Looking forward to riding today! Yeah. Well, that was the plan. Steady winds of 25 to 35 mph, with gusts up to 50. Not riding in that! For some examples of the wind, check out this caution tape:

And these flags at Eagle Nest – they’re not starched that way!

Went to Eagle Nest to check out some eagles that were on display, a golden and bald. A rescue center was showing them. Pretty cool! Here’s the Golden:

Here’s the Bald:

And another shot of the Bald:

After that (and fighting the wind, almost losing my hat three times), check out Eagle Nest Lake State Park. You now, in my experience so far, New Mexico has some really great trails, and some really beautiful vistas up here in the mountains, but their people are not very hospitable, at least not any that work for or with any government entity that we have encountered. It’s almost like they don’t really want tourists. Well, after another few days we’ll be happy to oblige. Easy enough to go to places where we’re more than welcome without crossing New Mexico. Everyone we have met in private enterprise is delighted to see us, mind you, it’s just all those folks who are in charge of a lot of the public land we’d like to visit who have been less than welcoming. Oh, well, their loss.

Ah, Angel Fire! We were here almost 20 years ago, but I don’t remember much of it, not sure why. The air is VERY thin, and I had a lot of trouble with that yesterday, even fearing I’d have to leave for lower altitude. Fortunately, when I woke up this morning, I was breathing ok. Actually, much better than I ever did at Crested Butte last year. I never felt like I had my breath at CB last year, and it’s within 400 feet of here, and here I really feel fine today, so life is good!

Decided to ride some trails in town, just the local greenbelt, to kind of get a handle on how we’re going to handle this thin air. We left from the campground on the bikes, as town is only about a mile and a half away, and that’s where the greenbelt trails begin. Of course, I forgot to take any pictures (it’s SO hard to get good help!), so instead, here’s a small map from the trails brochure, so you can see what I’m talking about:

So, we rode to town, then I figured “let’s not start on the moderate Deer trail, but let’s got to Elk, then we can come back to the trailhead on Deer, that way we get the easy trail in first. Sounded like a good idea, and indeed, it was the best way to do it. The downside is that Elk is pretty wide open, no trees close to the trail for about 50 feet on either side, and we were fighting a headwind, along with a slight upgrade. But, from looking at the map, I figured we’d get payback, and we did! Elk was fairly easy (I mean, other than not being able to breathe!), and then Deer had a semi-short climb (maybe a quarter of a mile) that was kinda steep, but after that – all downhill! In the trees, some rocky spots, but we blasted all the way down. Lots of fun!

We decided best not to over-do it, so we just headed back to camp, ending up just a bit shy of seven miles – yeah, nothing distance-wise, but really the worse thing you can do is over-do, so we’re being careful. I really hurt at CB last year, and don’t want to do that here. We’ll ride more tomorrow, and further. Hopefully a LOT further.

Anyway, had lunch, a shower, then drove back into town, to check out The Pub. Clever name, that one! Anyway, a couple of brews, and to a bike shop for a map, and then Lowe’s for some ’tillas. No, no, not the home improvement store, the food store. In this neck of the woods, Lowe’s is a grocery chain.

So, back home, some dinner, some TV, and off to bed. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Oh, yeah, another thing today brought – STORMS! A nice mellow rain, and later a wicked-strong-wind-rock-the-hell-out-of-the-trailer storm. Lightning, thunder, the whole enchilada. NOT fun. But we made it ok. Hope tomorrow doesn’t bring another one of those.

Got up late and decided to go see the petroglyphs late morning. Since we got up late (’cause it got HOT pretty fast) we also picked up a lot of things we needed – a lock and cable for the Tailgater, a clothesline, food.

The petroglyphs were quite interesting – I got a lot of photos, but will only share a few, so as not to bore y’all. I’ll also share some thoughts that struck me as I saw those wondrous petroglyphs. This is, after all, New Mexico, home of Roswell (and ALL that that implies!). Hmmm …

Ok, let’s get started – first of all, here’s the trailhead:

And here’s a really cool petroglyph:

Pretty cool … but then it gets weird … like … the ancients meet science fiction! See this?

Doesn’t it look like this?

THEY DID EXIST! There WERE AT-ATs!!

And check this out, if you don’t already think New Mexico is weird. Remember the Nazca lines in Peru? Here’s a shot:

They have those here as well! Look!

They must be landing lines for space aliens!

Ok, maybe not, but it’s something to think about! Meanwhile, looking at more P-glyphs, I know how these came about – the elders got tired of the youngsters ruining the look of the old pueblos, so they said to ’em “Kids! STOP this foolishness. If you MUST draw your stupid graffiti, go do it on the rocks up on those hills over there, ok? Who’s gonna do it? Show of hands!”

See, even back then there were smart-asses!

While there, we got hit by a LOT of wind, and I’m guessing it could even be regarded as a dust storm. Here are some photos:

But maybe an hour later – rain! Go figure!

Anyway, after that it was Wendy’s for a salad for lunch. While there, I noticed something interesting:

“Touchless fixtures”. Yeah. Well, except for the DOOR HANDLE. Get my hands all clean after doing my business, then I have to touch that handle that all those OTHER folks touched, who DIDN’T wash their hands after touching … YECHH! How about a touchless door?

