It seems that a guy named Herman Ardans opened a curio shop here on US 66 around 1956 and made up the name Zuzax so it would capture people's attention and also so it would be the last entry in the phone book. When asked by his customers about the origin of the name, he would frequently tell them it referred to the Zuzax Indians. Of course, there were no Zuzax Indians. Ardens eventually got out of the business and his curio shop is now gone.Sunday, July 3rd, we left the coach after lunch to do some geocaching in the local area. We cached in Albuquerque proper last year when we were here twice, once for the FMCA rally and a second time for the Balloon Fiesta. However, we have never cached in the mountains to the East of town where the RV park is located. We were able to grab ten caches in a little over an hour, which is a pretty good pace. However, some monsoon thunderstorms had been moving in all afternoon and we had to get our tenth and last cache of the day in the rain. We decided to leave it at ten and drove about 10 miles East to the little town of Edgewood where we went to the Walmart store for some groceries. After shopping we headed back to the coach for the rest of the afternoon and evening. We had a lot of thunderstorms moving about in the area, but only got a little bit of rain at the RV park.
Monday, July 4th, Happy Birthday USA! We went out after lunch to do some more local caching and managed to get eight finds before we finally decided it was too hot and humid to look for more. We also had one DNF.
We headed back to the RV park and stopped at the park’s laundry to wash our clothes. After doing the laundry we went back to the coach for the rest of the night. Since New Mexico currently has a dozen wild fires around the state, and there is a severe drought, none of the communities near us were having fireworks shows. Albuquerque had a couple but it would take us hours to get home and we decided we didn’t want to bother.Tuesday, July 5th we decided to drive into downtown Albuquerque to have lunch at a little Mexican café called Cecilla’s. It has been featured on Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-ins and Dives and we like to visit places we see on the show. We had tried to go there back in March of last year when we were here for the FMCA Convention, but we arrived a couple minutes after the 2:00 p.m. closing time and they literally closed the door in our faces. We should have taken the hint, but we tried again today. We got in shortly after noon and ordered fairly standard Mexican fare. I had a machaca burrito and Jackie had a combo with a chili rellano, taco and enchilada. The food was OK at best. Like most New Mexican cuisine, it was quite different from the Sonoran style we are used to in California and Arizona. New Mexican food is MUCH hotter. The red chili sauce at Cecilla’s was very hot, but not a particularly flavorful hot. Bottom line is we probably would never go back and I wouldn’t suggest it for anyone else. This is the first real dud we have had from Triple D shows.
After lunch we tried to do some geocaching in the downtown area around where the restaurant was. We didn’t have much luck, we were unable to find the first three caches we looked for. Some of it was just not being able to find the cache, some was the GPS receivers bouncing around because of the tall buildings all around. It was also pretty hot and humid and Jackie was having a tough time breathing. We finally found one cache and we said that was good enough for today. After caching we did a Moose Lodge mini pub crawl, going to both of the Moose lodges in Albuquerque. One is near downtown and was a big building that was not particularly well taken care of. There were a lot of people in the bar, but they were not very friendly. After that we went to one on the East side of town, nearer to where we are staying, and that lodge was newer, nicer and much more friendly. We had a cocktail at each lodge. Unfortunately, Moose lodges do not have lodge pins, so we have no souvenirs of our visits. After the Moose visitations we headed back to the RV park for the rest of the night. Jackie wanted to see the talking heads on the news channels talking about the verdict on the Casey Anthony trial from Florida. Amazingly, at least to me, she was acquitted on all of the charges that had any relation to the death and was only convicted on four counts of lying to the police. My guess is she will get time served and be out by the end of the week.
Wednesday, July 6th, we decided to just stay in the coach for the day, hopefully to give Jackie a little respite from the heat and the allergies she seems to be suffering from. We just stayed in the coach, watched TV and played on the computers. Jackie didn’t seem to get any better, the coughing and chest congestion continues.
