Novemba' 8, 2011

Hello All! Carrie and I are alive and well! You wouldn't think it by the lack of blog updates- no, no, if you went by those it looks like we might have died in Denver way back in May. Most of you know that we ended the expedition in Jackson, WY at the beginning of June. A recent visit to the blog made us realize that we should keep it up as an attempt to document our lives in a new and exciting place. Keep on the lookout for daily adventures had by us in this beautiful mountain town we now call "home".

Denver, or pretend Las Vegas.

So, when we originally started planning this trip, we decided to go to Las Vegas. Neither of us had been, and we both wanted a true Vegas experience.  After all the jack knifing and breaking down, we couldn't afford it. So, Albequerque and Denver was our Vegas. Denver really came through for us.
We decided to go all out and get a hotel room, get jazzy and clean and get out on the town.

This will be an abbreviated post, since all we did was drink too much. We had a goooooood time though.

I don't wanna hear no sass! You'll get my 80s Jordache pose if I do.

Great Sand Dunes

Colorado! The further North we go, the better the states get. We left Taos in the afternoon, and pulled into Alamosa in the early evening. We passed through the San Luis Valley, where they have some of the highest UFO sightings in the world. The Native Americans say the valley is the mouth of the Earth, where the Earth speaks to the rest of the universe (I may have just made that up). Anyways, BOY, was it cold. 24 degrees to be exact. Our summer dresses and shorts are definitly not doing us anything, except make us look dumb. We did our best to stay warm and get some sleep for the next big day.

So the Great Sand Dune National Park didn't exactly get us at hello. We wouldn't have even gone unless we needed to stop and break up the trip through Colorado.  When we asked the guy at the RV camp we stayed at about it, his response was "Well, it's just a lot of sand, man." We had pretty low expectations.
Turns out the Great Sand Dune National Park is pretty cool. Once you get past that it's just a lot of sand, it was really pretty. The park is in a valley, up against the snow capped mountains. So turn your head one way and you are in the mountains, turn it the other way and you are in the desert. WEIRD.

The highest of the dunes is a little over 750 ft, and most people were walking up to the top. So of course Lin and I weren't going to be out-fitnessed by a bunch of old Germans, we're going to the top darnit. We walked and walked up and down and flat. You know that feeling when you are walking out on to the beach for the first time, and you are tired but you don't care because you are so excited about the ocean? It was kind of like that but with no climax. No ocean. Just more uphill sand dune walking. We made it about 150-200 ft up and the Germans with the walkers were passing us. Not really, but I feel like the Germans as a nation are exceptionally fit. Keep in mind we've been sitting in a car for four weeks. We called it a day.

We headed back to the car, shook out our boots and continued North.



the high road to taos

To get to Taos you can either take some really lame freeway, or you can take the high road. Who would ever pick the freeway, camper or no camper? Someone lame, that's who. We rolled into town kinda late, got a cup of coffee, made some friends, and headed towards the Wal-Mart. Since Taos is a ski town we assumed it would be too expensive to stay for long. We got to the Wal-Mart and were immediately skeezed out by the three El Caminos following us around like we were the last women on Earth. Like we've said earlier, Wal-Marts aren't bad. But there are times to follow your gut and go shell out 30 bucks for a camp site. El Caminos never mean anything good.

Taos is b-e-a-utiful. We really wanted to get out and get some fitness, but the weather was nice one minute, and cold and snowy the next. So we did what we could, and saw a big ol' bridge:

Notice my killer bear sweater.

After the Rio Grande bridge, we hit up the local pueblo. At first we were a little put off by all the tourism in the reservation, but we soon were pleasantly surprised by the town and its locals. Now, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. In fact, it was mostly snowy and slushy and cold. When we first got to the pueblo and were paying the admittance fee, several rich bitchy women were behind us complaining that they would have to walk outside in the elements, and it just wasn't worth it. Ugh! We will never be those women...hopefully.

Anyways, the pueblo was really interesting. We met some fun characters too, like this little boy:



His name is Dylan, and that's his gun.

Taos was also our first taste of the cold. We didn't realize how cold it would get at night, and are really thankful Billyray through in a heater when we bought the camper.

After the pueblo, we packed up and headed North, a new state awaits!

santa fe, summary style.

The previous night spent in the Sam's parking lot was pretty rough. I may just go ahead and say it was the worst night yet. Yup, I said it. We quickly packed up and went to McDonalds to try to perk ourselves up. It didn't work. Both of us were really crabby and beat. We decided to go ahead and go back to Hyde Memorial State Park, because Santa Fe is really pricey and New Mexico's state parks are really cheap. We got set up, and decided the only way to fix this problem was....day drinking!

