Thanks to everyone who has responded! I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to reply to you all individually-- we have such short periods of connectivity that I've only been able to get the updated photos loaded so far.
It's Friday night, August 2, and I'm updating this trip log from a Holiday Inn in Denver, CO. Kathy and I have tickets to see a reunion concert by one of her favorite local bands tomorrow night, so here we are in Denver. Kathy lived here for 30+ years, so she's out visiting friends while I add another installment to the trip log.
I think the last installment ended at Hualapai Mountain Park outside Kingman, AZ., a week or so ago. Oops, no-- we were in a hotel room in Farmington NM. We left Kingman and drove across the rest of Arizona, into New Mexico, where we spent the first night in a motel. Our destination the next day was the Carson National Forest in the Sangre de Christo mountains, but things did not go entirely according to plan. We had a lovely drive across New Mexico, however. This is the first unit of the Carson NF that we drove through, and we probably should have stayed there, but it was too early to stop.
The view was spectacular.
Unfortunately, we drove past many, many forest service roads that offered excellent camping opportunities. We drove through Taos on the the way, which was a frustrating experience-- Taos is pretty, but not the sort of place I enjoy pulling a trailer. The streets are narrow and very crowded. We bought supplies, and I had to keep circling the grocery store parking lot while Kathy shopped because there were no pull through parking spaces available-- nearly every spot in the lot was occupied and the crowds inside were just as dense.
We were shooting for another unit of the Carson NF, to the east, past Angel Fire. On the map it looked like a vast swath of public land, but when we got there we found it was actually the Philmont Boy Scout ranch. We drove around on the Philmont ranch for a while-- the map showed a public wildlife area in the center of what turned out to be the Philmont, but we hoped we'd find some public camping anyway. No dice, although we had a nice conversation with a cowboy and the horse ranch supervisor. In the end though, we had to backtrack and leave.
We got the teardrop dirty looking for a camp. This is coming out of the Philmont ranch.
We washed that mud off in Frisco, TX, a couple of days later after it dried to adobe-like hardness-- in fact, now I know why New Mexico adobe was the construction material of choice in Taos. It took a LONG time to pressure wash that stuff off the trailer, and paint came off the fenders and the frame in the process. Next trailer I build might be adobe, LOL, although I'd need a bigger truck to pull it, I suppose.
We were running out of daylight when we ran across a Mom-and-Pop RV "resort." The owner charged $15 per night-- about what we'd been paying in Forest Service camps, but cut the price to $10 because we didn't need the electric hookup. We got hot showers too. No outside cooking though, because of fire restrictions, so we had a cold dinner. We almost had the place to ourselves-- most of the half dozen or so RVs parked there were in storage. In fact, one of the only other people there turned out to be from the last place I lived back east, in central Pennsylvania, and he was a professor at the university just down the road from the college where I taught. We knew a bunch of people in common. How crazy is that? In the middle of rural New Mexico, meeting someone you could have had lunch with 20 years ago and not known it then.
We had breakfast at The Brown Hotel and Cafe, and I finally got to feed my craving for good red chile gravy. Huevos and red. Yum.
From there we drove straight to Frisco, TX. Didn't take any photos. It was a long day behind the wheel, but Kathy did most of the driving so I could get some work done in the passenger seat. I missed about ten hours of scenery. We were very relieved to get to our hotel in Frisco. That was last Saturday night, I think. Here's the view from the fifth floor.
Frisco was all about Kathy visiting her grand kids and their family, while I holed up in the hotel room and worked. Fall semester is coming fast. Here we are on Tuesday morning, ready to depart Texas. We went back pretty much the way we came, and I missed the scenery again.
The trips across Texas and eastern New Mexico were such long drives because there is so little public land there! I've been spoiled by life in the west, where there is more National Forest and BLM land than there is private land, or so it seems. Whenever you get tired, there's either a Forest Service camp or a boonies camp of some sort close by. Not so much back east, where we drove past mile upon mile of fences, for hour after hour. In my mind that's now the defining characteristic of the west-- lots of public land.
Our first night out from Frisco, TX brought us to a small state park campground at Alice Lake in New Mexico Tuesday night.
We left early Wednesday morning and had breakfast in Trinidad, CO. Bob and Ernie's Cafe makes a mean breakfast burrito smothered in red chile.
The trailer has performed way better than we'd hoped. It pulls very well, it's stable, and despite our best efforts, we haven't broken anything so far. Kathy and I are really pleased with it. It's comfy to sleep in-- nearly as comfortable as our bed at home-- and the galley set up has worked very well. It takes minutes to level the trailer and set up camp, and packing up in the morning is even faster. Our verdict is that teardrops are the best road trip camping ever. No more unpacking everything from the back of the truck to sleep under the canopy or to pitch a tent and make camp. No more taking it all down and packing it all up again every morning. No more cooking, clean up, and sixteen other things simultaneously piled onto the tailgate.
Everywhere we stop people ask about the trailer, and you can see heads swivel in passing cars. Showing it off to inquiring passersby in parking lots has become routine. Lots of older people have also told us that "we had one like that when I was a kid." It is definitely a conversation starter. Oh and "you built it from a kit?"
Nope.
We spent Wednesday and Thursday nights at Aspen camp in the Pike National Forest, outside Jefferson, CO, at a bit more than 9,000 ft. It was lovely, and the first place we've been during the trip without severe fire restrictions.
You can see why they call it Aspen camp.
We made carne asada tacos for dinner Wednesday night.
Across from the camp was a pretty stream that basically connected scores of beaver ponds together.
Believe it or not, this site is only a couple of hours from Denver, so we drove straight to our hotel and arrived early. We'll be here until Sunday morning, then head back through Grand Junction (more family), then across Utah and Nevada on Rt. 50, "the loneliest highway in America." Lots and LOTS of public land in the basin and range country! I have a meeting in Sacramento on August 9-10 so that's our next check in. See you then!
--Mike C.
but would like to spend a few days at some of those stops, great memories 