Thursday we decided that Jackie probably needed to go see a doctor, just to make sure that there were no infections or serious bronchial problems going on. I found an urgent care facility called “Doctor on Call” on line that was located in the East part of Albuquerque. After lunch we drove down and got Jackie looked at. As usual, it was really a Physician’s Assistant (PA) that saw her, but then most of the time when we go to our regular doctor’s office in Palm Desert we end up seeing a PA. She was in there for quite a while and they ended up giving her a steroid allergy shot that is supposed to help for three months. She also got a couple of prescriptions, one for a booster for the shot and another for antibiotics to help fight any infections that might develop. The PA couldn’t find any other problems besides just serious allergies. After the doctor’s visit we went back to the coach to relax the rest of the day.
Friday, July 8th we needed to do some shopping before leaving the big city. We always like to make sure that we have a sufficient stock of meats, vodka and other stuff that is way cheaper at Costco or Sam’s before we head out of the big city. We fueled up the car, but had to go to a regular gas station because the Sam’s Club in Albuquerque only sold gasoline, no diesel. Poop! The last couple of times we fueled up we were able to use Sam’s, which is always about a nickle less than anywhere else. As far as I know, none of the Costco’s sell diesel. We then made a run to Costco and Walmart for supplies. After shopping we went back to the RV park and I spent a half hour or so putting stuff away in preparation for our departure tomorrow. I had just finished my work outside when a little thunderstorm moved overhead and gave us a little rain. The summer monsoon is just starting here in New Mexico and afternoon thunderstorms are becoming the norm, just I remember from growing up in Phoenix.
Saturday, July 9th, we departed Tijeras about 11:00 and headed towards Sante Fe, New Mexico, a trip of only about 70 miles. That is why we were able to get a later start. We arrived at the Sante Fe Skies RV park around
12:30 and got settled in pretty quickly. We are only going to be here for three days, so I don’t put a lot of stuff up outside. Just hook up the utilities, put on the sun shades and that’s it. We had a quick lunch and went out for an afternoon of fun in Sante Fe. We drove down to old town Sante Fe, parked the car and spent a couple of hours walking around the old square and surrounding streets. We went into a lot of shops and galleries. Since it was a nice Saturday afternoon there were a LOT of people wandering around. We also found two geocaches right in the old town area using the caching app on Jackie’s phone. After shopping we stopped at one of the little boutique hotels near the square for a cooling beer in their bar. Although Sante Fe sits at 7,000 feet and is a little cooler than Albuquerque, the monsoon has raised the humidly some, so we were a little parched.After our beer we drove over to the Sante Fe Elks Lodge for a cocktail and perhaps some gaming in their casino. Unfortunately, when we got there we learned that the Lodge has implemented a rule that only local members can use the gaming room. Well darn, that sucks. We had one cocktail, then the Lodge bought us the second. We were chatting with the bartender and the topic turned to where in Sante Fe people could rent halls. It came up because the Elks had three different parties going on in three different rooms on this day. The bartender, Ray, told us that there were only a couple of places besides the Elks, those being the Eagles and the FOP. That caught my attention, since the FOP is the Fraternal Order of Police, an organization I have been a member of since I started at the Sheriff’s Office in Phoenix in 1970. When I retired I became a lifetime member of the FOP. I asked if the local FOP had a bar and Ray said yes, a pretty nice one. We got the address out of the phone book and found that it was on the way back to our RV park. It is hard to know whether there is an FOP Lodge with a bar in an area because there is no central place to look up locations. Many parts of the country don’t even have a big FOP presence, the police have unions or benevolent associations or some other group that represents them.
After we finished our drinks at the Elks we left there and started towards the FOP lodge. On the way we stopped and picked up one more geocache in a business park right across the street from the Elks. We arrived at the FOP Lodge, a very large building, and found they also had a big party going on in the ballroom. We went into the bar and found only about a half dozen people in there. It was a pretty big bar, much larger than the Elks, and one of the strangest layouts I have ever seen. The bar was built with a sunken floor area for the bartenders, which is not real unusual in and of itself. However, in every other bar of this type, the patron side of the bar is low to the floor and the customers sit in regular chairs, not bar stools. At the FOP they built the bar the standard height and used regular bar stools. This put the top of the bar at least five feet off of the floor on the bartenders side! There was an older lady bartender who was about Jackie’s height and the bar surface was at the top of her head. She had to reach up to put stuff on and off the bar. Really strange. After a couple of minutes one of the other patrons in the bar walked over and introduced himself as Rob, a retired Department of Corrections employee. We chatted with him for quite a while as we had our drinks. After we finished our cocktail we left and went back to the coach for the rest of the evening.
