Crossing the Southwest

Saturday morning

I slept through the sunrise (should have set the alarm, I guess), but didn't feel too bad about it, for on reflection I decided that Mather Point would probably not have looked that interesting at sunrise—at least, that was my best guess about the way the light would have hit the rocks. So I got up around 6:30, chilly and with an ache in my lower back as well as a pain in my right ankle. (I had twisted it last night when I stumbled just as I was leaving the campground. Three Aleve tablets and a cup of hot tea helped some, and by the time I'd finished my granola with fresh strawberries and had a shower, I was feeling better.

After breakfast I tidied up and then spent 45 minutes on a task that might seem trivial: sewing on a new steering wheel glove. The one that came with Gertie was one of those perforated-foam-plastic ones wrapped with vinyl lacing, and it had been hurting my hands ever since I started. Since I had a good leather steering wheel glove with me, I took the time to lace it on (with all lacing hidden inside rather than just wrapped around the wheel) in order to spare myself this small but constant driving aggravation.

I've plotted my route across northern Arizona and on to Taos, New Mexico, though I seriously doubt I'll get there today—it's already 10:30. I'll see how far I can get before I tire. As mentioned yesterday, I really do need to rack up some miles in the next few days, after having spent my first week in just one state!

Saturday night

Well, I put 382 miles behind me—a long day's driving. I'm now in Chama, New Mexico, about a third of the way across the state and only about 75 miles from Taos, my next planned destination. Actually, I don't know how much time I'll spend in Taos—it's on my list mainly because I liked its artists'-colony ambiance when Sandy and I stopped there in 1975.

Most of the day was spent driving across the endless Navajo reservation. Flat and desolate to my Easterner's eyes, it was enlivened only by the occasional butte or mesa. I missed several good photo opportunities in the afternoon—Red Mesa and Baby Rock in particular—because there simply was no place to pull over. On a road with scant three-foot shoulders, I simply didn't dare risk getting stuck.

I did get one picture of power lines marching across the bleak landscape, carrying electricity from the huge coal-burning plant at Four Corners—reputedly one of the western hemisphere's biggest single pollution sources—to places like Los Angeles and Phoenix.

Surprisingly, I even ran into a little rain...a light drizzle of tiny droplets that speckled my windshield, but appeared not to ever wet the ground.

I stopped for lunch at a Navajo shopping center. Pasta salad and corn chips made a tasty meal, and I stopped in at the general store for a thimble and some paper cups for the dispenser in the bathroom. (They turned out to be the wrong size, so I now have 200 3-oz. Dixie cups that I have no use for.) It was interesting to be entirely surrounded by Native Americans—I was the only white person present as far as I could see. It was almost like being in a foreign country—except that they all spoke English.

One minor accomplishment for today: I fixed the windshield washer, which had stopped working shortly after I installed the new pump. Turned out that the reservoir had a layer of slime at the bottom that kept clogging the intake filter screen. (Good thing there was an intake filter!) I dumped and rinsed out the tank and refilled it with washer fluid, and that solved the problem. Now the washer works nicely. I find dirty windows, like dirty glasses, very distracting, so this was important to me.

RVing paranoia?

As I sat in the parking lot, someone knocked lightly on the door. Greatly surprised, I looked out (through the heavily tinted window, so that I could not be seen) and saw a ragged old man standing a few feet away, fidgeting. He looked disreputable, so I decided to ignore him. But he walked around to the front, where he could see me through the windshield, and waved. Now I was trapped. I took down the canister of pepper spray from beside the door and took off the safety, then opened up and asked what he wanted. He was apologetic: "I'm very sorry to disturb you, but I just wanted to try to sell some of these sand paintings," holding out a couple of 6" x 6" squares. I thanked him and declined politely. Was I being too paranoid? On the whole, no. He was a scruffy-looking stranger, I was alone, and I'd been warned that there were some tough characters on the reservations and that tourists had occasionally been robbed. Yes, this fellow turned out to be harmless, but in retrospect, I shouldn't even have opened the door.

