Author: danleeth

On Sunday, our final full day in Alamosa, we did something I’ve been wanting to do for years.  We drove the road over Old La Veta Pass.

The “New” La Veta Pass (technically North La Veta Pass) is where U.S. Highway 160 crosses the Sangre de Cristo Mountains between Alamosa on the west and Walsenburg on the east.  We’ve done that countless times.

The old pass, which lies to the south, is the route the Denver & Rio Grande trains took to get to Alamosa and on to Antonito, Chama, Durango and beyond.

U.S. 160 must have also taken the same route at one time.  While the road over Old La Veta Pass is now gravel, we could see patches of bygone pavement peeking through in places, occasionally with a painted centerline showing.

There was a major forest fire up here a few years ago, and we could see whole hillsides of denuded tree trunks poking skyward.

Climbing through the forest, we passed a few roadside homes and ranches.  Behind one sat the reasonably intact remains of a ’58 Buick two-door.

A family cemetery stood beside another.

A small community sat Up Top the actual pass.

Some of the homes there were currently being occupied…

…while others needed a little work.

One building in good repair was the 1877 train depot, now something of a museum. 

It was closed, so we could only look through the windows.

Nearby sat the Chapel by the Wayside.

On the way back to Alamosa, we detoured to the Costilla County Veterans Park in Fort Garland.  A moment of silence here served as a fitting end to our Independence Day weekend.

Back in camp, Dianne fixed lunch…

Parnelli then decided she wanted to test her new knee by racing around the campground in one of the KOA’s pedal carts. 

For 30 minutes, she shot through the nearly empty campground, screaming up one row and down another with speeds slower than those of the little four-year-old on her training-wheel bike.

Later that evening, we were treated to a beautiful bank of sunset-lit clouds over Blanca Peak and its neighbors.  Sights like this are why we camp.

On Monday morning, we packed up the trailer, hitched it to the truck and headed north toward our next camp-spot at Eleven Mile State Park west of Colorado Springs.  We’re camping here with some friends from the Grand Valley.

Eleven Mile is not my favorite campground.  Water spigots are few, there’s no water at the dump station and as far as I can tell, none of the sites are even close to flat.  It took over seven inches of blocks on one side to level the trailer.

It is, however, an attractive place with wide open views of the reservoir and they say the fishing is great. 

Too bad we don’t fish.

After using yesterday as a rest day, Dianne’s artificial knee was ready for some trail walking today.  We studied all the options and decided on an easy, four-mile walk along the Rio Grande from downtown Alamosa.

The trail, which stretched along the top of a riverside levee, was flat, gravely and scenic.

Signs warned that dogs and potbelly pigs must be on a leash.  We did not encounter a single unleashed potbelly pig.

Other signs told us what to do should we encounter a mountain lion.  We did not see any of them, either.

The trail ended with a “No Trespassing” sign, so we took to the streets and ended up at Adams State University.

Turning back, we took a bridge across the river and returned to our starting point by following a path on the other side of the stream.  The trail offered pleasant views of Sangre de Cristo peaks in the distance.

We parked our truck near City Hall. Nearby stands a display featuring Engine 169…

…a steam locomotive built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1883.

Completing our examination of the locomotive and the business car pulled behind, Dianne listed our menu options for lunch back at the trailer.

I turned the other way down Main Street and we dined at a local Mexican restaurant.

Dianne picked up a brochure about the Los Caminos Antiguos Scenic and Historic Byway – a 129-mile route through the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado.  We figured this would be a good way to spend Independence Day, although it meant we would miss the annual (you can walk or ride a bike) parade through the KOA campground.

We started in Alamosa (more or less the middle of the byway) and headed north.  Our first stop was the San Luis Lakes State Wildlife Area.

This was once a state park, but it was decommissioned in 2017.  The old entrance station now provides a shady spot for birds to nest.

