Category: Travel

I haven't blogged in a few days because we have mainly been on the road with just a few fun stops.

After getting off the train in Durango we drove a few miles east and spent the night in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Soon after we left the next morning we left the Rockies behind. In northeastern New Mexico we stopped at Capulin National Monument. It is an extinct cinder cone volcano. We drove up the road almost to the top and then did the hike around the rim.The view from the top was fantastic.

Capulin was pretty much the last mountain we saw as we drove towards Guymon, Oklahoma to spend the night, Guymon is in the panhandle of Oklahoma.

On Monday we drove from Guymon across the great plains to Joplin, Missouri. Joplin is in the southwestern corner of Missouri and is green and wooded. On May 22 last year an enormous tornado hit Joplin killing 160 people. We didn't see the tornado damage in Joplin but we did see some tornado damage along the road during the day.

Tuesday morning we visited the George Washington Carver National Monument just south of Joplin. The farm where Carver grew up is covered with  trees, there is a stream running through it and there were birds and butterflies everywhere. It is easy to understand why he loved nature. The visitor center told the story of how Carver was born a slave, never knew his father, lost his mother early on and then went on to be a world famous scientist. Of course the fact that he graduated from my alma matter, Iowa State University is a source of pride to me. We learned a lot about his life and his many discoveries It was a cool, bright morning and we really enjoyed walking the nature trail.

From Joplin we drove through the Ozarks to Branson, Missouri which is only 112 miles. The scenery was hilly and green. We had a nice picnic lunch just outside of Branson

Just recently a tornado also hit Branson. There was some very impressive damage in Branson. It must have been very scary when the tornado went through. One of hte buildings hit was the Hilton. Lots of windows were blown out and are now boarded up and the Hilton is closed.

We had a wonderful dinner overlooking the river and watched a water and light show.

 

From Branson we drove to Memphis Tennessee where we spent the night with my sister lizabeth and her daughter katherine.. We had a wonderful  visit and then left for Nashville yesterday.

We visited Nashville on our Honeymoon so it is fun to be back 9 years later. We went out honky tonking last night. That is visiting the bars down town to listen to the music. It was a much fun as I remembered. I don't know anywhere else in the world that you can hear so much great music. We must have visited 6 or 8 bars in two blocks and they each had great bands playing for tips. And we certainly didn't visit every bar! We also had a great dinner at a restaurant from our last visit because Duke remembered the meat loaf. It was a great as we remembered

 

Yesterday was day four of our road trip. It was a great day. It was also a long day. But most of all it was an incredibly fun day.  We rode the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railway from Durango to Silverton. Had lunch and did some shopping in Silverton and then rode the train back to Durango. We boarded at 8:30 in the morning and didn't get back to Durango until almost 7 last night. The train runs 45 miles from Durango north to Silverton along the Animas River through wilderness that can only be accessed by train.

It was a wonderful day for a lot of reasons. During the winter the train just goes part way to Silverton and then turns around. Today was the first trip of the season for the train to go all the way to Silverton. There was a festive air. It was an extra long train so part of the time we had two steam locomotives pulling us. There were all sorts of people along the route  who were waving and taking pictures as the train went by.

The route follows the Animas River. It was full from snow run off and there were lots of waterfalls coming into the river. When we were at over 9000 feet there were still jagged snow covered peaks towering above the canyon.The most impressive part of the ride was the High Line. The train creeps along a narrow rock ledge 240 feet above the river.

And the history was fascinating. The Durango and Silverton railroad has been in continuous operation since 1882 when Durangoa and Silverton were booming mine towns.

But the best part of the whole experience was the people. There were four or five people in character who took turns coming into our car and  telling us about their lives on the frontier in the area.

The conductors and concessions people were friendly and clearly excited. They hung around and answered our questions and pointed out their favorite sites along the route. They even pointed out a moose that was swimming across the river to get away from the train.

