Heading back to Oregon

Well, I think my adventure is over. I'm tired of traveling and also need to get my kitties from their foster home. Autumn and Meghan committed to giving the kitties a foster home thru the end of March - I was hoping they could keep them longer, but they can't. There's also bad news on the kitty front. Tuft has always been an escape artist. About a month and a half ago, he snuck out and somehow managed to break his leg. It isn't healing well and he may need surgery, so he's fairly high maintenance at the moment. So I need to get back and deal with the kitties.

What I'm going to do, I don't know. I was hoping that during this trip I would find inspiration - either stumble on an opportunity or pass thru a small town that I fell in love with and wanted to settle in. But it hasn't happened. So I need to get serious and make some decisions. Find a job and a place to rent somewhere. Anyone have any good ideas?

In the short term, I need to find a place for the cats (and for me). Would anyone out there be able to provide them a home for a while? Know of a short term rental or housesitting job?

I'll be leaving Denver and heading back to Oregon this week. Not sure when I'll get there, it'll be somewhat weather dependent. If there aren't any bad storms coming I'll take the direct northern route and should be there by the weekend. If there are storms, I may take the southern route which will take longer. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again.

Marathon, TX to Big Bend to Guadalupe Mountains to Denver

I know - I've been AWOL for a while. Adventures and travel burnout set in, along with slow wifi for awhile, too slow to upload photos.

So on February 8 I left Marathon, Tx and headed south into Big Bend National Park. I had mail to deliver from the Guadalupe Mountains National Park ranger to the campground host at Rio Grande Village, so I headed there and set up my new tent:

Isn't it cute? Black and orange. Hmmm... hadn't really realized I was buying a beaver tent. Well when you put the rainfly on, it's sunshine yellow, and even cuter:

I'm really happy with the tent. It's easy to set up. And has doors on either side, which I'm loving - makes it much easier on a slightly unlevel campsite to put my head uphill and still have a door in a good place.

I was still recovering from my cold, so I had a few lazy days, spent some time sitting in the sun reading - it was sunny and in the 80s, just perfect weather. Did some scenic drives and short hikes. The Rio Grande is really not a very grand river:

Yes, that's it, and Mexico on the other side.

Really beautiful scenery:

After a few days I moved to the Chisos Basin campground in the mountains:

Did a really cool hike to the Window, which is a slot canyon that ends at a cliff down a couple thousand feet to the desert floor:

On the way back up I ran into a pack of javelinas on the trail:

In Chisos Basin the Jeep stalled on me a couple times, which it has never done before. As I was driving that Sunday to another hike, it coughed on me a couple times, the tach going to zero RPM, then picking right back up. Uhoh, I thought, and headed instead to the nearby gas station at Panther Junction, hoping against hope that they might have a mechanic on duty. Of course they didn't. What to do? I'm 60 miles or so from the nearest mechanic. Well, maybe I just got some bad gas, so I filled up with premium (which I never treat the Jeep to), and bought one of those STP gas treatments, hoping that might do the trick. I get back in, turn the key, and the engine just won't catch. Aaarghh!!! There I am, with a dead Jeep, 20 miles or so from my tent, on a Sunday, with no cell phone service. But luckily in a national park - I've really become a big fan of the park service. A nice ranger gave me a ride back to my campsite, then the next morning the campground host gave me and my stuff a ride back to the Jeep. The rangers let me use their phone at the Panther Junction visitor center to call the closest mechanic, Archie at Terlingua Auto Service. In such a remote spot, you figure you take what you can get in the way of service, but several rangers use Archie and recommended him which made me feel better. So I call to get towed there, and wouldn't you know it, Terlingua's tow truck driver has gone to Daytona to the races for a couple weeks. So I had to get a tow truck from Alpine to come get me. The Jeep went for a very expensive ride:

