Cimarron Canyon State Park (Sunday)

Today we are moving on, we are finished with the Santa Fe area and are heading toward Taos.  There, we want to check out the Angel Fire forest for possible future quad riding.  We did a little housecleaning this morning, and Joe arranged with the forest ranger to open up the dump station for us.  We had a little hiccup there, I tried to turn on our water pump and it wouldn't come on.  Joe started the generator, which meant that our batteries were not dead, so that was good news.  He found a breaker had been tripped, so he got that reset and we were good to go.  We fueled just out of town for $3.219 today, and saw the station where we had fueled the car yesterday had raised their price 5 cents, so we went into the one up the road that we had seen yesterday.  After we left Hwy 285/84, we split off onto Hwy 68 toward Taos.  We followed the Rio Grande river for most of this drive, and saw some rafters drift by.  When we pulled off at a scenic stop later, we could see one of their entrance areas.

They called this area the Rio Grande Gorge, and further north we could see where the river had cut a pretty significant gorge through the landscape.

We hit Taos about 1:00 on Sunday afternoon.  There was quite a bit of traffic, and no place to pull over so we went on through.  It wasn't quite what we expected.  We thought it would be higher in the mountains, with resorts and mountain chalets.  It did have an interesting downtown area that we hope to go back to tomorrow.

We had a recommendation from a co-camper here in Santa Fe to go to Cimarron State Park, which is over by Eagle Nest northeast of Taos, and that was our original plan, but I checked my Passport directory (where we get campgrounds at half price) and found one northwest of Taos that sounded like a possibility.  It had full hook-ups and a laundry, and it is getting time to do that so we picked up 522 in Taos and headed that way.  There is a loop that goes north of  Taos called the Enchanted Circle, and this town (Questa) was on the loop, as well as Eagle Nest, so we headed northwest.I called the RV park and they said they were open but at church right then.  We told them it would be an hour or so before we got there.  When we got there, although it was right on the bank of the Red River, it was not much of a park.  We couldn't raise anyone, and as we drove around, the laundry and showers were all locked up for the season, so we just headed out of there and drove on around that part of the Enchanted Circle to Eagle Nest, and then on to Cimarron State Park. The laundry will have to wait for another day.  From Questa to Eagle Nest, we took Hwy 38.  And we were really glad we did.  The part of the drive after we left Questa was a lot more scenic because we were at a higher elevation.  I went to the kitchen to fix lunch while Joe continued driving, and just after I took our plates up front, we came upon 3 mountain sheep just after we went through the little town of Red River.  So here I am, juggling plates, Joe is trying to get stopped, I'm trying to grab the camera, and all the while hoping these sheep won't run off.  Fortunately for us, they didn't.

This was a really pretty drive, with snow-capped mountains, pine trees, and open valleys.  We came past a small herd of about 10 elk in one valley, but they were too hidden to get a picture.

We drove through Eagle Nest and turned off onto Hwy 64 to Cimarron Canyon State Park.  Like Hyde, this park is not yet open but we called and were told we could still use the park.  There was one spot with electricity (probably for the host who wasn't there yet), and it had a sign that it was available, so we took that one.  The Cimarron River runs through the park and is very pretty, part of it a braided river where it splits into many different channels.

After we got set up, we walked over and just enjoyed the sound of the river running.

While I walked on down looking for any evidence of animal activity (we saw a lot of deer poop), Joe decided to rest on a log.  But it was a mistake, he found it was not very comfortable, and he even got a splinter.  He said he probably injured his ribs again.  But he's fine -- he was just being a wimp.

About 6:00 p.m., we took our Wildlife Viewing Drive through the rest of this state park and on into Cimarron.  The deer were out!  We saw 59 deer, some in herds of 10-12, others just 5 or 6.  None of these deer were very spooky, they just looked at us when we stopped the car.  Even the turkeys took their time getting on the move.

We also saw 3 wild turkeys

.  Actually, we saw 4 but we thought one of them was the same one we had seen on the way to town.

There were sheer cliff walls along this drive too, called Palisade Sill.  They were beautiful, sheer cliffs, pretty awesome, with the sun hitting them just right.

We drove 138 miles in the RV today.  It was 41 again when I got up this morning, but as we headed into Taos and even further north, it was quite warm, in the 70s.  We are camped at an elevation of 8090, and it cooled off quickly when the sun went down.  It was a beautiful day, no wind that bothered us driving, and we saw some pretty scenery and lots of wildlife.  Who could ask for more!