There’s a rather large campground out here, with most of the sites featuring free electrical hookups.  There’s no shade and there doesn’t seem to be any drinking water, but there is an RV dump station.  This would not be my first choice of prime places to camp.

Next stop was Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. 

The visitor center was crowded, but we managed to find a couple of t-shirts to buy. 

We checked out the campground, which was nice and shady, but it would not be fun trying to park the trailer.

It was time to stop at a picnic table and devour the delicious lunch Dianne had graciously packed up for us to savor. 

Instead (receiving no complaints from my other half) we compromised with a stop just outside the park at the Great Sand Dunes Oasis Cafe.

Continuing down the road, we made a detour up to the parking lot for Zapata Falls.  There were far too many people here, so we continued down to Fort Garland to visit the old 19^th century fort, now the Fort Garland Museum and Cultural Center.

Interesting exhibits…

…and we had the place pretty much to ourselves.

With closing time approaching, we left and headed back to the campground. 

Fortunately, the KOA parade was completed, and we had no trouble getting to our campsite.

Spent last evening chatting with Steve and Sandy, a friendly couple of MicroLiters from Albuquerque.  When we went to bed, the sky was studded with stars.  Then, sometime in the middle of the night, the rain came, at least this time without any nearby lightning strikes.

Come morning, we tried to dry things out a bit as we got the trailer ready for the next leg of our journey.  Our destination was the KOA just over the border in Alamosa, Colorado.  We had a choice of two routes to get there.  The quicker (98 miles) way would be to drag the trailer back to Chama and then over Cumbres Pass.

The other choice was to take what AAA shows as a longer, scenic route (125 miles) up U.S. Highway 64 to Tres Piedras, then follow U.S. Highway 285 north into Alamosa.

We chose the latter option, stopping at one point to photograph sheep grazing on a lush hillside.  Little traffic.  Green scenery.  Lambchops on the hoof. Definitely worth the extra 27 miles.

We arrived in Alamosa and checked into the KOA, which lies on the east side of town.  Campsites are close together, but our patio site is lovely (but pricey) and the staff friendly.

Scenery is not too bad, either.

If it doesn’t rain, maybe we’ll even have a campfire tonight.

Sometime after dark Saturday evening, the rain began to tenderly thump the trailer roof.

Oh shucks, I suddenly thought as I sat up in bed.  I need to close the back window in the truck. 

“No, it’s closed,” my eagle-eyed wife assured me.  “I checked it twice before we went to bed.”

The rain continued through the night with Noah-worthy intensity.  Rumbling thunder followed seconds after distant lightning flashes. 

Do pole-nesting osprey, I wondered, worry about lightning striking close to home?

Then, sometime in early morning hours, there was a blindingly intense flash of light with a simultaneous, eardrum-bursting explosion of thunder.  Either we’d just gotten nuked by Marjorie Taylor Greene’s space lasers, or lightning had struck exceedingly close to camp.

We’re occupying campsite #1.  That bolt of lightning had struck a tree beside campsite #17, which because of the curvature of the campground loop lies behind us, fewer than 100 yards away.

The tall ponderosa that the bolt hit is still standing, albeit with a bit less bark.  The campers in site #17 did not do as well.  Not only will they need to change their skivvies, but according to the campground host, it seems that the charge from the heavens fried the electronics in both their trailer and their tow vehicle.

Our most critical issue was a tripped GFCI breaker, which took out the power to my coffee hot plate.  After checking our main circuit panel, I found the issue and corrected it with the push of a couple of buttons.  My coffee’s warm now.

And yes, the backseat of the truck is wet from rainwater coming in through the supposedly closed window.

Friday was a rest day, and I finished reading my second banned book.  In the afternoon, we finally got out of our chairs and took a short, ¾-mile hike up to the visitor center. 

It’s a nice building, but unfortunately, the young lady working there was not too knowledgeable about the area. We read the displays and learned what we could.

