Thursday, June 14, 2007

More Travel


We left Albuquerque to visit with a former colleague and his wife who retired to Pagosa Springs. Once we got past Santa Fe, the drive was spectacular. Being a Floridian for many, many years, the desert and mountains provide a welcome change. In additon to the scenery, there were all sorts of critters to identify (remember, my husband is a scientist, and everything must be named). Marmots, deer, pronghorn antelope, prairie dogs, as well as assorted birds and I'm sure I missed some. When he checks in to read this, I'm sure he'll point out what I forgot.


After a short lunch stop at an all purpose store (organic food, hardware, earthworms, etc.) and having the most humungous and delicious burrito ever, we abandoned our hosts written directions and relied on the GPS. Until this point, my husband had simply loaded the maps into the gizmo, no waypoints. So, we knew where we were, but not how to get where we were going. Once he loaded their address as a waypoint, he no longer said, "I think we were supposed to turn back there." On our arrival, we were greeted in their driveway by three mule deer and spent the afternoon admiring their mountaintop home, good food, and a lot of talking and catching up. I think we haven't seen each other in about 20 years.

Next morning, we packed up and headed for Colorado Springs. The weather was rainy and cloudy, and we were high enough to be in the clouds.

We traversed Wolf Pass, and once we got to the other side of the mountain, the weather cleared.



Since our son wasn't going to be home until after 5:30, we detoured to the Sand Dunes National Monument.

2 comments:

Marianne Arkins said...

I lived in Colorado Springs for seven years -- It's lovely. Don't miss Garden of the Gods. And, of course, you must take the railway up Pikes Peak!

Enjoy :-)

Terry Odell said...

See today's post with the Garden of the Gods picture. We've been there before as well. We were going to go up Pikes Peak, but the weather was absolutely impossible -- rain, 30 mile an hour winds, so it would have been a waste.