancestral Puebloans")

Molly and I jogged cautiously down the city streets and onto the monument, where we found prairie dogs galore. They had a town just outside the visitor center and another over by the picnic area.  A nice park employee told us it was okay to have dogs in the Picnic area and parking lot, and also--I think--on the bike trail. But we only went a little way on the bike trail before I got worried that we should be there and turned back.  There were interpretive plaques alongside the trail and it was clear that we were on the monument's grounds.

But as we went back, I was able to see over the fence to the Archaeological/Restoration site--it was huge and looked really cool. So we jogged back to the RV, avoiding getting attacked by a home dweller's loose dog who fortunately responded well to the word "NO" and never left his yard. Maybe he was on a shock collar or maybe just well-trained, but whatever the reason, it was a nightmare to see an unleashed dog running right toward us. The owner came out of the house, but I ignored her and went on with a snarl.

In any event, we won't be going back to that RV park again. Leaving Molly behind, Ed and I walked the 1/3 mile stretch back to the monument.  Great place. Some of it was recreated by the archeologist Earl H Morris in 1916, who spent seven seasons excavating Aztec West and the great Kiva. In the 1930s he returned to supervise reconstruction of the great Kiva. It looks much like they think it did originally. Most of the (many) other rooms are pretty much in their original state or else the restoration was so skillful I couldn't tell old from new.

Great place and I'm incredibly happy we went to see the ruins.

Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country, Day 13

 Sunday, September 22

Last day at Sun Outdoors Canyonlands Gateway, thank heavens. It's a nice place but simply too crowded. I chose it because it was away from town and close to Arches National Park, and I don't regret that choice. But the many millions of people and dogs all over the freaking place are driving me batshit crazy.

Pretty nice day. Got up early-ish and went for a short drive into Canyonlands National Park. We only had to wait in a 2-3 car line to enter, but when we left at 10:30 or so there was a significant line building. And more cars on the way.

Lesson learned: go early. If you want to see wildlife, go very early.
Add to places-to-go list: Definitely want to come back to canyonlands and drive dirt roads down into the canyon.
Then we took a break and headed back to Arches for our 12-1 entrance time slot. The way it works is that you pre-reserve an entrance time and then once inside, you can stay as long as you want.  This is supposed to reduce congestion on the roads and prevent the parking lots from filling up. For those purposes, it seems to work pretty well. But the wait to get inside the park was over 30 minutes, on account of all the people who needed to pay fees, ask questions, or be turned away because they hadn't reserved a time slot.

Gorgeous place, with at least one dirt road that Ed really wants to come back and take someday. We--and the paved road--stayed mostly up at the top of the cliffs for the scenic views, but the dirt road went way, way down. Maybe to the canyon floor. Nice.

No matter, though--we were prepared for it.  Once inside, we proceeded all the way to the end to walk the little trail to Landscape Arch, Devils Garden, plus a few of the others. It was a nice dirt trail, well worn by innumerable feet. But with some significant ups and downs that tired us out after a while.

Awesome views, all day long. I'm overcome with bug-eyed wonder.

Also I saw a whole conglomeration of Bushtit.

I couldn't identify them at first--my only thought was Verdin which I've seen out in the desert. But this didn't seem to be the place for them, plus Verdin don't usually flock like that. Merlin ID'ed the call for me, and after looking at the bird book, I agree.

And home, after a quick stop at the City Market grocery to pick up some perishables.

Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country, Day 12

 Saturday, September 21

It was a pretty short drive to the next campground, Sun Outdoors Canyonlands Gateway. Which is good, because we had a timed entrance permit to Arches for 2pm, which was the earliest I could get at the time I reserved it a month or so earlier. But it turned out that 3pm might have been better.  By the time we arrived and had lunch and Ed did his exercise and Molly got her walk, it was time to book it over to the park.

The line to get in was horrendous. We probably left the RV park at 2-ish, but by the time we were inside Arches it was nearer to 2:45. And then we hit a road construction one-lane road with a pilot car delay to get up the first big hill inside the park.  That took another 10-15 minutes or so.  

 

But little matter--the place is so gorgeous that there is no bad place inside  to be at.  No arches up there in the front, but rocks and slopes and views and...pretty much everything you could want except birds. Ah, well, I knew I was taking a chance when we came here in September. By the time I get home, fall migration will be about over. 

And then back to the campground.

Review: Sun Outdoors Canyonlands Gateway
All about the location

It's a nice, family run place, but very, very crowded.  We were squashed in like sardines in a spot only barely long enough for our 35-foot motorhome and toad.  The hookups and all worked fine, and I even think we had a little picnic table squeezed between our side door and the next neighbor's sewer line.

I noticed that back away from the road there were some sites for larger RVs that were much more spacious. I should ask for one of those next time.

The place was set up nicely for dogs, and when we went for a walk the maintenance man (maybe owner?) stopped to warn us about the goat's head stickers around the sides of the park. They weren't as bad as he said, but we did pick up a couple.  The dog park--a double one--was big and dusty but more than adequate. And there were baggie stands here and there.

All that said, it's in a prime location to access both Arches and Canyonlands.  You can go to either one without encountering Moab traffic.  So I'd recommend it--just don't expect peace and quiet or starry night views.

We ate supper that night at The Broken Oar. Even though we arrived just as they opened (at 5pm), the food took a long time to come. My food was okay, but the French Dip Sandwich was excellent.