Exploring around Heron Lake

We spent a relaxing and pleasant week at Heron Lake State Park. Every day, Hanna and I walked all the campground loops and some of the trail that runs from the Visitor’s Center to the dam, passing through each of the five campgrounds along the lake shore. We monitored the small amount of activity in and out of the campground. It was a very quiet week; so much so, that I actually got spooked one evening walking a distant loop and came upon a man camped all alone in his car. I got to thinking about what a good place it would be for an escaped fugitive to hide out. Hanna and I hurried back to our Minnie.

There’s not a lot to do or see around Heron, but we did take a few day trips to explore the area. We stopped at the dam one day to have a look.

We drove over to El Vado Lake twice. The first time, we took the north road to Stone House Lodge, where Mom and Dad stayed one summer. The park is really run down now and the business is barely hanging on. We carefully drove up a dirt road to the north lake shore, but it is very low too, and there was really no beauty to see.

We explored the south end of the lake a few days later, where the State Park campgrounds are located. It was a nicer lake view, but the campsites are more out in the open. We both agreed we like Heron better for camping.

We drove back into Chama one day to visit the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, but it was not open for tours until Memorial Day weekend. We wandered through the town welcome center (nothing to see), and headed back to camp.

The last day before we left, we drove down to Abiquiu Reservoir. Richard has told us about how the rivers wind through these many lakes before finally supplying water to the city of Albuquerque, so we decided to see if the lake nearest there would be any fuller. It’s a pretty lake, but a treeless landscape. There was one sailboat, but otherwise the lakeshore was quiet.

On the way to Abiquiu, we stopped at Echo Canyon. This was the sightseeing highlight of the week and we just stumbled on it and decided to stop. I’ll let the photos show how pretty and how cool this place was.

I’d like to embed a video but I can’t from my phone, so here’s a link if you’d like to hear the echo.  

https://youtu.be/KQsIKAIlz54

We were planning to stay at Heron until Tuesday, but a nasty weather forecast forced us to move up our departure date to Sunday, when we skedaddled back to Navajo.

The Road to Heron

Dale and I packed up, hit the dump on the way out, and headed across Navajo Dam toward Chama and Heron Lake State Park. Now the road across the dam is a scary experience, even without a construction crew working on it. It’s a narrow two lane, with no guard rails and steep drop offs on both sides. Luckily, there is not much traffic on it. Usually. We started across, both of us straddling the center line until we came upon a pickup truck parked in the oncoming lane, sitting over the center line. There was just barely enough room to slowly squeeze past without falling off the cliff, but we both made it with at least a quarter of an inch to spare.

Google photo

It was pretty smooth sailing from there to Dulce, where we pulled into a small church parking lot for a quick potty break. The pastor saw us and immediately came out to welcome us and invite us to unhitch, set up camp and stay awhile. We tried to be as courteous as we could, while extricating ourselves from the “new best friends trap” he was attempting to create.

We filled with gas and groceries in Chama, before driving on to Heron Lake State Park. We pulled into the Visitor’s Center parking lot where I unhitched my car, and we drove through all the campgrounds to find the best sites and the best cell signal. We found two nice sites in Brushy Point where we both received 3 bars of LTE, dropped a lawn chair in each one, and went back to get our Minnies.

Heron Lake

Beautiful walking trails around the campgrounds. 

The lake is extremely low - unpleasantly so - but the campground is beautiful, with large, well spaced, level sites. There were only three other campers when we arrived and few campers came and left throughout the week. At one point we were the only two in the whole campground, and when we left, there was just a lone class B still there.

The weather was nice, but cool, the first several days, but turned more chilly as the week wore on. When the forecast called for snow the following week, we decided to load up on Sunday and head back down to Navajo, 1000 feet lower elevation, in search of warmer spring.

I’ll recap our sightseeing around Heron in the next post.

Navajo Lake (& Dam) State Park

Dale and I left Bluewater on the first of May and drove north toward Navajo Lake. The trip was about 150 miles, but we decided to split it into two days. We took Highway 371 to Bisti De-Na-Zin Wilderness, where we found an overnight parking lot. We hiked out through the hoodoos, exploring the interesting scenery. There were lots of photographers and hikers car-camped beside us, but we had a quiet night.

