Christy here, writing from Durango, Colorado. This is the first time we've had internet and electricity for a little while, so it's time for an update!
After leaving Albuquerque, we went north to Santa Fe, where we camped one night in a state park on the side of a mountain. It was quite cold, but we got a fire roaring and made friends with a fellow transient/camper from Chicago. The next night, we decided to save a few bucks and camp in a free National Forest campground on top of one of the highest mountains in the area. We were above 12,000 feet, and that was probably the coldest I've ever been in my entire life. In retrospect, I was experiencing symptoms of Acute Mountain Sickness, but I'm feeling much better now. In the morning, we awoke to the sounds of ice hitting the tent, packed up as quickly as possible in the snow, and got off that mountain.
From there, we headed to Bandelier National Monument for a visit, which is an old cliff dwelling site in a canyon a little ways outside Santa Fe. Near that area, a long time ago, there were some massive volcanic eruptions that covered many hundreds of miles hundreds of feet deep with ash, which eventually compressed to form this soft type of stone called tuff. This tuff eventually was worn away into a canyon, and in those canyon walls, people were able to scratch out rooms on the side of the cliffs. They also built stone houses and kivas (ceremonial rooms dugout into the earth) in the canyon bottom. People lived here around 600 years ago, and their descendants still live near that area.
A restored kiva.
Remains of the circular community in the canyon.
The view from one of the cliff dwellings.
Here you can see rooms built on the side of the
cliff, as well as entrances into some of the cliff rooms.
After Santa Fe, we headed further north to Taos, New Mexico. This is a pretty hip, artsy town that caters to ski enthusiasts. It was kind of an odd time to visit because it's too cold to mountain bike and too warm to ski. We stayed at a hostel so we didn't have to camp in the frost, and there found a ton of folks in town hoping to get a job in the ski valley for the season. Near Taos is the second highest bridge in America over the Rio Grande. The view is pretty amazing, and it's a little scary when a car goes over the bridge and everything shakes.
View from the bridge.
After Taos, we headed further north into Colorado! We camped at the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, which is a really interesting area. Land is very flat and fairly empty for a really long time, then the rockies just shoot up out of nowhere, high into the sky. Then you get a little closer, and find this almost perfectly circular area of massive sand dunes right up next to the mountains. The sand comes from far away and is carried there by two streams. Some of the dunes are over 700 feet high, and form such a beautiful and unique landscape. We spent one day hiking up through them. Some of the sand formed different ripples and patterns, some of it was hard as a rock, and some was so soft we sank right in. There were all kinds of different shadows, and fairly treacherous-looking dropoffs and peaks. Here are a few pictures.
Flat grassland, sand dunes, and rockies.
In the dunes!
Christy in the dunes.
The center of the dune basin, from on top of a really huge one.
Beautiful shadows!
Up on top.
That's me sitting up there.
It was quite cold camping at the dunes, so cold, in fact, that 1. my toothbrush was a frozen block, 2. Connor's contact lenses were frozen in little circles of saline, 3. our breath at night condensed inside the tent and froze, so the inside of the tent was covered in frost in the morning, and 4. our water bag froze almost completely solid. We were pretty excited to find out that there are hot springs in the area! And, thankfully, a modest community center had built a pool and only charged 8 bucks to use it and the hot tub, which is way cheap compared to most of the fancy resorts that pop up around hot springs. It was wonderful, and the pool had a beautiful view of the mountains.
Because of this cold, we got a cheap motel room (for the first time on our trip!) in Durango for two nights. We just spent today exploring town a little bit, and we're planning on heading a little further north into the mountains tomorrow. We'll be staying with our first couchsurfing host outside a tiny town called Ridgway, which is surrounded by mountains. We hope to get some good hiking in. We might not have internet for a while, so we'll be in touch when we can!
This is one of the scenic overlooks on our drive from the Great Sand Dunes to Durango.
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