We stopped several times to take on water. Another time we stopped so three hikers could get off the train to start their back packing trip.

One of the coolest things though was that the owner of the railroad was riding the train. He stopped in our car and talked with us. He told us he used to be a Florida real estate developer which allowed him to fulfill a dream and buy a railroad. He now owns a couple of other railroads and manges several others including the Tequila Train outside of Guadalajara, Mexico. He talked about how important he thinks it is to make history and our heritage alive and fun. His passion was contagious.

These trains are a for profit operation and you couldn't help but notice how it improved the experience.  The guidebook cost $20 but it is a 188 page well written book with lots of color pictures. It covers everything from the history, to what we saw along the route, to how to run a railroad. Everyone we ran into from the owner down to the girl selling guidebooks made us feeling like we were a part of something very special.

If you ever get the chance take a ride on the Durangoa and Silverton Narrow Gauge railway. Do it!

 

 

 

 

 

Duke and I left Wednesday on a six week U.S. road trip. From Reno we pretty much drove straight through to Cedar City Utah. We drove 527 miles. Nevada has some beautiful scenery and a lot of sage brush but we have explored much of it on previous trips.

Thursday our first stop was Zion National Park. We drove through the 1.1 mile Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel. it was built in the 1920s. In this picture you can see one of the ventilation holes in the tunnel.

Right on the other side of the tunnel is the Valley Overlook trail. It is a one mile round trip trail with an amazing view. It was a perfect day and a great hike.

From Zion we drove to Pink Coral Sand Dunes State Park. If you look very closely you can see Duke on top of that sand dune. You should also be able to click on the picture to get a bigger view.

Our next stop was the Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River. The dam created Lake Powell in northern Arizona. I was surprised that it was just completed in 1966.

Our mileage Thursday was 487 miles so after our stops at Zion and Pink Coral Sand Dunes we didn't get to Far View Lodge in Mesa Verde National Park in south west Colorado until sunset. We watched a beautiful sunset as we were driving into the park and then had a fabulous dinner with a bottle of wine at the lodge restaurant.

This morning (Friday) we took a tour of the park including climbing down into the Cliff Palace Cave Dwellings. Native Americans lived at Mesa Verde and farmed corn, beans and squash for 700 years but the cliff dwellings were only occupied for about the last 80 years before the Native Americans migrated south in search of water.

Mesa Verde is covered with archaeological sites. We saw pit houses and a fascinating museum. I would like to visit again some day. After a picnic lunch we headed to Durango where we are tonight.

If you would like ot see all of our pictures from this trip they are available on Flickr here.

 

Duke and I just finished a 6 week road trip. A month of that was driving through Mexico. We drove down the gulf coast to the Yucatan then through Oaxaca and Mexico City and back north crossing  into the U.S. at Nogales.

Here are a few things we learned about driving in Mexico

• Topes!  The thing that you notice immediately when you start driving in Mexico are the topes. Topes are everywhere.  A tope is a speed bump. They can be big or enormous or occasionally small. Duke did all the driving on the trip. Although he always slowed down to a crawl to go over the topes we must have scraped the bottom of the car at least once a day. Sometimes on the smaller roads vendors will build topes on the road themselves so that drivers will have to slow down to look at what they are selling.

 

 

• Maps –  If you are going to drive in Mexico you have to get the Guia Roji Mexicoan Atlas. I can't recommend it highly enough. The maps are up to date, accurate and easy to read. I love this atlas!

•  Motels – For most of our trip we looked for a place to stay when we arrived in the town where we wanted to spend the night. Early in the trip we were looking for lodging and saw a place that looked secure – It had high walls and garages – and it looked clean and new, We pulled in and immediately did a U-turn when we saw the sign with room rates by the hour! In the following g days we pulled into motels in other towns. One even had a drive through check in with a drawer to put your money in so you never saw the clerk. They all had walls and garages or curtains across the parking spots, and hourly rates!