The next morning, we drove on to Navajo Dam and into the campground. There were very few primitive (non electric/water) sites, so we took a couple sites with hookups. It’s been a luxury that we have really appreciated since we’ve had some very chilly temps and a couple of nasty rainy days, so the electric furnace has felt mighty good.

Dale and I wanted to visit Chaco Culture National Historic Park, but reports of the terrible road to the site have scared us off. Instead, we satisfied our curiosity with a tour of Aztec Ruins National Monument. This well preserved ancient settlement was built and inhabited by ancestral Pueblo people about 900 years ago. Much of the village remains, and the largest “Great Kiva” (ceremonial building) has been fully restored and represents an important central sanctuary, which the native tribes believe are still inhabited by the spirits of their ancestors.

We killed a lot of time plus three trips to theVerizon store in Farmington trying to switch my carrier from AT&T. After finally jumping through a bunch of hoops, we discovered my iPhone 7+ is not compatible with Verizon. Since I’m not ready to buy a new phone this spring, I will stick with the plan I have for now.

Otherwise, we have filled our days with walks to the lake, hikes up the hill to the closed campgrounds above ours, and lots of reading and TV. It’s been a relaxing week and a half here where Mom and Dad spent so many wonderful summers in their retirement years. I can see why they loved it so much. It’s a great area.

On Monday, we will pack up and move to Heron Lake State Park. Dale has predicted I will love the campground (with the possible exception of spotty cell signal), so I’m anxious and ready to move over there for a week or so.

Sightseeing around Bluewater Lake

Roasting hot dogs

Dale and I have been at Bluewater for nearly a week. It’s been nice and cool most days, with overnight lows in the 40s. We have had wind and light rain the last couple days, putting a little damper on outdoor adventures.

One day, we hiked the Canyonside Trail. This trail is less than a mile total, but it’s a little rugged climbing down the mountainside, hiking along the stream, balancing on rocks and downed logs to cross the stream twice, and then climbing back up to the campground. But it was a very nice day, and there was beautiful scenery to enjoy. We found several swallows nests attached under the cliffs, but no other wildlife.

Zoom in to see the swallow’s nests attached to the cliff wall

We took a day trip down to Bandera Volcano and the Ice Cave. Visitors to this attraction can hike 3/4 mile up to the volcano (and back), reading interesting facts along the way about the history of the area and see many lava formations.

When we returned to the base, we then ventured a half mile down to the ice cave. This interesting cavern stays at 30° year round inside the mouth, but just 10’ back from the opening, it’s normal air temperature. The ice floor is centuries old and about 25’ deep. Visitors are limited to viewing the ice formations from a platform just above the opening of the cave.

Dale wanted to show me where he had camped last year on the west side of the lake, and also check out if I could get an AT&T signal over there, so one day we took Hanna and drove up I-40 to Thoreau and down the back road to the lake. There is just a very primitive campground there in the park, with pit toilets. But then we drove out along a forest road for a short distance and found the large, open, beautiful spot where he had disperse camped. It was outside the park, hidden from the road, and he said he stayed there three weeks because it was so nice for him.

Yesterday morning, we walked up to the dam overlook and just happened to time it when a maintenance worker was opening one of the spillway pipes. We saw first a trickle of black water come through the sluice, then a rush of brown water, and finally a clean gusher that shot out a few feet from the dam wall. Then we watched as the worker locked the door, climbed a ladder up the side of the dam, walked across the top of the dam, and disappeared out of our sight. By the time we got back to the trailhead, he was coming up the road in his truck. I’d like to go back to the dam overlook tomorrow morning to see if the water is still running or if he closed it back down today.

Today, we drove into Grants and went through the Mining Museum. Seniors get a bargain rate of $3, and that included a video and a walking tour of an underground uranium mine. It was quite interesting, with recordings from several former miners describing the process, different elements and areas of the mine as we studied the old equipment and remnants of ore left behind. The miners made a very good salary for their difficult and dangerous work, but many of them died from lung cancer after exposure to uranium dust for so many years.

We are heading out tomorrow for Navajo Lake. We’ll make a two day trip of the journey. I’m looking forward to staying again in a place Mom and Dad loved to visit in their retirement RVing years. See you down the road!

