The drive up to Colorado went without incident. We left San Antonio very early (by our standards) on Wednesday and made all our usual stops -- breakfast at Mar's Kitchen in Comfort; various leg-stretching stops across Texas, gas and lunch in the park at Sweetwater. There's a mom-and-pop ice cream shop there that we see every time we pass through there, but it's usually winter and they're closed. This time, though, we stopped and indulged. Sherry had a half-scoop of mango gelato topped with a half-scoop of green apple gelato. I got a half of Oreo and a half of White Chocolate Birthday Cake. Carly got a half-scoop of vanilla, which she promptly turned over onto the ground. So I had to hold it for her. When Sherry noticed my ice cream was melting all over the table, she put Carly's between her feet to hold it while we ate ours. Naturally, ice cream infused her shoe laces, which later caused a little problem in that the Colorado Cairns found her laces irresistible.
We
spent the night in Amarillo, with dinner at the Coyote Cafe on Grand. I
like their burgers but not their fries. Should have gotten onion rings
instead but didn't think of it until too late. Their burgers are proof of the maxim I learned young: a sandwich's quality is directly proportional to its messiness, and the corollary that the best sandwiches must be eaten over a sink. These burgers are definite sink-quality sandwiches.
Breakfast as
usual in Dumas at our regular stop. It was cloudy and fairly cool still,
despite the previous afternoon's 107-degree heat, so it was OK leaving
Carly in the car while we ate. The drive across Oklahoma and eastern
Colorado was uneventful. We got out and walked around at the beautiful
little city park in Springfield, Colorado, and had a picnic lunch at the
city park in Hugo, then drove up to Golden. With the time change, we
got there in mid-afternoon, and had a nice little visit with Jeramy and
Ali and Benny (Kaylee was at Scout Camp), then left Carly, who was very
happy to see the family and especially her cousin Aspen. She wanted to
leave with us but was persuaded to stay for an extended visit, which was the whole point of our drive up to Colorado.
After
last year's pneumonia episode following her stay in a kennel for our
Condo trip, we've decided never to board her again. We had first
arranged for some friends down the street to watch her for us, but then
the wife of the couple learned that dogs are one of the many things
causing her severe allergy responses. Maybe some medication change can
overcome the issue for her -- fingers crossed -- but if not, we will
gladly take Carly to Colorado rather than board her again. We know it's
something of an imposition on the Zimms, as they always have so many
things going on with their kids and their work, but if they can't keep
Carly, and the neighbours can't, then the bottom line is we will just not go on Condo
Week trips anymore.
We shall see.
First Day (Friday & Saturday)
We
got away from Fort Collins around 9AM and headed through
Denver and Springs into New Mexico. There was the appearance of severe weather ahead at one point, but we managed to miss the worst of it, only getting the tail-end of the rain on a two-lane highway south of Las Vegas, New Mexico. It was about 9PM when we pulled up
at our condo in Crown Point, on the southern edge of Ruidoso. On the way we
listened to the US-Australia match in the World Cup (US 2, Australia 0)
on Sirius XM radio. It was a simulcast of the Fox TV coverage, so the
announcers often forgot that Sirus listeners couldn't see what was going
on. As usual, they did a lot of yammering, instead of describing the
action, but we could follow along well enough. (It was a little
different when, in another game, Morocco scored in the 2nd minute
against Scotland, and all the announcer could say was "Oh, wow! What a
goal! That was fantastic!" And he never did say what had happened. We
watched the highlights when we got to Ruidoso.)
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| the view out the back |
We
had breakfast Saturday morning at a popular bakery-cafe called
Cornerstone, which was excellent. The service was top-notch, as was the
food, and the ambience was very pleasant. We had a table outside on the dog-friendly covered patio. Prices were a little high but not outrageous. Sherry and
Nancy also bought some things for the Lake house -- coasters and a
little sign celebrating the lake-house lifestyle. They both wanted the
quiche on the menu, but the kitchen was out of it, so Sherry got some kind of
sandwich on jalapeño bread while Nancy got caprese avocado toast. Jeff
had huevos rancheros. I got a bagel with lox and cream cheese. All were
very good.