One thing of note is that our RV park is up on a little ridge above I-25, which gives a pretty good view of the surrounding area and we can clearly see the smoke from the Los Conchos wildfire that is burning to the West of Sante Fe about 20 miles. We have been following the fire on the local news since we came into New Mexico and it is now the largest wildfire in New Mexico history, burning nearly 150,000 acres. It is about 60 percent contained right now, but if the smoke is any indication, it still has some real hot spots. This was the same fire that caused the evacuation of Los Alamos, both the city and the National Nuclear Laboratory, last week. They were afraid for a couple days that the fire would burn down into the laboratory area and get into where they store nuclear materials. The media made quite a scare of it for a couple days. They stopped the fire over the weekend and everyone went back into town.
Sunday, July 10th, we left the coach around 11:00 a.m. for a day to touring and caching. First we drove South on State Route 14 from our RV park headed to the old mining town of Madrid, about 20 miles away. Route 14 is known as the Turquoise Trail and is a National Scenic Byway, running from Tijeras, near Albuquerque in the South to Sante Fe in the North. The name comes from the Turquoise that the Indian tribes in the area found in the area and used for decorative and religious purposes.
We arrived in Madrid about 11:30 and headed for the Mine Shaft Restaurant for lunch. Madrid was started in the mid 1800's when coal was found in the area. The town was established in 1891 and was a coal mining center until the 1950's when the mines closed. After about 20 years, like some other
old mining towns we have visited, Madrid moved out of ghost town status by becoming an artist community and tourist attraction. The Mine Shaft Restaurant was first established in Madrid in 1905, primarily as a bar, and burned down in 1944. The current building was built in 1947 and has operated continuously since. It is the largest building in town and is very popular with bikers, who flock to Madrid on warm summer days because of the great ride on SR-14. While we were having lunch a group of bikers from an Albuquerque club called Los Carnales came in with about fifty people. It turns out that Los Carnales is a law enforcement motorcycle club. We had a great lunch, both had burgers, and then spent a couple hours walking along the highway in Madrid checking out the various shops. Almost all of the activity is right on the highway where the old miners homes have been turned into shops and galleries.One interesting tidbit we found was a newer looking building with the word “Diner” on the stucco storefront and “Maggie’s” written on the windows. It turns out that this was built back in 2006 as one of the sets
for the movie “Wild Hogs”, much of which was filmed in Madrid. The building is actually a store, not a diner, and they sell the ususal tee shirts and souvenirs, much of which is biker related. We saw the movie when it came out, but now I want to see it again just to look at the sets and backgrounds.After we got our fill of browsing in the shops, we started to do some geocaching. Oddly, there were no caches in Madrid proper at all. We started about two miles North of Madrid in the little town of Cerillos, which was also part of the mining history of the area. We then cached our way along SR-14 back to the RV park. We got a total of nine new finds in about 90 minutes. One of the caches was located on the highway, but in view of one of the old New Mexico State Prison units, about fifteen miles South of Sante Fe. This unit, built in the early 1950's and closed in 1998, was the scene of one of the most violent prison riots in U.S. history in 1980. When it was over 33 inmates had been killed, all by other inmates.