See don't we look good and perked up now?

We took in a lot of Santa Fe's sights that day, and it turned out to be a really fun day.

Our campground up in the mountains was really really nice. I'm not sure why, but I didn't know New Mexico had mountains. I thought it was all desert and the second you got into Colorado boom you got the Rockies. We had a really great neighbor at the camp site too.

Her name is Ann, and she was just great. Her camper is adorable, and she just loved Polly. Both Lin and I hope to be like Ann someday.

The only bad thing about the campsite was that they didn't have any running water. There was one port o potty esque thing, but other then that you're on your own. So, we learned the hard, long way is just to find a local community center to clean things up a bit. We hadn't shower in quite a while once we hit the community center, so we may have taken a little  longer than usual. One of the ladies that was also showering definitly gave us a hard time for blow drying our hair. Seriously? Neither of us had had a blow dryer in three weeks now, and only a handful of showers. Give me a break lady. I guess that's what you get in a town of snooty ex-hippies.

And just in case you haven't applied a sticker to the back of a camper in a while, here's a brief tutorial:

Puttin' the double-A in Santa Fe

Let's see, Santa Fe... 

We pull into town sometime in the afternoon and head straight to the Wal-Mart to park Campy and maybe take a nap. (We're still recovering from the big night out in Albuquerque the night before). Plan: nap and hang for the rest of the day, something low key for sure. We find the Wal-Mart and immediately start vegging out.

We were hanging out and heard some rustlin' in the urban bushes, so naturally we peeped out of the curtains and saw this fine example of a man:



security

(note the fuzzy corners of the frame from our creepy Peepin' Tom perspectives)

Naturally this man gained the nickname "Sweet Potata" after he told us to leave our humble residency in the town W-Mart. When Carrie questioned him about the ever-inviting policy of Wal-Marts nationwide, he explained that the city had an over-riding policy over such things.



Now, what do ya' think of that? Here we are in a city that was basically unheard of by the rest of the country until about 40 years ago. It was put on the map by venturing artists, hippies, and other alternative-minded persons and to date it's the only city that hasn't allowed urban camping at their Wal-Mart.

So we bust out the Woodall's and find Hyde Memorial State Park high above the city in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and accept the thought of dishing out some cash for a peaceful night's sleep in the woods. It's dark by the time we navigate our way to the park's entrance and the office is already closed. As I'm filling out the pay-envelope in the dark to drop in the Iron Ranger, a name given to pay stations in parks, I notice quite a lot of CAUTION/WARNING/STAY AT YOUR OWN RISK kind of signs posted. Some are standard-issue state park signs while some are more specific to the area; such as the Hantavirus Warning for the surrounding wildlife and what to do when encountering a bear or mountain lion. Now, Carrie and I are all for the outdoors and sharing space with the natural residents, but it seems a little different when it's pitch black night and there is no other human in sight. Our silly fears are quickly expounded upon by our road-weary minds and skewed logic.

So, back into the false security-blanket of the city. We pull into the desserted Sam's Club parking lot (at the suggestion of Sweet Potata) and fall asleep to the sound of delivery trucks making their way through maze of  RVs and campers.

Albequerque Awesome!

So, some of this will be a repeat of the video, but we feel like Albequerque deserves both a video and word discription. First off, we need to give a BIG shout out and thank you (for the millionth time) to Aaron and the other guys at  Duke City Auto and RV for basically saving our lives. When we were in west Texas, we called around to several RV servicing places and no one would even look at Campy for two weeks. So I called Aaron at Duke City, and he was incredibly accomodating and helpful. He fit us in within a few days, and gave Campy a new spine. This trip would be over if it wasn't for them!

Anyways, besides the Campy revival, Albequerque treated us very well. We stayed at this very lush hotel, which basically ended up being a meth lab, but was really fancy by our standards. We decided to treat ourselves by going out on the town, and visting Allison's old stompin' grounds. We met some very...interesting...people that night.

This was taken at some very swanky place that we only got into because a couple Nords liked us a little too much

We can't figure out how to rotate video. If anyone knows how, let us know.

Anyways, we had a really good night out. The next day hurt a little, but we made it to one of those Route 66 diners, ate ourselves silly, and did a little shopping.

Oh, Albequerque is also where we got our license plate business all figured out. Thanks again Momma Bell!