I got to Terlingua right as Archie was closing, handed over the Jeep and checked into the motel across the street for the night. The next morning I walked over and he had it diagnosed - a broken crank shaft sensor, which is a magnet that tells the computer how fast the engine is going around. If the computer doesn't know the engine is going around, it doesn't give it any gas. Not too expensive, but the part had to come from Midland, meaning it would be the next day. Well, people had told me Terlingua was a cool ghost town - it was a quicksilver (mercury) mining town back in the early 1900s, died in the 40s or so, then got resettled by hippies in the 70s. The mechanic was 5 miles or so from the ghost town at a highway intersection, but I'd been told of a hotel by the ghost town, the El Dorado. I figured if I could get a ride out there, I could hang out there for the day, which would be more fun. Archie said he thought he could find someone to run me out there. As I waited at the garage, John and Gayle, the couple from the campsite next to mine at Chisos Basin, pulled in to pick up a solenoid they'd ordered for their camper van. They'd been among the people to speak highly of Archie and recommended the El Dorado. They kindly ran me out to the ghost town:

They're traveling for a couple months and on the ride we got to talking about where we're from - amazingly they live maybe 5 miles from where I grew up in Virginia. Small world! So I got a room at the El Dorado and spent the afternoon sightseeing at the ghost town. It's a funky place, with a really cool old cemetery:

The next morning the hotel gave me a ride back to the garage, the part came in around noon, and by 1:30 I was on my way back to Big Bend. I camped for a few nights at the Cottonwood campground on the river in the western part of the park:

One day I took a really neat hike into Santa Elena Canyon:

Yes, that's the not-so-grand Rio Grande again:

Just a beautiful spot:

And I did some scenic drives around the western part of the park:

Big Bend really is an amazingly beautiful spot:

Then I headed back to Chisos Basin campground for a few nights since there was a hike there that I hadn't been able to do before called the Lost Mine Trail (no, there's not really a lost mine, they just call it that):

It was a steep climb, the trailhead is way down there where you can see the road snaking thru the mountains:
The views were really worth the climb tho:

Then I headed out of Big Bend, stopped a night at the Holland Hotel in Alpine, and back to Guadalupe Mountains National Park. When I was there before, I'd camped on the northern side of the park at Dog Canyon. I'd wanted to go to the Pine Springs campground on the eastern side, but the ranger warned me it was a really exposed windy spot - when I left Dog Canyon the forecast was for 60mph winds, gusting to 90mph, so I skipped it. But now I saw the forecast was for a few days of calm, nice weather, so I decided to check it out. It was a beautiful spot:

And I had a nice hike:

with some cool views:

The next morning tho the winds were picking up again, 25 or 30mph and forecast to get to 50mph later that day. Time to pack up and get out. Where to go, tho? My plan had always been to head south thru Arizona, New Mexico and on to Big Bend. From there I wasn't sure if I'd continue east, maybe volunteer with Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans for a few weeks. I checked out their website, and I guess it's a really popular thing to do for spring break - they don't need any volunteers until into April. So where to go? After that terrible cold, the Jeep's adventure, and with the winds picking up, I was sick of traveling, exhausted with packing up the tent and trying to decide where to go next. This is when good friends are a necessity. Looking at the map I realized it wasn't that far up I25 to Denver. So I called my friend Amy and pretty much invited myself for a visit. So I headed up to I25, stopped at the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, New Mexico for the night, and then on to Denver. I really owe Amy for putting up with me just showing up, I really needed to get off the road for a little while. Thank you Amy!

One day we had nice hike in the nearby White Ranch Park:


Amy, her dogs George (the fluffy black one) and Riley (the gray one), her friend Karl, and his dog Blitzen (the greyhound):

I've been enjoying relaxing and trying to figure out what to do next. And I also got to have a nice visit (and yummy lasagna) with my brother and his wife, who live here in Denver.

Addendum on the Gage Hotel

My room is cute, rustic and very Texas in its decorations. Including a skull, I think big horn sheep, hanging on the wall above my bed. Well, I've been a little feverish and having strange dreams cuz of this cold, and it just flipped me out. Didn't see how I could sleep under it last night. So I took it down and gave it a decent burial under a towel in the corner for the night. Just put it back up so the maids won't think I'm too weird.