Most of those killed were housed in the protective custody unit and were informants, child molesters and other prisoners who needed to be kept separate from the general population. The riot was memorable in the level of violence perpetrated on those killed, including being decapitated and, in one instance, cut apart with a blow torch while still alive. Although a number of corrections officers were held hostage and injured, none were killed in the riot. Today, Old Main, as the facility is known, is used for law enforcement training and occasionally as a movie set. In 2005 the remake of the Longest Yard was shot at the facility. After our caching we went back to the coach for the rest of the night. Monday, July 11th, we left the coach after lunch and drove to the outlet mall which was located just a few miles from the RV park. It was a fairly small mall, so we only spent about an hour walking around shopping. After shopping we decided to just go on a driving tour of the Sante Fe area. It was pretty rainy on and off, but we spent about three hours just driving around some of the back roads and residential areas of the town. We drove by the New Mexico State Capital, and we found a place called Museum Hill on the Northeast side of town where a number of art and culture museums are located. We didn’t stop at any of them, but did enjoy driving around the grounds. We also found one geocache near the museums. There was a huge bronze sculpture on display near the entrance to the area. It is supposedly the largest bronze sculpture in the world.
It is a full size covered wagon, complete with horses and a number of settlers, all set in a tableau of crossing the Sante Fe Trail. Quite impressive, and I figured that there just had to be a geocache there, or nearby. We fired up Jackie’s geocaching app on here Blackberry, and sure enough, there was a cache. I jumped out in the rain, found it and logged it. Yea! After our driving tour we went back to the coach for the rest of the evening.Tuesday, July 12th we left Sante Fe about 10:00 and headed Northwest across Indian country to the little town of Chama, New Mexico. The trip was about 116 miles and a good deal of it was, in fact, spent driving across a couple different Indian Reservations. It was a very scenic trip with generally good two lane highway and not too much traffic. We arrived in Chama, population
about 2,000 or so with an elevation of nearly 8,000 feet. It’s primary claim to fame is as the Southern terminus of the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad. The line uses old, original 1800's narrow gauge steam engines and rolling stock to run a 64 mile trip between Chama and Antonito, Colorado. The line was originally a part of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad company’s network, as was the famed Durango-Silverton line, however the company folded in the early 20th Century. The right of way and equipment were purchased for the scenic train system, which is jointly owned by the states of Colorado and New Mexico. After our arrival in Chama about 1:00 p.m., we drove into town and visited the railroad depot. We had been thinking about trying to take the train ride during our three day stay here, but decided against it. It is pretty pricey, nearly $100 per person, and we are already booked for a ride on the Durango-Silverton train next week. We decided one train ride this month was enough. We spent an hour or so going through some of the shops on main street in Chama, near the railroad station. We also found one of the four geocaches near Chama. We may look for the others on another day. After shopping we headed back to the coach for the rest of the evening. Although cloudy, we never got more than a few sprinkles of rain. However, the temperatures in the low 80's are very pleasant.
Wednesday, July 13th we stayed at the coach for the day to give Jackie a chance to feel a little better. She is still struggling with the combination of the cough from the allergies and the shortness of breath due to the altitude. The altitude thing has gotten bad enough that we talked about the need to rearrange our summer itinerary some to get out of the high altitudes for a while. Our plan had been to go from here to Cortez and Durango, Colorado next week, which are both at about 7,000 feet, and then go up into central Colorado where we would be at as much as 9,000 feet for weeks at a time. I suggested just leaving from here and going “down the mountain” so to speak, but Jackie said she would stick it out until after next week and our train ride from Durango to Silverton.
I spent most of the afternoon reworking travel plans, so now after Durango we are heading into Eastern New Mexico, the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, Kansas and the Colorado prairie. We will spend all of August “out on the prairie” which should keep us at or under 3,000 feet. We will then pick up our previous schedule the first of September in Loveland, Colorado. We will spend September on the front range of the Rockies in Colorado. Most of this will be at about 5,000 feet elevation, but Jackie seems to be able to tolerate 5,000 so long as we don’t do a lot of physical activity. We will still be at the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque and the Rocky Mountain Area FMCA rally in Farmington, both in early October.
