The service for the RV turned out to be a waste of time as the shop we had booked it at didn’t know what they were doing and we ended up leaving without getting the work done. But at least we arrived in Albuquerque before rush hour. We had arranged through the website Boondockerswelcome.com to stay with a fellow RVer in her driveway. We killed a couple hours at the mall nearby and even bowled a few rounds at the alley attached to the mall. When we got to our hosts site we realized we couldn’t get our motorhome in her driveway due to the height of our hitch. We ended up spending the night on the street in front of her home, which helped our decision not to spend a second night. The following morning we went out fairly early to tour some of the locations where they filmed one of our favorite TV series Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.
After lunch we left Albuquerque and headed north towards Sante Fe via the ‘back road’ with a stop at the Sandia Peak. It was cold at the top but the view was clear despite the clouds which had covered the mountain top earlier in the day.
We continued on towards Sante Fe, stopping for the night at a Harvest Host site on an alpaca farm with a beautiful view.
The next morning we headed into Santa Fe where we enjoyed walking around the historic district, cathedrals, and galleries. We even got to the see the oldest house in the USA.
Our campsite for the evening was high above the city in the national forest at an elevation of over 8500ft. It dropped down near freezing at night and only got up to about 15C during the day. The low temperatures gave us confidence that the dog would be OK alone the following day so we headed back down into Santa Fe to get some work done at Starbucks. In the afternoon we visited a modern art exhibit called Meow Wolf, which had excellent reviews online. It wasn’t really either of our cup of tea so I wouldn’t say we enjoyed it or would recommend it. After a stop at a barber shop for Gareth to get his hair cut we called it a day and headed back up the mountain to our campsite.
We moved on the following morning to the mountain community of Taos. We found a campsite at a National Forest campground just outside of town, which didn’t appear to be officially open for the season yet so the good news is we didn’t have to pay. We ventured out on the bike the next morning to ride a route known as The Enchanted Circle. The scenery certainly was beautiful, and we enjoyed a lunch in the small mountain community of Red River.
In the afternoon we returned to Taos and after checking on the dog and hanging around in the historic centre for a bit rode up to the Taos Ski Valley to check it out. The ski resorts were closed for the season but quite impressive. We’re told it is one of the premier ski destinations in North America, but neither of us ski so we wouldn’t know that.
On the way out of Taos we stopped to see the Rio Grande Canyon Bridge. The entire bridge shook while large trucks drove by.
Our next destination was over the state line in Colorado at the Great Sand Dunes National Park. As we got closer we could see the massive sand dunes coming into sight which was most impressive. Unfortunately both the evening, and the next morning the wind was very intense so we opted not to venture onto the dunes themselves, but did enjoy walking around the park and enjoying the views not just of the dunes but the snowy peaks behind them. From here we continued further West and deeper into the Rockies.