I'm about to check out and head to big bend - the forecast for today is 85 and sunny! Yeah!!! The next week is pretty much sunny and in the 70s or 80s. I'm psyched!

Portal to Three Rivers to Bottomless Lake to Carlsbad Caverns to Guadalupe Mountains to Alpine to Austin to Marathon (Jan 26 to Feb 7)

So I finally left Arizona behind and headed into New Mexico. I stopped at their welcome center in Lordsburg and picked up a lot of info. Most of northern New Mexico is at high altitude, so snowy and cold at this time of year. Even southern New Mexico is pretty cold and windy - or maybe I just hit a baad patch of weather. I spent the night Jan 26 at City of Rocks State Park, which had really eerie standing stones (naturally occurring). It was getting dark when I got there so I meant to get pictures in the morning. Then it rained in the morning and I was so focussed on trying to get things packed up as little soaked as possible that I forgot all about pictures, so you'll have to check out their website, or just take my word for it.

I was also a little distracted because my Jeep's oil pressure gauge was going haywire on the way into the park. It would behave normally, then peg all the way off the scale to the max pressure. I guessed it might be the gauge, but decided not to take any chances. I left City of Rocks on Sunday the 27th and headed to the nearby town of Deming, where there's a Jeep dealer. I spent the night there in a La Quinta right across the street from the Jeep dealer and took my Jeep in first thing Monday morning. Turned out it was just the sensor, nothing wrong with the engine, but better safe then sorry.

After the Jeep was all fixed, I headed northeast thru Las Cruces to White Sands National Monument. What a crazy place. These bushes create their own sand islands as the dunes erode and move past them:


No, that's not snow, it's really white sand. And I realize ther's no scale, but that drift is about 20 feet high.

The wind was blowing like mad, driving the sand along, so I just did a short hike. Oh no - the wind filled in my footprints! Where's the Jeep?

Ah, not to worry, the park service has poles in the sand you can follow to find your way back:

(Just in case any of you are worriwarts - no, I didn't really think I was gonna follow my footsteps back, I always had the next post in sight)

That night I stayed at Three Rivers Campground in Lincoln National Forest. It was a beautiful site:

It was still really windy, so the campground host directed me to a site with a really sheltered tent site, kind of under a hollowed out tree canopy:

Admire that old blue tent you've been seeing in photos on and off throughout this blog - you won't be seeing it again. More on that in it's proper place.

The next day I went to the the Three Rivers Petroglyph site. There were just tons of amazing petroglyphs:

They're a different style then what I'd been seeing other places:

These ones are Mogollon, dating back to 900AD-1400AD:


Then I headed over to Bottomless Lakes State Park near Roswell to camp. A really nice place, but the lakes are only really like 90 feet deep. I guess in the desert that's still a lot of water.

I drove thru Roswell the next day. Thought maybe I'd check out some of the UFO stuff, but it all just looked kind of tacky and touristy in a bad way. Guess I just wasn't in the right mood. Anyway, I didn't get abducted or see any lights in the sky.

Then I headed down to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. You can't camp in the park, so I camped at White's City Resort right outside the park. If you're ever going to Carlsbad Caverns, all I can say is do NOT stay there. It was just about the most expensive campground I've stayed at this trip, and one of the absolute worst. The tent area was barren grass with dilapidated picnic tables, and I won't even go into the state of the restrooms. But it was convenient to the park.

The next day I walked down into the caverns. Farewell, surface world:

There were all sorts of cool rock formations:

Mainly, you'll just have to take my word for it, cuz my camera's flash isn't really bright enough to project across the distances involved.

Lots of cool rocks:

I may have to change my opinion that the National Park Service tries hard not to lose their visitors - this is a moderate hike?

Just kidding, that's a ladder into the bottomless abyss left by early explorers, you're not allowed down there these days.

