Unfinished Business!

Hi All,

I am writing this final blog post from the comfort of my very own living room. While it is great to be home, I am sad that I did not get to do many of the things I had planned. The wild fires prevented me from doing about 50% of what I had planned.

I must say that I still managed to do several things that were at the top of my list. Checking in on our land, rock climbing in El Rito, visiting Bisti Badlands, and visiting some hot springs were all highly anticipated. Because of the fires I / we were forced to do and see some unexpected things as well. Kelli and I managed to visit several towns in Colorado that we had never been to, and I got to rock climb at Penitente Canyon again, one of my favorite climbing spots. Unfortunately, all that extra driving added up to a lot of extra miles and dollars!

At the end of the day I must conclude that the trip was well worth while. After all, it was the journey itself that was most beneficial to me personally. Many hours spent thinking (or not thinking!), and an overwhelming sense of self reliance are very therapeutic.

I have not done an official tally of miles driven, but a rough estimate would be about 7,500 miles. I drove through 17 states, four of which I had never been to before. I had no problems while driving, and the van functioned perfectly during the entire trip. I've taken to calling it my survival pod (or escape pod during the start of the trip).

Here are a few final pictures from various places and days.

Durango, CO

Farmington, NM

Good Beer Only!

At the Albuquerque Isotopes baseball game.

Parents garden in Perkasie, PA

Well, that's it. I hope to see everyone soon.

All the best,

Mark

Retreat!

Well, after careful consideration I've decided to head back to Vermont early. The wild fires won. After I dropped Kelli off at the airport in Albuquerque I spoke to a park ranger and he said that the national forest would be closed until they received "substantial" rain throughout the state! Considering the fact that it didn't rain once the whole time I was there, I decided to throw in the towel. In fact, they have not gotten rain for months and several fires are still burning.

So, I've made it all the way to West Virginia! Not bad for two days. I will visit my parents tomorrow and probably be back in Vermont by Monday night. I do have more photo's which I 'll share tomorrow.

See you soon!
Mark

HOT springs and Ruins

Just posting some photo's from yesterday. The hot springs at Ojo Caliente, and pueblo ruins on the mesa directly behind the springs. Oh, and the best Mexican food yet!

Hiking up to the mesa to check out the ruins.

Pottery shards dating from the 1400's are everywhere you look!

Kelli getting into the arsenic pool......

and waiting for the arsenic to kick in.

All for now, but we are planning to go to a minor league baseball game tonight. The local team is the Albuquerque Isotopes. How can you not love a team with a name like that!

Mark

Colorado Whirlwind

Hi all,

After we left the Valley View Hot Springs (Orient Land Trust), Kelli and I visited Gunnison,Silverton, Ouray, and Durango CO. We only spent the night in Gunnison and Durango. All of these places were very busy and full of people for the long holiday weekend. We found it very difficult to find places to camp because of the crowds.

Hartman Rock Rec. Area, Gunnison.

The Black Canyon of the Gunnison, NP.

Near Gunnison

Mesa Verde N.P.

We decided to come back to New Mexico on Monday and spent the night of the 4th of July at the Bisti Badlandands. Bisti is a very remote, arid, and incredible place in the northwest corner of New Mexico. Truly awe inspiring, both in it's beauty and remoteness.

We are now in Ojo Caliente, southwest of Taos NM, mostly because Carson National Forest is still completely closed. We are camping at the Ojo Caliente Hot Springs. They have various types of hot spring pools, and a mud bath pool. Yes, we baked ourselves with mud! I'll try to get pics of that this evening.

All for now, be back later!

Cheers,
Mark

Pics, Pics, Pics.

Last night we ended up in a place called the Orient Land Trust, full of hot springs, old abandoned mines, incredible scenery, and a colony of 250,000 bats!
Enjoy the pictures.

Some of the smoke we were running away from.

El Rito climbing.

Orient Land Trust

Old iron mine. Now bat home.

Waiting for the bats to emerge.

Don't know where we are going next, but when we get there I will let you know!
Mark

Kicked Out of New Mexico!

HI all,
After spending Monday kicking around Albuquerque waiting for Kelli's flight to arrive, we immediately headed north only to spend Mon. night in a Wal-Mart parking lot. But it was OK because the all night parking lot security guard welcomed us, showed us the best place to park, and told us he would check on us all night. It was close to midnight and all the campgrounds were closed due to fire hazard.
Tues. to Chimayo, then Santa Fe,   then Taos for lunch. After that we headed west into Carson National forest to do some rock climbing at El Rito.
El Rito turned out to be an awesome climbing area, we had a great day! When we got back to the car there was a notice on the car stating that the Natnl. Forest would be closed and must be evacuated by 6am the next morning because of the approaching wild fires! We had be traveling and climbing in heavy smoke all day, so this was not too much of a surprise to us.
Since most of our plans in NM involved activities in the national forest we decided to head north into Colorado, eventually leaving the smoke and ending up at Penitente Canyon.
Spent the morning climbing at Penitente, and are now in South Fork CO waiting for some light rain to stop (the first I've seen in 8 days!), so we can go bouldering nearby.
Sorry for the run-on.
So, now pictures from most of the above days.

Nuclear Science Museum, Albuquerque.

Sant Fe

Albuquerque

OK, that's a lot. I've not loaded the pics of the smoke in the sky as we were driven from NM. Hopefully tonight.
All for now.
Cheers, Mark