At 3:40 p.m. I crossed the border into New Mexico. I was pleased to have finally left Arizona. Not that it's a bad place!...but given the fact that I had already been on the road for a week without leaving the state, this was a milestone of sorts. It's easy to see that this area is down on its luck. The occasional towns are liberally sprinkled with pawnshops and similar establishments—"PAYDAY LOANS HERE", "CASH LOAN FOR YOUR CAR TITLE! UP TO $5000—KEEP YOUR CAR!" and so on. The other dominant business seems to be auto parts stores. I counted four in as many blocks in one town.

At Shiprock, just inside New Mexico, I made a decision to continue on to Chama. I called ahead to reserve a space at a campground there and then headed into the twilight. As it grew darker I gripped the wheel tighter—my hands were aching from the long day's driving, but I couldn't help myself as I navigated one winding two-lane road after another. It took me three more hours of driving through almost entirely deserted countryside—not a light in sight other than my own headlights—before I reached Chama. I had known it would be a push, and I was pretty well worn out by the time I arrived, but I was trying to make up for that lost day in Phoenix and the day spent recovering in Williams.

This part of New Mexico is mostly on the Rocky Mountain Plateau (I'm at 7,900 ft. right now, 500 feet higher than the Canyon's South Rim), and is far more attractive than the Navajo reservation: lots of greenery here makes me feel more at home. This campground could be anywhere in New Jersey, by the looks of it. I'm parked in the middle of a wooded grove, surrounded by trees and linked to other groves by gravel roads. It's a lovely site, made even better by the constant sound of the Chama river nearby. This is much the nicest commercial campground I have yet visited.

Sunday

I slept well last night. My back feels decent, and my ankle is almost back to normal. This campground is lovely in the daylight! Gertie is surrounded by cottonwoods. In the background is the Chama River, spanned by a small steel-truss railroad bridge. The campground brochure says that this the famous Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Narrow-Gauge Railroad.

I was lazy this morning and didn't get underway until 11:00. Then I headed south toward Taos, my next destination...but passing the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic station on the way out of town, I had second thoughts. After all, why rush to get to Taos—a place that was only on my list because I had been there 25 years ago—when a narrow-gauge railroad was likely to be much more interesting? I had visions of maybe taking a short ride through the rugged country, sort of like the Strasburg Rail Road in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. So I turned back.

It turned out that the C&T ticket office was closed. I don't know whether they don't take passengers on Sundays or they just weren't open yet—there were no schedules posted, so I couldn't tell. I strolled around the rail yard a bit photographing the machinery...the mammoth snow blowers especially fascinated me. If I had been expecting anything special, I might have been disappointed, but as it was I felt that I'd seen what there was to see, taken a few pictures...and most important, had done the right thing in following my urge to take a digression from the planned route—a habit I need to cultivate!

As I headed southeast again on Route 64, I was entranced by the beauty of the land: rolling hills with groves of pines and cottonwoods, the latter a brilliant yellow-green. Streams were rushing along, fed by snowmelt from the mountains. I love the look of this Rocky Mountain Plateau country, and could easily imagine myself living here. Of course it's spring, so I'm seeing it at its best...just as I have glowing memories of the beauties of Saskatchewan, which I saw at the height of its all-too-brief growing season.

Twisty roads

As I climbed higher and higher into the hills, poor Gertie labored along more and more slowly. After an hour or two of struggling up twisty mountain roads, my hands were aching from gripping the wheel. Gertie chugged slowly onward, reaching 10,569 feet at the peak. Whenever I came to a pull-off, I would pull over and let the cars behind me pass. Embarrassing...but Gertie was doing her best, so there wasn't anything I could do but be patient and make the best of it. To her credit, she never even came close to overheating. I stopped a few times to shoot panoramas of the beautiful views. There was still snow on the ground (but not on the road, thank goodness!) above 8,500 feet or so.

