Leaving RVSue and Utah too!

I have been working on this blog for several days, BlogSpot is not co-operating! It is not letting me resize my photographs like it usually does. Grrrr!

Therefore, if you want to see the photos full size, PLEASE try clicking on it and the photograph should come up. I apologize and IF I can figure this glitch out, I will come back and resize all the images for you!

Geri

 

Leaving RVSue and Crew and Utah!

 

We had a great time.... checking out all the restaurants!  LOL! Sue loved our favorite from the Twin Bluff Cafe, Navajo Pizza - A normal Italian style pizza placed on top of Indian fry bread! Yummy!

 

Chuck loves this! Can you tell?

 

We spent 3 days at Sand Island with Sue and then moved up to Cadillac Ranch in Bluff Utah. Two of our good friends, Tim and Diana manage this campground. It's small, a bit close together, but we have never been sorry we stopped here. Cost is $25.00 per night with FHU (full hook ups) a nice shower and laundry onsite and the views are wonderful!

This year we had a special treat at Cadillac Ranch, near sunset, a flock of white face black Ibis flew into the pond at the park! Unfortunately I did not have the 300mm zoom lens on.... but you get the idea!

 

 Chuck and Sue visited the Bluff Fort while I dogsat for Bridgette and Spike!

Both Bridgette and Spike were overjoyed when Sue came home! Separation anxiety? Not much!

 

Sue isn't much for posing, but then neither am I, so we both snuck a quick snap sneaky photo of each other!

 

 

 

CAMO LIZARD!

Can you spot the lizard on this tree?

 

If you look close below, I have outlined him in red!
He/She/It was 10 to 12 inches long!

We overnighted in Chinle again, in the Cottonwood Campground at Canyon de Chelly National Monument.  The road from Bluff, Utah to Chinle is just jaw dropping beautiful! It looks totally different

depending on whether you are headed nort or south on Highway 191.  On this day, we hit the scenic roadway right after a rainstorm had passed over. Wet rocks are much more colorful than dry rocks and it was amazing!



This above shot was the beginning of a steep downhill curve and I was yelling at Chuck to slow down and still managed to snap this image through the window! The one below is just layers of colors dressing the earthmother! Shot this one out the passenger window.

 

 Below is the storm that had just passed over, giving the rocks their colorful beauty!

 

 

Always remember when driving on any Native American Reservation, it is open range... horses, cattle, sheep, goats ALL have the right of way. Please drive accordingly!

Datil Well Recreation Area Campground

We discovered this nice campground just off of Highway 60 in western NM. Just a mile or so out of
the town of Datil and down a short dirt road you will see the Visitor Center and campground on your left!

 

 A whole lot of history happened around here!

 

 

There area scenic mountains all around the campground area,

 

The sites are well spaced with a lot of foliage spaced in between. There will be $300,000 worth of improvements taking place here this year. The only problem we had was finding a level area for the MotherShip but we were assured that leveling the sites was high on the list of repairs as are showers. The pit toilets were nice though.

 

There are well marked hiking paths throughout.

 

We liked it so well, nice and cool temps, we stayed 3 nights and with our geezer pass it was $2.50 a night!
$5.00 for those of you too young for a geezer pass.

 

However, Radar was missing RVSue and the crew and so were we! It was a fun week.

 

We will be heading to Arizona to visit some good friends in the next few weeks. I promise a good blog!
Meanwhile that is it from the MotherShip Crew: Chuck, Geri, Radar and DoogieBowser! Thanks for stopping by!

Lake Valley NM, a ghost town of interesting history

LAKE VALLEY NM

Lake Valley sits on Highway 27, South of another mining town called Hillsboro. From the humble conditions Lake Valley finds itself today, it is hard to imagine that it had such a colorful past! Prior to the turn of the century, Lake Valley was a booming mining town! Silver was first found in Lake Valley in 1878, but it wasn't until 1882 that the big discovery was made. That was the year The Bridal Chamber was discovered! Silver ore found just 40 feet from the surface, ore so pure that it was cut from the mine and sent directly to the mint in Denver. 99.9% pure!

A single piece of ore was displayed at the World Exposition held in Denver in 1882, it was valued at $7,000 at a time when silver was selling for about a dollar an ounce!

In 1884 the railroad was extended to Lake Valley and it became the typical boom town with plenty of saloons open around the clock!

This stone building was first a school, then a saloon and later a general store and gas station. The main street business district burned to the ground in 1895. Story goes that the fire was started behind one of the many saloons by an inebriated patron. Once the fire started, there was no stopping the inferno from engulfing the entire business district! All that remains are the foundations of the buildings and pieces of twisted melted glass.

If you click on this picture of the sign, it will become full sized and you can read it.

This building is the final schoolhouse. It is adobe and built in 1904. This land is now all managed and protected by BLM (Bureau of Land Management.) The lady you see on the steps is a workamper like Chuck and I are. She and her husband volunteered for a year and they get a month off sometime during that year. She was like a walking talking history book, very knowledgable and interesting!

The schoolhouse shot from the back of the room, notice there are 3 styles of school desks.

mmmmmmmmmm, I fell in love with the old wood stove. There were 2 in this building! The beautiful old organ was recently brought back to the school. As former residents and/or relatives of former residents realise that the BLM is caretaking the land, people are bringing back items that used to belong to homes in the town.