Saturday, Dianne wanted to do another long hike.  The rain gods looked like they were going to take the day off, so at the crack 9:20 a.m., we set off on a 5½-mile stroll down the Salmon Trail, which runs between the highway and the shore of the reservoir. 

The trail was wide and easy going with benches and picnic tables providing scenic rest stops along the way.

We hiked about three miles to the Brushy Point Campground, ate lunch (bag of gorp) and began the hike back.  It was so pleasant to just be out in nature. 

The only thing that might make it better would be to encounter some wildlife.

Not far from the campground, we found an osprey nest, this one atop a semi-dead ponderosa pine close to the trail.  The only camera I had with me was my iPhone, so this was about the best I could get. 

The bird was not happy having us hang around, so we soon took off up the trail.  Cold brews were waiting in the trailer fridge.

Thursday morning, Dianne was ready to test her new knee on a longer hike.  She chose the East Meadow Trail, a 2½-mile path past the upper end of the reservoir.

The trail was basically flat, rolling terrain with some ups and downs.  Out and back would be a good five miles.

The weather was fine when we started out.

But the sky began to get interesting as we proceeded along.

Before long, things started to look downright fascinating.  We quickened our pace.

Unfortunately, we didn’t make it back to the truck before the clouds opened. We got drenched. 

Longest hike since surgery and although Dianne’s knee was rain soaked, it felt fine.

After our grueling, two-mile hike yesterday, we decided that today would be a rest day.  I was allowed to sleep past 7:00 a.m. in the morning, and my favorite wife made us breakfast burritos stuffed with chorizo and smothered in green chili.

While Dianne was outside griddling breakfast, a couple stopped by and offered her a fish they had caught but couldn’t keep. 

Dianne had to clean the thing (unlike me, she actually knows how to do it), but the price ($0) was right.  Tonight’s dinner will apparently be fresh Kokanee salmon.

After I finished my morning coffee, we piled into the truck and took off to explore the park in which we are camping.  Our first stop was the Willow Creek boat ramp located a short distance up the road.   There was nary a boat to be seen.

Heading back to the highway, we began a drive along the southern side of the reservoir, stopping to check out several of the park’s lakeside campgrounds.  Many sported sites with better views, but they didn’t have hookups and with narrow roads and tight, tree-lined turns, it would be a challenge to pull the trailer through.

We stopped to shoot pix of an osprey perched atop its pole-top nest.  Then it was off to the Rio Chama Trailhead where a hiking trail descends the cliffs on wooden stairs before crossing the Rio Chama on a footbridge. 

Fortunately, the stairs and trail were closed, so we didn’t have to do that.

Instead, focused on photographing a prickly pear cactus in bloom.

We stopped by the dam and shot photos looking down to where the reservoir’s clear blue tailwater meets the murky green flow of the river.

At the boat ramp beyond, we actually encountered watercraft in the water.  The flotilla we spotted consisted of two teenage girls on stand-up paddleboards followed by their parental units rowing behind in a kayak. 

There are no speedboats on Heron Lake (it’s really a reservoir).  This 5,900-acre pond remains totally a no-wake zone.

Continuing down the road, we left Heron Lake (reservoir) State Park and entered El Vado Lake (also a reservoir) State Park.  Dianne mentioned that she had failed to bring any food with us, and it was now 2:30 p.m., well past the lunch hour. She was hungry.

Dianne must have known what lay ahead.  A few hundred yards later, we reached Stone House Lodge, which offered cabins and RV sites as well as a convenience store and yes, a café.  The only one on duty at the time was Michael, the chef, and he offered to fry us up a nice lunch.

I opted for a cheeseburger while Dianne, remembering the joy of cleaning our fish, opted for beer-battered fish ‘n’ chips.

On the way back to camp, we turned down a two-track dirt “road” that ran out to some primitive campsites near the edge of Heron Reservoir.  What a beautiful place this would be, I thought, to tent camp for a few nights right at water’s edge. We could enjoy the magnitude of nearly boundless open space with nary a soul around.