Finally I began to descend. Although mountain downgrades had been one of my biggest concerns before I got Gertie, I had no real problems—just downshifted to second and tapped the brakes occasionally. Some of the curves were marked for 20 mph or even 15! As I reached the more or less level plain, I was able to resume 55 mph and continue toward Taos.

But before I got there I came across a spectacular view. The Route 64 bridge across the Rio Grande Gorge was designed with sightseers in mind; it had large parking areas at either end and broad pedestrian walkways with lookout points spaced along the span on both sides. Although of course this gorge was not nearly as deep as the Grand Canyon, in some ways it was more spectacular because—unlike the Grand Canyon—you could walk right out over the middle of this one and look straight down at the roiling water far below. Fortunately the railings were very sturdy, and I had no problems with acrophobia! I shot some vertical 90° panoramas—from straight down all the way up to the horizon—that I hope will be spectacular when assembled, as well as some nice views of the Rockies from the parking area.

Taos

After that it was back to twisty roads for awhile, then into Taos. To be brief, Taos was a bust—I found that I just wasn't in the mood for an artsy-craftsy tourist trap. It had been headed in that direction when I last visited in 1975, and the trend had only accelerated since then. I had planned on having lunch in Taos—it would have been my first lunch in a restaurant since starting this trip!--but was so turned off by the place that after wandering around town for half an hour I got back in Gertie and headed east.

But almost immediately I found myself in another maze of twisty mountain roads with 20 mph hairpin bends. The scenery was beautiful, but I was not in a position to appreciate it except out of the corner of my eye, as I tried to keep Gertie in the very narrow lane and not to think about the sheer dropoff two feet from the edge of the road. I was beginning to wish I were in the flatlands of Oklahoma or Texas as Gertie lumbered up and down the steep hillsides. Finally I pulled over in a small trailhead and ate a quick lunch. By this time it was 4:00 in the afternoon, so my lunch was very nearly dinner. I really needed a break from the strain of mountain driving.

Back on the winding, hilly road, I thought about how far I could get today. I had originally hoped to reach the Oklahoma border before stopping, but I began to realize that if there were much more of this hill-climbing to do, that was probably wishful thinking. Checking my campground directories while I ate lunch, I found that there were almost no free campgrounds between Taos and the border. I had passed a few commercial RV parks (mostly in Eagle Nest, an extremely heavily commercialized ski resort area) but was not in the mood for more of that—and besides, none of them looked very attractive.

Camping heaven

As I was musing on where to spend the evening, I suddenly came upon a Cimarron Forest State Park campground and quickly pulled in. I could see that the setting was beautiful—shaded sites in a wooded valley between two hills, with a stream running behind the sites. The place was deserted. Making a snap decision to stay the night, I filled in the registration form, slipped my ten dollar fee in the envelope and picked a spot where I had a panoramic view of the woods, the hillside and the stream burbling along 15 feet from my window. This is my kind of camping!

True, I stopped at 5:30—earlier than planned. True, I made only 120-odd miles today. But I was tired from the difficult driving and figured that the chances of stumbling on a spot like this two hours from now were minimal, so I decided to stop now, bring this journal up to date, go to bed early and get an early start. (Yes, I know you've heard this before—but this time I will set the alarm!) I didn't even turn on the music (I had been working my way through a three-CD Händel set)...the sound of the stream is music enough.

I can hear a little rumbling now and then...there's a thunderstorm in the mountains; I saw lightning flashes miles away over the peaks as I was driving here. I hope the storm doesn't come here...though as long as the tree I'm parked under isn't hit by lightning, not much can happen to me, snug inside Gertie. The sign at the entrance said to watch out for black bears, but that doesn't worry me. (If I had a tent, I think I'd be very nervous!) Snug in my rolling home, I can feel myself falling in love with Gertie as I fall asleep.