After that, we drove up to
Grindstone Lake, which our desk clerk had recommended as a place to walk
and see birds; but it was so incredibly crowded (and really too late
for what we wanted to do anyway) that we decided to save that for
another day.* We came back to the condo and Nancy and I planned our week
while Sherry and Jeff watched a World Cup match.
In
the evening we drove over to the Noisy Water Winery's local shop (one
of two, across the street from each other) and had about a two-hour wine
tasting and snackfest. We went from there to dinner at Michael J's, an
Italian restaurant in town. The ambience was okay: parking is tight, you
have to pass through the kitchen to your table and it's very hot there;
the patio door next to our table was open so there were some flies in the dining room.
Service was officious and a little unpracticed, but good enough. The
food was satisfactory, no more. I found the salad interesting and the
dressing (house-made) very good, but the greens were not cut down to an
appropriate size for a salad. My lasagna was mediocre. Sherry had an
eggplant dish (called simply "eggplant" on the menu) which she didn't
have a high opinion of. The prices were just slightly higher than I would
have paid back home, but there were upcharges for the salad and bread
trays (after the first), which would not have been charged back home, so
the total bill ended up being noticeably more than we would have paid
for the same meal (of better overall quality) in any of our preferred Italian restaurants in San Antonio. Make of that what you will.
Our
planned next stop was a place called the Monjeau Lookout, which is
about 15 miles west of town, up 6 miles of dirt roads, but we decided to
save that for another day, as it was getting kind of late. Instead we
went to Pillows Funmakers for a round of mini-golf. The
course was well-designed and challenging, but the lighting was poor and
the fumes from the adjacent go-kart tracks at each side (not to mention
the noise) was unpleasant. Some of the walkways between holes had deteriorated to the point that Jeff couldn't get his walker over them. Still, we succeeded in having our Once-A-Year
Athletic Club event. Sherry and I tied for first, while Nancy had an
unusually poor round and brought up the rear. Jeff was feeling a little
dizzy so he just watched.
* Never did get around to that....
Second Day (Sunday)
So we piled into the car for our Sunday expedition somewhat before 9AM.
Something of a record for us, or at least a memorable accomplishment;
kind of like when the USMNT beat Brazil in the Confederations Cup in
South Africa in 2009 -- memorable, but fairly insignificant.
I
pulled up our itinerary on my phone's mapping app. It being the Summer
Solstice, it seemed particularly apt that our first stop would be the
Sunspot Solar Observatory, half an hour south of the resort town of Cloudcroft. The mapping
app warned me that the observatory might be closed. I searched its
hours on the Internet and found that they open at 9. Not a problem,
since it'd take us over an hour to get there; they should be open by then.
The
drive to Cloudcroft was certainly scenic: through National Forest most
of the way, a winding two-lane mountain road with little traffic. Just
the kind of road I used to ache to drive in my convertible. The town of
Cloudcroft itself was a little less than picturesque, it being all
Gen-X'ers in their oversized pickup trucks (as opposed to our oversized
SUV) with weak mufflers, tourists in yoga pants climbing in and out of
Jeeps that, I suppose, make them feel like nature enthusiasts.
The
pretty, relaxing road continued south to the observatory. As you
approach it, road signs give you the relative positions of the planets in the
Solar System, with the observatory itself occupying the place for the
sun. Sadly, Pluto did not have a place, even in memoriam, in their
little roadside schemata. It started with Uranus and ended with ... I
don't actually know; I assume Mercury.
But it
turns out that the Sunspot Solar Observatory actually is closed.