Thursday, July 14th we decided to take a scenic driving tour of the North Central part of New Mexico. We left about 10:30 a.m. and drove Northeast out of Chama on SR-17 headed to Antonito, Colorado. These are the same two towns that are connected by the scenic railroad. By road they are 48 miles
apart, by train 64. We left chama just after the morning train, so we met it a couple of times at crossings as it worked it way up the Cumbres Pass. You cross into Colorado about ten miles North of Chama. The road goes through both the Cumbres Pass
and La Manga Pass within about 10 miles and both passes are just over 10,000 feet elevation. We took a picture of Jackie at the Cumbres Pass sign just to prove she really could breath at 10,000+ feet.We arrived in Antonito a little after noon and stopped there for lunch. There appeared to be only two restaurants in town, so we picked Dos Hermanas and found a very nice, clean café with a great menu of both Mexican and American dishes. Jackie had a taco salad, which she said was good,
but had a little too much refried beans and not enough lettuce. I had a hamburger which was one of the best I have had in a while. The patty appeared hand formed and the meat was excellent and very tasty. The fries were also excellent. The salsa they put on the table for the chips and salsa was so good that we bought a pint to take home with us. If you ever find yourself in Antonito, Colorado, first figure out how the hell you got there, then stop to eat at Dos Hermanas, right on the main street through town.Like Chama, Antonito is very small, about 1,000 population, and exists primarily because of the scenic railroad. At one time Antonito claimed to be the “perlite capital of the world” but one of the mills has closed and that industry doesn’t support the town anymore. Perlite is a type of volcanic mineral that is very light and is used as a filtering agent, usually for bottled water or beer.
We left Antonito after lunch and started South on US-285. Again, about ten miles South of town we crossed back into New Mexico. After driving South for 30 miles we turned back West on US-64 at the little village of Tres Pierdras. After 48 miles US-64 joins US-84, at the village of Tierra Amarilla and starts North back towards Chama. Between the two villages the road again climbs to over 10,500 feet at the Brazos Pass. We arrived back at our RV park about 4:00 having gone about 140 miles in a big square. The scenery was breathtaking, with very little traffic and very good roads. Some of the switchbacks on the passes were 35 mph turns, but there were no really bad spots at all. We also did geocaching along the entire route, although the caches were spread out quite a bit. As you might expect, there were several caches located on or near the various summits. We ended up with ten new finds. One of the caches took us to a very unique Catholic shrine
built into a limestone cliff side. The shrine could only be seen if you left the main highway and went through the tiny village of Los Ojos on a County road. This was another great example of the locations and sights that caching brings us to. There is no possibility that we would have ever seen this shrine except for geocaching. Los Ojos is a few miles North of Tierra Amarilla on US-64/84. We had a very nice day and didn’t exert ourselves too much at the high altitudes. Friday, July 15th, we were up early to pull in the four walls and cruise on to our new destination. We left Chama about 10:00 and started West on US-64 for the 110 mile trip to Farmington, New Mexico. I was a little bit apprehensive about this route, only because it was not shown in the trucker’s atlas as being a big rig route. However, it really wasn’t a bad road. Since Chama was almost 8,000 feet elevation and Farmington sits at a little over 5,000 feet, it was mostly downhill. Much of the road was standard two lane highway, but there were areas with no shoulder, which always increases tension a little. There were some curvy bits, but none were real tight and traffic on the road was very light. The worst part was most of the road was in poor condition, so it was bumpy and noisy. Drove the cat crazy, he doesn’t like noisy roads. We made it to Farmington by 12:30 and got settled into the Lee Acres RV Park.
This RV park is on the lower part of the spectrum as parks go, but it offers full hookup, 50 amp sites for $25. The two guys working in the office look like they just left the set of Hee Haw. A couple of real hicks. The park is mostly dirt and gravel and appears to have mostly monthly rental folks. One of the things that we noticed coming into the Farmington area was a lot of oil and gas wells and facilities. Judging from the trucks we saw on the road, and similar trucks in the RV park, it looks like most of the residents are workers in the oil fields. We will only be here for three nights, so as long as the utilities work, we will be OK.