This formation is called the Chinese theater:

I really enjoyed my hike thru the caves. I'm not really a cave person, but Carlsbad is well worth seeing. I spent another disgusting night at White's City, then in the morning headed off to Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

On the way I stopped at Sitting Bull Falls:

Yes, those are icicles hanging straight down, the liquid water is being blown out into the mist - it was still really crazily windy.

Then I got to Dog Canyon Campground in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, which actually took me a few miles out of New Mexico and into Texas. It's a small campground, maybe 10 sites, and I had it all to myself all three nights I was there. There's a ranger who lives just down the street and a few day hikers came in, but pretty much I had my own private national park.

On Feb 2, I hiked up a ridge:

to an amazing overlook into West Dog Canyon:

There were some cool cacti - I'm not sure what type of cholla this is:

On Feb 3 I hiked into Dog Canyon along the Tejas Trail:

I really enjoyed Guadalupe - just a beautiful place. I'd love to go back in the fall when the foliage is supposedly gorgeous.

I was intending to head to Big Bend after Guadalupe, so I talked to the ranger about the best route to take (he'd told me he used to be a ranger at Big Bend). I planned on heading southeast, staying at a historic hotel, the Holland, in Alpine for a night, then continuing on to Big Bend. I had no cell service and the Holland doesn't have a toll free number, so I couldn't make a reservation. The ranger assured me tho that there were several chain hotels in Alpine too, so I'd be sure to get a room there even if the Holland were full.

So I went to bed, woke up in the middle of the night and had to go to the bathroom. It was really windy and as I had my tent door half-unzipped, a really strong gust of wind blew thru and pulled the zipper off its tracks. I fussed with it, but no luck, I couldn't get it fixed. Nothing for it but a new tent. That one was like 12 years old, in need of a good clean, and not as waterproof as it could have been, so not a real drag. But where to get a tent? I thought of detouring up to Albuquerque to REI there, but then I'd be liable to get into snow in the mountains and it's really out of my way. Well, I'm car-camping I thought, I don't need a fancy back-packing tent, I could just get a cheapie Coleman tent at a Target. The ranger wasn't in his station to check with the next morning, but from what he said about there being several chain hotels in Alpine, along with a small university, I decided it must be a big enough town to have a Target, or some type of sporting goods store. So I stuck by my original plan and headed to Alpine. Well, I got a room at the Holland, which is a cool old hotel. And there are several chain hotels, and a small university. But it's a pretty small town - nothing like a Target, and surprisingly, being only a couple hours from Big Bend, no sporting goods or outdoors store. Pooey! What to do now for a tent? Luckily the Holland has wifi, so I surfed looking for options. In west Texas your options are limited. I could have driven 3 hours or so to Odessa to the nearest Target. I've been to Odessa and I can't say it's on my list of places I'm dying to return to. Or I could drive 6 hours or so to Austin, where there's an REI. And I always liked Austin. So that's what I did. Tuesday I drove to Austin and stayed at the Woodburn B&B, which was really nice. Wednesday I went to REI and got a nice new tent - you'll get a picture after I use it in Big Bend this week. Unfortunately the Woodburn was booked full Wednesday night, so I stayed at a different B&B, the Adams House, which was also very nice, tho not quite as nice as the Woodburn. I was hoping while in Austin to go out, have a nice dinner or two, but the last few days I've been fighting a nasty cold - fever, stuffed nose, and one horrendous cough. So I just took it easy - it was good to be inside, away from the cold. And the Woodburn even had laundry facilities, so I didn't have to track down a laundromat.

Today I started driving west again, heading back towards Big Bend. Driving west of Austin on 290 thru the hill country in gorgeous sunshine, I considered looking for some of the state parks around there and spending some time in the hill country. But I've spent time there back when I lived in Tx, and I've been planning on Big Bend. So I kept driving west. I thought I might make it there today, but it would have been after dark when I got there. Did I really want to set up my new tent for the first time in the dark? Plus my cold is on the mend, but still with me, so I figured another night inside would be good for me. So I stopped in the town of Marathon, maybe 80 miles or so from the park. I'm staying at another cool historic hotel, the Gage. Tomorrow I'll head into the park - I expect I'll spend a week or so in Big Bend, then I'm not sure where I'll head.