Percha Dam to Bluewater Lake

Dale and I left Percha Dam on Wednesday headed toward Bluewater Lake State Park. To split up the ~260 mile drive, we planned to camp overnight near Pie Town on Wednesday night and drive on to the lake on Thursday.

We stopped at the VLA (Very Large Array) along Highway 60, near Datil. This is the site of 22 humongous radio wave telescopes. Run by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, these powerful telescopes monitor the universe 24 hours a day, and knowledge captured here is combined with information and images from visual telescopes around the world to give a more complete understanding of the galaxies. Cell phone signals interfere with what the VLA is tracking, so of course must be off.

We both needed gas and to our great disappointment, there were no stations in either Datil nor Pie Town, so we continued on to Quemado. After filling our tanks, we studied the campground maps and found our choices were to drive another 70 miles to the next campground, or backtrack 20 miles to Pie Town. “Seventy miles, or backtrack for pie?” We looked at each other, grinned, and turned back.

We found a spot in Lee Jackson Park campground, which luckily was just across the road from the pie shop! We went over, picked out two six inch pies to take back to camp, and were shocked when the cashier said, “That’ll be $11.57. Each.” Better be some darn great pie for that amount! I got blueberry butterscotch and Dale picked dark chocolate cherry. We exchanged a couple pieces, and both agreed the blueberry was better than the chocolate cherry.

The next morning we drove to the Walmart in Grants, then on to Bluewater. On the way, we noticed this beautiful natural arch and stopped to take a look, before going on to the park.

We circled all the campground loops until we found a double space where we could park close enough for Dale to share Verizon Hotspot with me. I can’t get an ATT signal here.

We plan to spend about a week here, exploring the park and nearby areas, before heading farther north.

Percha Dam State Park

I arrived at Percha Dam on Friday afternoon where Dale is set up in the overflow camping area (non hookup sites). He has his rig positioned where his solar panels can soak up the sun throughout the day, but I decided to park in the shade of a tree about 100 yards away from him. It’s a nice little campground with the exception of stickers and goat heads everywhere except the roads. I’ve had to carry Hanna from my rig to the road every time we go walk anywhere.

Yesterday (Saturday) we drove down to Leasburg Dam State Park. It’s a very pretty, well maintained campground, but more scrub desert than here at Percha. We drove around all the loops and it was completely full.

Before heading back to our camp, we stopped at Fort Selden to look around the ruins and learn a bit of history about the area. It was $5, well worth it for the film, nice museum and trail around the grounds. The fort was active in the 1880s, and General Douglas MacArthur was a toddler living there with his officer father.

We are going to stay here a few more days and then head to a little higher elevation. The 80’s are quickly turning into 90’s here at 4100 feet.

Dog day afternoons

Spring 2019

Hanna and I are heading to New Mexico to visit some of the state parks. Dale is camping there this spring and I thought it would be a good chance to catch up with him, as well as  enjoy some of the areas Mom and Dad used to frequent in their retirement years.

I left Mesa at around 10:00 this morning and drove straight down I-10, past Tucson, on through Wilcox, and stopped at a rustic little RV Park in Bowie, AZ. There’s not much to look at here, but it’s run by some really friendly folks and was very economical for full hookups. I’ll only be here overnight, and then plan to drive to Percha Dam in NM where Dale has already set up camp and is waiting for me.

I did have an interesting story that I shared on Facebook: “I was driving along on I-10 at 62 mph in my Winnebago Minnie east of Wilcox this afternoon and I got pulled over by a Highway Patrolman. He was planning to give me just a warning for not changing to the left lane when I went by him earlier as he was on the side of the road. (There was a car beside me so I couldn’t move over, but the cop couldn’t see it because I was in the way. Besides I was going well below the speed limit.) Anyway, before he came up to my RV window, he ran my license plate and it came back belonging to a Mini Cooper. In a couple minutes, two border patrol showed up. I guess they thought I had stolen it and/or was transporting illegals. Asked if I had a weapon, then asked me to step outside, then questioned me whether I even owned a Mini Cooper.  It was finally sorted out that the truncated “Minni“ on the license registration had confused someone somewhere. 🙄”

And that’s day one of my spring RV trip!

Full moon rising