Farmington was founded back in the 1880's as a farming community, however, in the 1950's oil, gas and coal became the mainstay of the local economy. Back in 1967 the government set off an underground nuclear blast about 50 miles East of Farmington as a part of Operation Plowshare, an effort to find peacetime uses for nuclear weapons. The blast was intended to break up the rock and make retrieval of oil and natural gas easier. The town has a population of about 45,000, and is pretty much surrounded by native lands. We drove across the Jicarilla Apache reservation on the way from Chama, the Navajo Reservation is South and West, and the Ute Nation is to the North.
Saturday, July 16th, we went out after lunch to explore Farmington and do some geocaching. We drove around a good part of the city while caching and found it to be an interesting place. We were able to find eight caches during the afternoon, but we also ended up with four DNFs. I guess the local cachers outsmarted us today. We quit caching about 3:30 because it was getting pretty hot and humid, so we stopped at the local Walmart for some needed groceries. We then went to the Farmington Elks Lodge. The Farmington Lodge has a very large building on a hill overlooking the city, near the airport. The bar was busy and the lodge bought the first drink. This lodge also allows visiting members to play in the casino, so both Jackie and I went in to play some video poker. We ended up losing, I lost $10 and Jackie about $30, but we had fun. We had another cocktail after gaming. In addition to a large bar area the lodge has a huge round ballroom and a large dining room. There was a wedding going on in the ballroom, but we were able to peek in and check it out. We also got a lodge pin for our banner since this was the first time we have ever been to this lodge. After the lodge visit we headed home for the rest of the night.
Sunday, July 17th we took a little driving tour after lunch to Navajo Lake State Park, located about 25 miles Northeast of Farmington. Navajo Lake is the second largest lake in New Mexico and is a man made lake formed by damming the San Juan River. The Farmington Elks Lodge also has a recreational
area and campground located near the lake. We wanted to check it out to see if it would be a good place to come on future visits to the area. We arrived at the damn about 1:00 or so and found a very large earth dam. The road actually went up the back face of the dam and then looped around to go over the top edge of the dam. Pretty neat piece of engineering. We found the Elks recreational area about five miles outside of the park. The last two miles to the place is a gravel road that is in very poor condition. The RV park sits on a bluff, overlooking the lake, but there is no lake access. The place looked to be full and most of the RVs looked like the people stayed there all summer. We decided that even if we wanted to come this far off the beaten path and take the coach on the dirt road, we probably wouldn’t find a space anyway. We crossed the Elks rec area off the list. We also visited the State Park campground, which is right on the lake, and found that they have about a dozen full hookup sites, including sewer, as well as a couple dozen water and electric sites. The campground is down
on the lake and the water is within walking distance. Best of all, about half of the spaces are available for reservation through a web site. We might stay here for a while the next time we are in the area. After checking out the lake and the campgrounds we started back towards Farmington. On the way we stopped at a small vineyard and winery where they were having a car show. Although there were only about 20 cars in the show, we walked around for a half hour or so checking out the rides.
We then drove back into town and stopped at one of the geocaches that we had to take a DNF on the day before. The owner of the cache had seen our DNF log and emailed us a hint. This time we found the cache, so we got one more find on our list. We also stopped at a Staples store to get some supplies for caching. After our touring we headed home just in time for happy hour. We stayed in for the rest of the night.Monday, July 18th, we packed up the coach and pulled out of the RV park about 10:00. We headed West and then North, leaving New Mexico with a final destination of Cortez, Colorado. The trip was only about 77 miles, but the roads were really bad. Lots of frost heaves and torn up pavement.
Most of the time I had to do at least ten miles per hour less than the speed limit just to keep my fillings from popping loose. Fortunately, there wasn’t too much traffic. We arrived at the Sundance RV Park in Cortez just after noon. We got ourselves settled into a nice spot and then just stayed in for the rest of the day relaxing. It looks pretty stormy out, so a T-storm is likely later this afternoon.Our departure from New Mexico, and arrival in Colorado, seem a natural point to close out this episode of our story. We are going to
be here in Cortez for five days, then nearby Durango, Colorado for another five days. Until the next time you hear from us, remember that complaining is not productive. If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. See ya!