Ironically, because of a mercury leak six months ago. Yes, the Web site
says that on the home page, but the hours are still posted on the
plan-your-visit page that I went directly to when I checked. We arrived
at the entrance ("Earth," it said, "Closed, No Public Access."). We drove
on slowly, trying to figure out what had happened. Everything looked
quiet, mundane even, like in one of those Sci-Fi shows where everyone
has vanished without explanation. We found only another "closed to the
public" sign. A car came up behind us and Nancy turned around, intending
to ask those other tourists if they knew anything about the situation.
It turned out to be a security guard, who told us about the toxic
chemical spill.
We turned back and headed for Cloudcroft, intending to stop at every
overlook and scenic spot, in order to feel the drive hadn't been wasted.
(It actually hadn't; it was that nice a road.)
But
the drive was worthwhile. The most interesting spot we stopped at was
an overlook of the entire Tularosa Valley, where White Sands is located. In the foreground are the outskirts of Alamogordo; on the horizon are the mountains; in between, in the middle distance, is White Sands, standing out clearly from the surroundings.
We then drove
down into Alamogordo, where I'd chosen a German restaurant for lunch.
This met with everyone's enthusiastic approval, especially after we'd
eaten (three weissbrauts and a bratwurst) and indulged in a spot of
dessert while watching a soundless broadcast of a World Cup match. By
the time we'd finished it was after 2PM, and we just had time to see the New Mexico Museum of Space History. It had a planetarium show that fit
our schedule, too, and it had a relationship with the Denver Museum of
Science, which Nancy and Jeff are members of, so our admittance for both
the museum and the planetarium were covered.
Our
first stop was at another observatory in the area, though not a solar
one. Apache Point, though, was just a scientific research installation,
with nothing of interest to the casual visitor. (According to the
website, you can get a walking-tour guide map of Apache Point ... at the
Sunspot Solar Observatory visitors' center.) We came, we saw, we left and
went up the road until we saw a sign indicating wildlife viewing off to
the right at an unspecified distance. We drove down that
nearly-deserted road until the pavement ended, without finding anything
but a sort of loading station for small livestock (like goats or sheep).
At that point we turned back.
Driving back to
the main road reminded me of that scene, early on in the Rocky Horror
Picture Show, when Brad and Janet, newly engaged and going to share the
good news with Brad's mentor, Dr. Scott, drive through the rain with
groups of motorcycles approaching in the dark and zipping past them. The
road was too narrow for our giant vehicle and a similar commonplace
oversized American truck to pass at speed, so every occasion encountering opposing
traffic was something of an event. In the end, we decided that there
was a coven meeting to celebrate the summer solstice, and that, because
of the unfortunate accident that occurred at their Winter Solstice
celebration, at their usual druidic location, they've had to relocate
their ceremonies to some remote spot down this little park road.
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| Tularosa Basin overlook |
Back at Cloudcroft, we visited the Mexican Trestle, which I'd seen a few years ago, and then stopped at the Tunnel View. I'd seen that a few
years ago, too, and only remembered that, reading the signage about the
anthropological importance of the cliff face across the small canyon, it
made no sense at all. On this trip (already knowing that the name
"Tunnel View" referred to the location, not the object of the viewing --
a distinction which had confused me on my first visit because, let's be
honest, there's nothing in the least remarkable about that particular
tunnel) I figured out that my confusion last time was entirely due to
the fact that the signs explaining the discoveries and research at this
location did not relate to the cliff opposite, which the sign faces, but
to the lower cliff some short distance to the right, behind those
trees, where there's a little bit of an overhang.
It's
not a really exciting tourist spot, but it was crowded with Fathers'
Day celebrants (or possibly solstice enthusiasts who didn't get the memo
about the new location for the coven's celebration), which gave us the chance
to do a little people-watching. And dog-watching; there were lots of people with dogs.
Jeff
had to wake me up twice during the planetarium show. It was exactly
what was needed: a cool, comfortable dark space for a nap. I imagine the show was good, but I can't swear to it.
We
closed the museum, of course, keeping the staff there until long after
their 5pm shift-end, and headed off to the big draw in the area, White
Sands National Park.
Continued in next post. For all the pictures from this trip, click here.
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