“Not for me!” my lovely wife countered.  “I’ll take camping in my trailer right where it’s parked.” 

We turned the truck around and drove nonstop back to camp.

On Monday morning, we packed up the trailer, drained our holding tanks at the dump station and departed Mancos.  Our route took us east to Pagosa Springs, not one of my favorite towns to drive through dragging a trailer.

Dianne suggested we stop for lunch at the Pagosa Brewery, our favorite brew pub in town, but with the help of Google, we discovered the owner has retired and the brewery is no more. So sad.

My lovely wife decided we would go to the Riff Raff on the Rio brewery instead.  They assured us that there was public parking suitable for our trailer across the street. 

There, seated outside overlooking the San Juan River, we enjoyed a bacon cheeseburger (Dianne) and a Homesick for Texas steak sandwich (ah, the memories of endless flatlands dotted with stinking oil wells) along with beers (root for Dianne, pale ale for me).

From there, we headed south to our campsite at Heron Lake (it’s really a reservoir) State Park in north-central New Mexico.  The park sits in PJ (piñon-juniper) country with the occasional ponderosa pine sticking up like a disguised cell tower.

The campground has wide, nicely graded roads with signs warning of speed bumps ahead. 

The speed bump for our loop lies nestled in the trees, well off the roadway.

The campground is mostly empty, with the reservations tags at many sites indicating they’ve been reserved, but there’s no evidence of anyone occupying the sites.  Perhaps it’s the 80-degree “heat” these folks couldn’t endure?

While our site here pales to what we enjoyed at Mancos, it does have one genuinely nice feature – full hookups. 

We burn electric current from the grid, not our batteries.  We have water from a hose, not our freshwater holding tank.  And when our waste tanks get full, we have a sewer connection.  Such luxury, and it only cost $16 per night!

After setting up camp, we walked the campground loop where we discovered the Willow Creek Nature Trail, a Boy Scout-worthy pathway where buzzworms officially have the right-of-way.

Today, we hiked that nature trail through the forest to some overlooks with views of the expansive reservoir. Never had to yield to a snake.

Combined with a walk through the adjoining campground loop, we covered a whopping two miles today.  Dianne still has issues going downhill with her new knee, but she’s hanging in there. Tomorrow’s hike will be longer.

With nine nights here and one of us mobility impaired, we’ll have plenty of time to just kick back, relax and read.  I’m currently working on a book banned in Texas.  Florida may be next. 

I only hope our beer supply holds out.  I want to avoid the cardio.

We had our camping trip to Mancos and beyond (plus others) planned six months in advance.  Then in early-April, Dianne’s doctor suggested that it was time for her to swap her now painful OEM knee for a bionic replacement.  The surgery was done on April 30, a mere 53 days ago.

Because of the surgery, we had to cancel a trip to Capitol Reef…

…and Bryce Canyon National Parks that we had planned for April-May. 

This June-July trip, she insisted, would not be cancelled even if she wasn’t totally back to normal.  It would be knee recovery on the go.

We wouldn’t be doing the longer hikes we had planned, but Dianne figured she’d be able to do some shorter hikes while her knee scooted toward recovery.  Even though we couldn’t do as we first had planned, we were happy to get out with our trailer and drink ample quantities of box wine out here in the wild. So here we are, tucked into our little spot in the ponderosa pines, enjoying cool, semi=sunny days and nights with ground-drenching rain. 

(It turns out that the leak we thought we had the first night from the overhead vent was the result of it not being totally closed.  The only remaining problems are a propane tank gauge sending unit is not working and a blown fuse on the 12-volt plug I use for my coffee warmer.)

Today, we went for an easy, 3½ mile walk across the dam and up the road to the Chicken Creek hiking trail, which we found to be too muddy to follow for more than a quarter mile. 

Dianne’s knee did well,

and along the way we enjoyed views of distant peaks,

wild roses in bloom,

and, of course, the shimmering blue waters of Jackson Gulch Reservoir.