Sunday June 18, 2023 - John Martin Reservoir State Park CO to Taos NM

Last night sunset

The Point campground had less people this morning since most of the tent campers were blown away in yesterday’s storm. The dumpsters were full of bent and broken aluminum poles. We drove to the other side of the dam to Lake Hasty Campground, which is a much nicer campground that was totally booked. Looks like they were mostly big rigs so no wind damage. And they may have been sheltered by the dam.

We drove across open terrain and we could see we are getting closer to the arid southwest. No more irrigated crops.

Capulin Volcano

We drove back east a bit to Capulin Volcano National Monument, NM. This is the remains of a volcano that was last active 60,000 years ago. It was not that busy but they only also allow only about 30 cars up the road to the top at a time, so we had a 25 minute wait to drive up the kind of two lane road. We hiked on the rim trail to the very top which offered great views of the green grassland below. Things are still green but we will soon be entering brown country again.

We chatted up a couple from Dallas, Texas who were doing a two week loop for vacation. He had just retired and did the same kind of work as I did so some good nerd talk.

Taos

Then off to Taos via a beautiful twisty road that goes through Cimmeron, Eagles Nest and Angel Fire and finally brought us into Taos. Deb found a fun motel here with nice hot showers and laundry facilities.  Cookies at check in, chips and salsa and coffee and tea set up as well. We walked across the street to  The Burger Stand at Taos Alehouse for dinner and it was busy with what looked like the Taos younger crowd. Good people watching. We then strolled through old town Taos on a warm Sunday night.