Ok, that was pretty much our day. The dust storm took it right out of us, so there’s no riding today. Oh, before I forget – here’s a look at our campsite here:

Yes, yes, sucky composition, but the point is this place is BARREN. But, it’s CHEAP, and ALMOST has internet, so we’re all good!

Tomorrow, we move on – Angel Fire, NM, here we come!

Today we ride! Woohoo!

We’re going to try the Foothills trails, and see how it goes. The Bear is walking ok now, and her ribs don’t hurt too much, so the only question is how the thumb is going to do with shifting.

This is Junior at the trailhead parking lot:

And a cool cactus nearby:

And this was the actual trailhead:

This shows that someone has a sense of humor:

The trails were fun! We did the flattest ones (such as they are!), and only got a few miles in, as The Bear started hurting. We did better than we thought – when we went out, it was slow going, but we figured out later that it was because we were going mostly uphill … of course, what that means is that the way back was a lot faster than the way out. Took a wrong turn on the return, but that ended up being a good thing – so good, we’re going back tomorrow, to do some of the higher trails. and amazingly, the altitude didn’t hurt us as much as we had thought it would. Remember, Palo Duro is only at about 2,500 feet, and this place is around 6,500, and we’ve only been here a couple of days, so not much time to get acclimated. We did well, so I’m just gonna go with it!

There were a bunch of cicadas in the area, and the noise is LOUD! Every now and then, I’d get hit by one, and it was really weird, you’d her them go PING-weeeeeeeeeee, as they hit and flew off. My camera did not pick up their noise, just me cussing them. Most interesting.

After the ride, it was time for lunch, so we went to the first place recommended by the guys at the bike shop – El Pinto. Here is the outside:

And this is about half the patio:

The food? EXCELLENT! What a great place to eat! It’s a New Mexican food restaurant, and it was very, very good! So good I forgot to get a photo – bummer!

Well, that was it – time to go home and rest.

Ok, today it’s run around and get things done, preparing to ride tomorrow! We hit a couple of bike shops, and get some pointers on the local trails. First shop we hit was Fat Tire Bicycles. Nice folks, very helpful. As a matter of sheer luck, they were next door to the BLM regional office, so we had stopped there first, and those folks pointed us to the Forest Service office, so we went there after the bike shop. Whew!

There was one more bike shop that looked good, so we headed for High Desert Bicycles. Here it is:

Very helpful guys also, and best of all, they pointed us to a great place to eat, right across the street! The Turtle Mountain Brewing Company:

And what we had to eat was a pizza. But not just ANY pizza. Turns out this ties for best pizza we’ve ever had! Barely beat out Fattys Pizza in Mountain Home, ID, and tied with The Slippery Otter in West Yellowstone, MT:

Awesome pizza! Thanks, guys!

After that, home to rest, but stopped by a place to pick up a Tailgater – Dish Network’s mobile TV. While we were waiting for the guy, we looked around at the RV park next door and saw some really cool old trailers they had on display. Here’s a couple, the second one is my favorite:

Cool!

Well, today we take The Bear to the doctor, to try and figure out what’s wrong. I’m waiting to hear as I type this. Hopefully they can get her fixed up.

Still threatening to rain, and it’s also gonna be raining in Albuquerque when we get there, but it should clear up in a couple of days or so. Anyway, tonight while it’s dry we’ll get hitched up and ready to go so in the morning we can just start up and head out. Looking forward to WiFi!

Ok, The Bear is going to live – yay! (I think!). Nothing broken, just a lot of bruises and bumps, and they’ll eventually heal. Good!

Do some laundry and back to camp, to get packed up for the trip out. But first, lunch at Feldman’s Wrong Way Cafe. Not bad. It’s a chain, but they make a pretty good Chicken Fried Steak. They set it on two slices of toast – nice touch! Here it is, after I started on it:

Also, when we returned to camp, I decided to get a couple of shots of the campsite, first without:

And then with the truck:

This evening, I got a video of the big bang! Pretty grainy (not much light!), but the reply cool part of ti is that you see the PrimaCord being set off, and then when you finally hear the bang, they light up the mountain with red lights, so that it really works. It’s pretty cool! Here it is:

Another day of trying to get The Bear healed up. No better than before. Starting to get worried about it.

Did I forget to mention that it rained yesterday? Yup, the curse is at it again!

So what’s up today? We’ll, in the morning, the park host stops by to tell us that there’s a 50% chance of thunderstorms and tornadoes. Great.

We walk around, talk to some folks, see the park host again. Chances are now 65%. Double great. Oh, yeah, and hail. Triple great.

It rains, and the wind is pretty stout, but we see no hail, and no signs of tornadoes. Yay!
In the evening, I want to catch a video of the play from where we are. Well, not the actual play itself, but the light show on the canyon rim, especially the big “lightning bolt” explosion. Well, it starts to rain, and the light is too low for my Nikon to shoot video, so I use my Garmin. Do I get the shot? Not exactly … See the attached video when I get it uploaded. Pretty impressive!

And here it is:

That was it! Everything before and after was pitch black. Notice how bright it was at the end – brighter than at noon on a clear day! And no, I did not get zapped, it was just the camera freaking out at how bright the light was on that last strike. Cool stuff!

Late start to the day, into town for supplies. Waiting sucks.

Been reading my Lightroom book at least, so there is that!