After a hectic couple of days in Tucson packing and provisioning the motor home, we set off Wednesday for the first leg of our summer trip. On the first day, we passed through the beautiful Salt River Canyon, pictured at the left here. Some call this a smaller version of the Grand Canyon, as you can see on a couple other shots:
From there, we traveled to our first campground, Fool Hollow State Park, near Show Low, AZ, a tranquil spot where we had a lake view for the night. We woke the next morning with a deadline. We were to meet Bill and Judy Fletcher, former DeFever owners, for lunch in Gallup, NM at 11:30 am. They were on their way west to LA from Houston and we were heading east towards Taos. We set up this rendez-vous spot after realizing that we couldn't make Albuquerque in time to meet there. Thinking we would have plenty of time if we left at 8:30, we neglected to factor in the time zone change when we crossed into New Mexico (Arizona does not observe daylight savings). Fortunately, they were not in a hurry and waited the extra hour as we galloped to Gallup (sorry for the pun- couldn't resist it).
Luna and Duffy met and a good time was had by all.
We spent our second night at Navajo Lake State Park in northwest New Mexico overlooking a marina filled with pontoon party boats. To get there we drove through hairpin turns and over the dam with steep dropoffs on either side. The place was tightly packed with campers but our reserved space was quite nice with a great view of the lake.
On our way there, we passed through Shiprock, NM, the capital of the Navajo Nation, named for this huge rock that rises dramatically out of the high desert.
We had been climbing steadily on our trip, reaching an elevation of around 6800 feet at Navajo Lake. Sea-level dwellers that we are, even a short uphill climb was a little breath-taking (literally!). But the next day we went even higher- topping out at 10,500 feet on a beautiful mountain pass on Highway 64 heading east towards Taos.
We arrived in Taos yesterday afternoon and will be staying in a cute condo we bid on and won for a week in an Alamos fundraiser silent auction last winter. It feels good to be settled in one place for awhile as the last two weeks have been crazy, even for the peripatetic travelers that we are. PS- We had quite a scare yesterday afternoon after we arrived here at the condo when we couldn't find Luna in the motor home. We searched everywhere and finally concluded that she must have slipped out the car door when we arrived. We took turns staying in the motor home in case she came back, even eating our dinner there. We had about given up on her when I called once again and heard a faint meow. She then emerged from a previously unknown spot under the motor home shower, stretching and yawning after a prolonged afternoon nap. Crazy cat!
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