Towards the end of our trip Duke asked one of the teachers at our language school about motels in Mexico. He found out that motel has a different meaning in Mexico than it does in the U.S. In Mexico motels are for private assignations. If you are on a road trip like we were you probably don't want to stay in a Mexican motel!

We often saw motels with romantic names but my favorite motel name was Motel Dix 🙂

• Cuotas and Libres -In general the Mexican roads we drove on were good. Often there are two routes shown on signs. For example a road sign might point to Oaxaca Libre and in a different direction to Oaxaca Cuota.  The Cuota roads are toll roads. They are fairly expensive but usually they are much better roads than the free (Libre) roads. Although this was not always the case. A few times, especially around Vera Cruz the toll roads were terrible. We also traveled on some great free roads. On one libre road we did have a detour around some construction that was actually through a lake!

• Driving after Dark in Mexico is probably a bad idea. We made a point of never driving after dark in Mexico. While this is probably a good safety precaution a very good reason to not drive after dark is that hazards are often poorly marked, A hazard could be a big tope that you don't want to hit at speed  or it could be a big rock in the road. On one Cuota in the mountains we came around a corner and there was an enormous bolder at least 15 feet in diameter right in the middle of the road. It may have come down on the road very recently but there were no warnings. I can't imagine trying to avoid it on a unlit road. Hazards aren't usually that bed but roads are often poorly lit and you can come upon construction, an animal or a slow moving vehicle very fast,

 

• No deja piedras sobre pavemiente – This sign was a very common sign on many roads. It translates "Don't leave Rocks on the Pavement".  It seemed  like a very odd message for a sign. Duke had to explain it to me.  Frequently when a car breaks down people will put rocks in the road to warn oncoming traffic that the car is in the road. In the U.S. we would be more likely to use flares or cones for the same purpose. The sign is instructing the driver to remove the rocks when the broken down vehicle is moved.

 There are lots of other tips for driving in Mexico. They include things like buying insurance and getting your permit to bring your car in but you can find that information in lots of places. The information above is just some of the odd stuff that I never found explained any where else. If you have questions about our experience. Please leave a comment.

Friday morning we drove to Mazatlan. Duke had booked a room on Priceline for two nights. It turned out to be a beautiful resort on the beach north of Mazatlan. When we checked in we agreed to be signed up for the Saturday morning time share presentation. For attending we would get $150 in food credit at the resort.

We went for a swim in one of their pools and then drove down into Mazatlan where we found a restaurant on the beach and had shrimp and fish for dinner.

It rained all day Saturday which was kind of nice because it was still warm but the lack of sun made it not too hot. Our time share sales pitch turned out to be really interesting. Our sales guy was originally from Minnesota,but has lived in Mexico for seventeen years. He wasn't too high pressure and we learned a lot. He said because so many Americans are afraid to travel to Mexico they are selling and marketing more to Mexicans. We had a tour and a great breakfast. It is a beautiful property.

After the sales pitch we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the veranda reading and enjoying the stunning view.

 From Mazatlan we drove to Alamos. We visited Alamos on our trip in 2007. It is a wonderful old colonial mining town. It is very small and fun to explore. We wanted to stay where we stayed in 2007 but it is now a private residence. Instead we found a wonderful eco lodge El Pedregal run by an American couple who moved to Alamos almost 20 years ago. We had our own quiet little cabin and the best bed we had on the whole trip.

We explored Alamos Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning we had a great breakfast at El Padregal and a fascinating talk with Dave and Jennifer, the owners. They lead tours and built El Pedregal a few years ago. the state department travel warnings have really hurt their business and make no sense to them. I think a bird tour with them would be a lot of fun.

 

Monday morning after a wonderful breakfast on the porch at El Pedregal we headed north again to San Carlos on the Sea of Cortez. We've been here before too. After checking in to our Best Western we explored the coast a bit and had a great shrimp dinner. This morning, Tuesday we are leaving for Tucson and the end of our Mexican adventure. It has been wonderful.