I am writing this post from our hotel room in Twin Falls, Idaho. It seems forever since we left the state of Arizona. So, how did we get here? Well, it has been a very long 4 days.
We left Arizona on March 20 having driven from Sierra Vista via the Chiricahau Monument then over a US Forest service dirt track (20 miles of gravel, switchbacks and steep grades topping out at 7,200 feet elevation) to Portal, Arizona then into New Mexico and our first night at Deming, NM. Our main reason for this route is that it eventually took us to Interstate 25 where we began our northern migration.
On the second day out of Arizona we stopped at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Sanctuary. The sanctuary is 12,900 acres of wetland, farmland and riparian forest. While most of the hiking trails were closed this time of year we did drive the perimeter. Unfortunately our timing to see birds in any significant numbers was off by about 1 month. We were too early for the big migration and too late to see the Sandhill Cranes, which we seem to keep on missing.... We departed the Bosque and continued our northern migration stopping at the town of Las Vegas, NM for dinner and a bed.
The following day we continued north into Colorado. Now I am sure that this a beautiful state. Rivers, mountains, pretty towns. What we saw was clouds, heavy interstate traffic and blizzard conditions through Denver, which pretty much covers the top half of the state. We thought that traffic moved fast in Phoenix. Ha! Denver was a madhouse. Those folks need to smoke a bit more pot and chill out... We drove the entire state stopping only for gas, food, coffee and tea. We ended the day in snowy Cheyenne, Wyoming.
We arrived in Cheyenne around dinner time. It was snowing lightly and the temperature was around 25F or -4C. I wanted to stay in the 4Runner and drive back to Mesa. Dana skillfully talked me "down from the ledge". What she said was "Stop whining and get your butt out of the truck." Works every time. After we checked into our hotel we skated over to the Outback restaurant for dinner. Later that evening when we had successfully made it back to the hotel we took a hard look at our travel plans and made some decisions for the next leg of our trip. Our original plan was to continue north into Montana and then swing west into Idaho continuing into Washington and the coast. The weather in Cheyenne and what we would face to the north caused us to alter our route. Today we turned west and drove the entire width of Wyoming, into Utah and then Idaho where we are tonight. Today's leg was a long one. We clocked about 610 miles over 8,000 foot passes, blowing snow and 50+ mph head winds for much of the trip. And truck traffic? We were practically in a truckers convoy for most of the day.
So, here we are in Twin Falls. I'm not too disappointed with the trip so far. We have seen a lot of the country in the past 4 days and we know that there was a lot that we did not see. I finally made it to Wyoming only to find it cold and snowy. We finally got to Colorado, only to find it cloudy, cold and snowy. Utah was nice, the part that we did see. Idaho so far is okay. At least we have had some sunshine today and tomorrow looks to be pretty good. So maybe things are looking up. I hope so. I don't want Dana to have to talk me out of the 4Runner again on the trip home.
I am posting a couple of photos from the past couple of days. Enjoy the pics!
Ciao!
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| We stopped at the Enchanted Garden Tea and Coffee Shop in Raton, New Mexico. The store used to be the Silver Dollar Saloon which dated back to the 1920's. This is a photo of Dana at the original saloon bar, now the coffee and tea bar. |
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| Dana at the gas pump in Cheyenne, Wyoming |
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| The snowy scene we found when we prepared to depart our hotel in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The temperature was 15F or -8C. Brrrrrr...... |
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| Mile High Stadium in Denver. It is located beside the Interstate. This is not a great photo as it was snowing heavily. Fortunately, we had come to a halt in heavy traffic so at least we got a photo. I have added this photo as it brings backs memories of the trashing the Seattle SeaHawks gave the Denver Bronco's in the Super Bowl. |
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