I have survived the Summer Olympics and the US Open tennis tournament. It was tough work but someone has to do it. After resting from all that exertion, I decided it was time to catch up on our summer travel blog.
We left you in the southern New Mexico high country near Cloudcroft. We dropped out of the mountains and stopped for a few days at the Valley of Fires National Rec. Area near Carrizozo.
The camping here is on a ridge that overlooks a valley that was covered with a recent (in geologic time) lava flow. See the very small bump on the horizon, just above and to the left of the covered table? That is where most of the lava came from. No big mountain volcano here. Bummer!
How do you tour a lava flow without getting all scratched up? You take the easy way and walk on the path.
From Carrizozo we moved to the small central New Mexico town of Mountainair. This town is surrounded by the ruins of three old Spanish churches that were built in the early 1600s. The ruins area is called the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument.
Gran Quivira Ruins
Abo Ruins
Quarai Ruins
It was just a short hop up to Albuquerque. While there we visited two museums. This shot was taken at the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History.
I was going to offer a prize to anyone who could identify the object in this picture but I couldn’t think of one so, if you know what this is, just imagine that you have received one.
The following images were taken in front of the Albuquerque Art Museum. This is a larger than life size, multi-piece sculpture showing the early-day travelers on the Camino Real, the road from Mexico City to Santa Fe.
From Albuquerque we moved to Santa Fe. Ahhhh Santa Fe! We really like Santa Fe. We stayed there almost three weeks. There is no place where you can get Mexican food like you can at Santa Fe. If I lived there I would probably weigh 300 pounds. Santa Fe is a relatively small town but it has over 200 restaurants. Between trips to the restaurants and window shopping at the art galleries, we squeezed in the world famous Santa Fe Summer Opera. We were going to go to just one opera but we enjoyed it so much we ended up going to three. Some of the singers, conductors and stage designers are in the world class category.
We did manage to get out of town now and then. On one of our trips we went to Tent Rocks National Monument.
Las Vegas was next on our trip. No, not that Las Vegas; the original Las Vegas. While there we drove up to Fort Union National Monument. The fort was built to protect travelers on the Santa Fe Trail and as a supply point for the other forts in the southwest. Sort of like the Wal-Mart distribution center of its time. Supplies from there went as far away as Yuma.
For sale, one wagon, cheap
Eagle Nest, our next stop, is a very small town with a nice lake and is located in a high mountain valley (over 8000 ft.). The valley is surrounded by mountains and is one of the most beautiful places in New Mexico.
We spent some time near Raton and then drove up to Colorado Springs, CO. From there, Pat flew back to Indiana to visit relatives and I stayed there and played pickleball. They have a good group of pickleballers (picklers? those who pickle?) and they are a very nice bunch of people. They made me feel right at home.
Before Pat left we had time to do some tourist things. We went to the Air Force Academy to tour the chapel.
Can you find Pat?
She is standing at the top of the stairs, in front of the second yellow panel from the right.
Upper level
Lower level
We also took a tour of the U S Olympic Training Center. In front of the visitor center they have a sculpture garden.
Sometime you just luck out. While we were on the tour, we discovered they were having a men’s junior national team volleyball tournament. The junior team is just one level below the national team that goes to the Olympics and the World Championship Tournament. The teams there were from North America and the Caribbean. We stayed after the tour to watch the games and then went back two more times. Great fun! As some of you know, I would rather watch a good volleyball game that any other sport and this was just about as good as it gets. People in the stands were waving large and small flags and chanting USA, USA. It was a mini version of the Olympics.
And who won, you ask?
Victory!
USA, Gold
Canada, Silver
Mexico, Bronze
The top three finishers qualify for a tournament in Turkey. I think I may skip that one.
