We’re spending the night in Farmington, New Mexico. We had to come down here to come to the bank, unfortunately. Oh well. Tomorrow we’re on our way to Utah.
I drove the van from Cortez to here! White knuckled all the way. I am so greatful to Erik for doing almost all the driving .. it’s not an easy vehicle to keep a handle on.

Chama is the home of the historic Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, which were once part of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroads, built in 1880. The population of Chama now, 1,200 people, is just 200 more than it was after the railroad boom, when it hit 1000.

Like the railroad that used to service Los Alamos and Los Olivos, it’s a narrow gauge train. The most beautiful part of the route has been preserved, and if you have a spare $75 to $100, you can take a trip on the train.

We won’t be doing that but checked out the station while we got mail and went to the bank in Chama.

Depot.

Down the tracks.

The coal tipple shown in the photo above is the only wooden one surviving in the U.S. It was built in 1924 and is still used, though is currently undergoing renovation.

I snapped this photo of a gallery called “Local Color” because it’s such a journalism oxymoron.

Local color.

The only place we stopped between here and the Ghost Ranch was a neat spot called the Echo Amphitheatre, which makes the neatest echo sounds when you send noise up into its depths. Definitely wished I had an audio recorded to be able to share the noise with you.

Echo. ECHO.

We are on our way to Durango, but may not be able to get there until tomorrow because we’re still waiting for the license plates.

From a distance.

When you get up to the mesa that is of equal height to it, it looks more like this:

At the top.

But what that photo doesn’t show is that the winds were blowing ferociously up there, so hard that all I could do was snap the photo and come on down.

Part of the reason was this storm:

Summer storm.

It hasn’t rained yet, though the winds are still blowing something fierce.

On the way back to camp I saw this awesome lizard. 10 big points for whoever can tell me what kind it is. Erik used to know, but doesn’t remember now. It sure is pretty!

Lizard on a rock.

Some of my sharper readers may have noticed I had an unfortunate spelling error on Abiquiu in my earlier post. It has been corrected.

Even a writer like me can appreciate why famous painters love this sort of country.

Pedernal from way off.

White rocks.

Red rocks.

Rainbow rocks.

Driving into Ghost Ranch.

After leaving Taos went spent much of the weekend driving what is called the Enchanted Circle. This route goes through the mountains in a loop from Taos to Questa, Questa to Red River, up the Bobcat Pass at nearly 10,000 feet, down into Eagle Nest, and back over the mountain back to Taos.

We had come in from Angel Fire so we’d seen the last part of the route, but there was much we explored on the rest of the loop.

Friday night we camped a mile above the Rio Grande at a deserted but beautiful spot called Cebolla Mesa. Free National Forest camping, only 2 other parties there.

Cebolla Mesa

The Rio Grande is a muddy ribbon wayyyy down there.

Saturday we hiked down to the river. Almost directly below our campsite was a neat backpacking site on an island in the middle of a fork in the river. Very cool spot. You went out to it on a narrow little rickety bridge that shook when Erik and I stood on it at the same time.

The bridge from afar.

And up close.

Next we drove out to Questa and then turned up to Red River. On the way we passed a giant Chevron molybdeum mine that had complete decimated one of the mountains. Molybdeum, according to Wikipedia, is a chemical used in high-strength steel alloys. It’s apparently oxidized in the rocks found around Red River.

The town of Red River is a curious Western/Bavarian hybrid. Check out the supermarket.

Der Markt

No camping nearby, so we headed out and up the Bobcat Pass, at the top of which is a private cross country ski area called the Enchanted Forest. On the descent, there were some beautiful views.

Backside of Bobcat Pass.

And further along towards Eagle Nest, some great big ranches.

Location, location, location.

We diverted from the circle to camp at a place called Tolby Creek, one of the campgrounds in Cimarron State Park. It was gorgeous.

No fish in Tolby Creek.

It’s probably worth pointing out that that is the view out the van back window while parked at the campsite. And we rolled in on a late Saturday afternoon. There are simply no comparisons to be made between the California and New Mexico camping experiences.

On the way out Sunday we stopped to take photo of the burned out Eagle’s Nest lodge.

Eagle's Nest Lodge.

Then we headed back to Taos .. and kept going. New post coming soon.