Tucson to Picacho Peak to Lost Dutchman to White Tank Mountains to Chiricahua National Monument to Portal (Jan 10 to Jan 25)

I had a lot of fun visiting with Nancy and her workmate Rebecca:

After she left on Jan 10th, I headed north to Picacho Peak State Park, between Tucson and Phoenix. One day I drove over to Casa Grande National Monument, a really cool Hohokam ruin:

Then I headed up to Lost Dutchman State Park, just east of Phoenix. It's a nice patch of desert right at the foot of the Superstition Mountains, but unfortunately I managed to accidentally delete my photos of it, so you'll have to take my word for it.

For Xmas my brother gave me a guide book, Hiking Ruins Seldom Seen. I headed to White Tank Mountain Regional Park, a county park west of Phoenix, to do a hike called the Waterfall Trail that the book said had lots of petroglyphs. There were lots:


and lots:
of cool petroglyphs:

I'm not sure about the "Seldom Seen" part tho. Admittedly, I was there on the Saturday of the MLK holiday weekend, so I probably saw it at it's most crowded, but there were at least 50 cars in the parking lot at the trailhead. It was a really nice hike up a canyon, even if a bit crowded. A nice extra was that the book lead me to White Tank Mountain Regional Park, which since it was a county park wasn't in any of my brochures of state parks, national monuments, etc. It was such a nice park that I camped there for several nights - a really nice campground with spotless restrooms with free showers (aah... luxury). And a very nice patch of desert with lots of Saguaro and my favorite Teddy Bear Chollas:

One day I did a really nice hike up Ford Canyon:



On the way back I saw some deer:

Then on January 21 I decided the Phoenix area was just too crowded, with sprawl tentacles reaching way out. So I headed southeast to Chiricahua National Monument. A really amazing place -rocky mountains above forest:

Full of crazy rock formations:

On Wednesday I did a neat hike 3 miles or so in to the Heart of Rocks trail, a mile or so loop trail through some amazing rock formations. I underestimated the time involved, or overestimated my ability to do 1000 foot elevation gain at 7000 feet elevation, or maybe just read my watch wrong. Anyway as I was hiking the Heart of Rocks loop, I realized I was gonna have to hoof it to make it back to my Jeep before dark. Then to make matters worse I missed the exit ramp from the loop trail. The loop goes thru rocks, a lot of steep steps, and the trail was a bit hard to find in places. But the National Park Service does try not to lose their visitors, and in most of the places where the trail was hard to find, there were footprints painted on the rocks, or a sign with an arrow. At one place I came down into a clearing and there was a sign pointing out of the clearing so I followed it. A little later a steep rocky patch of the trail, kind of like a giant's staircase, felt familiar to me. Nah, I thought, rocks do tend to look alike, and I kept going. A bit further on I came to a sign pointing out the Pinnacle Balanced Rock - that I knew I'd seen before. Dang, I was on my second time around the loop! I had a bit of a panic - I knew I didn't have a lot of time to kill if I was gonna make my jeep before dark. But I thought I remembered that sign from the beginning of the loop, so I turned back and looked around at the sign in the clearing. Sure enough there was another trail out of the clearing and in a 100 yards or so it brought me back to the main trail. And I made it back to my Jeep just as it was getting dark. The hike was worth the adventure tho:





The next day I headed east, made my first foray into New Mexico. A pretty brief one tho, I turned south, then back into Arizona to Portal, on the east side of the Chiricahua mountains. Last night and tonight I'm staying at the Portal Peak Lodge (the forecast was for rain, but not much has actually materialized). Today I took a really nice scenic loop thru the mountains:

And then a short hike in Cave Creek Canyon:


Tomorrow I'm gonna continue east, heading towards Carlsbad Caverns, tho I doubt I'll get there tomorrow. First I'm gonna stop at the New Mexico Welcome Center and get a map and their tourist info, see where else I should go.