As you look from the front to the back of the school house, you realize how large it is. The other 1/2 is now the museum where the above mentioned items usually end up after being brought back. I also mentioned the 3 styles of school desks. The earliest styles were from the first silver boom. After silver devalued and the town almost went bust, WWII started and maganese ore was discovered and mined. Then again the town almost went bust when the Korean War started. So the town had 3 booms and each time new school desks were bought!

This is called Lizard Mountain and it's easy to see why!

There were several bottle dumps around the walking tour. I was fascinated by all the lavender glass everywhere. You are not allowed to collect anything from Lake Valley. It is held in "arrested decay" for posterity.

I loved this old building with it's washing machine sitting outside!

A lot of the buildings had been patched and repaired with many kinds of materials. The houses became a patchwork !

We took about 2 hours to walk around Lake Valley and I took over 100 photos. It was hard to narrow it down to these few! The next set will be of a beautiful old 1935 Plymouth that we found rusting gracefully in the sun there!

After Chuck and I left Lake Valley we headed to Hatch NM, the chili capitol of the world. It was pretty amazing to see how green everything was there compared to the stark, parched browns of Truth or Consequences! We found a great little Mexican restaurant called The Pepper Patch.

It was started by 2 sisters who came to Hatch from Mexico many years ago to pick peppers. They stayed, became citizens and opened this great little restaurant. Cash only but nothing on the menu was over ten bucks! Then we headed home, exhausted from our adventure! I hope you enjoyed it too!

1935 Plmouth, WOW!

One of the very real reminders of what life used to be like in the now ghost town of Lake Valley NM is this beatiful old 1935 Plymouth! Now..., taking up residence in the back seat is a family of birds. You can tell from all the sticks arranges just so.

Also taking shelter from the desert heat is a cotton tail, cooling his heels under the wheel well.

Sitting outside the car, is the old engine, a flat head 6 cylinder, waiting for someone like Jay Leno to breathe life into it again!

Sitting out in a field, all but forgotten, this car is rusting ever so gracefully under the New Mexico sun.

The lines are still beautiful..........

The steering wheel dreams of guiding someone down the road again.

The body is still in very good shape, just a few dings

and a few dents but this beauty could be restored and brought back to life.

The trip to Lake Valley was really amazing! I will add more photos of the town itself next. I was just so impressed with this old beauty, I just wanted to devote a whole section to just this. I hope you enjoyed it. Chuck and I loved visiting this town! ~ Geri

Gila Cliff Dwellings

The trip to the Gila Cliff Dwellings was amazing! Twisty-turny roads with speed limits of 10-15 mph for at least half of the road trip! Then we travelled through an amazing area with red rocks like Sedona and beautiful ranches spread out at the base of the red rocks! Grazing horses just made it even more perfect! Then when we stopped at Gila Hot Springs General Store to walk the dogs and buy spare camera batteries... I decided it would be wise if I made a potty stop too. Well ladies, we know the routine, struggle to pull jeans down and sit down and let it go. YIKES! Not here! YIKES! The water in the toilet bowl was HOT HOT HOT!! After I recovered from the shock and sat back down I was able to finish my business! As soon as I went out, I asked the gent behind the counter about the heat treatment. Seems the only thing they could hook up their plumbing too was hot water unless they wanted to drill much deeper! mmmmm! Interesting stop. We didn't hang around to check out the hot springs since we already work at some of the best mineral hot springs available, but I hear they are really very nice. Couple of nice campgrounds there too.

Finally we got to the trail leading us up to the Gila (pronounced Hee-lah)Cliff Dwellings. It is a one mile loop..... the first part is pretty level and a pretty walk through a canyon.


Chuck walking ahead of me through the canyon. The bridge crosses and recrosses this stream several times on the way, it joins the Gila River at the beginning of the trail.

Hopefully you can read this sign. It explains a lot. If you click onto this picture, it will go to full size!

Still walking the canyon, I feel it's important to let you know that this special canyon and the cliff dwellings are so unique that they have been protected since 1907! It is one of the very few left so well intact showing us how the Mogollon (pronounced muggy-own) culture lived and survived. Because of the Gila River, this was a very prosperous area and well travelled.For perhaps as long as 10,000 years, the Gila River brought people in and out of this valley.

From the parking lot. this mile long trail climbs 180 feet to reach the dwellings. After the first part of the walk, you will start seeing stairs........ UP and UP and UP! Not really too bad, Chuck helped me most of the way. This was one of our first glimpses of 2 of the 6 caves.

Chuck rests against the rock, enjoying his first good view of the caves. I had to rest often and thank goodness, there were lots of comfy benches along the steeper part of the climb! This was well worth the climb! The only other cliff dwellings I have visited where you could actually walk around in the ruins were at Mesa Verde.

The closer we get, the better it looks!The first archeological report of the cliff dwellings came from Adolph Bandelier in 1884. His sketches and writings commented on the damage that had already taken place. Approximately 80% of what is left today is the original architecture of the Mogollon builders.

There are 40 rooms within the 6 caves.

Yep! That's me!

There were wonderful interpretive guides at the cliff dwellings. This man spent quite a few minutes talking to Chuck and I about the culture of the people of Gila River area.

The cliff dwellings were impressive!

So were the stairs we had to climb to get there, but if I could do it, I know all of you can too!

We had a great day today! Chuck and I love exploring around here!