Dreams, Moments, Travels
Preserved for posterity – New Years’ road dirt. After driving through snow, ice, rain, sun, dust, and dirt, our little Hyundai looks as though we were offroading in the wilds of Moab, Utah. Instead, we were in the wilds of the Petrified Forest National Park, Santa Fe, and Socorro, New Mexico, the Bosque Del Apache Wildlife Refuge, and finally the western range of the Mogollon Mountains in Western New Mexico.
Happy New Year from the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge just south of Socorro, New Mexico. The first day of the new year began for us at 4:30 a.m. on a very cold 22-degree (-7c) windy morning for some bird watching and shivering.
It was five years ago that we made our first visit to these lands next to the Rio Grande River, but it was March, and we’d learned that we missed the prime viewing season, so later that year, in the closing days of 2002, we returned and witnessed a phenomenon that struck at our heart and tear ducts.
Now, here we are, sharing this experience with my mother-in-law, who was incredulous that we had to wake up so early to arrive at the refuge while it was still dark and oh-so-cold. But as the snow geese flew in from surrounding areas to congregate at this large frozen pond, she began to understand why the timing of being here was key.
While her face is obscured in her scarf, I can assure you that she’s as thrilled as her daughter. Her exclamations and gasps let me know that this was one of the greatest starts to a new year she’d ever experienced.
And then sunrise happened and things just got better and better.
Just the day before, this was a rippling pond, but overnight, a layer of ice formed, leaving the entire surface a slippery, frosty skating rink. This sure-footed sandhill crane made its way back and forth between small flocks of fellow cranes; maybe it was determining the warmer of the two groups.
How are we so fortunate to be offered so much beauty in such a short amount of time in the first hours of the new year?
This canal channels water from the nearby Rio Grande River into the wetlands of the wildlife refuge to maintain a healthy habitat for the wintering birds who have migrated to these southerly environs. For us lucky visitors, they reflect the beautiful light of the New Mexican early morning. The steam that arises here forms delicate ice patterns on plants, and little waterfalls spill from locks while birds float along their waters amongst the overhanging grass. All this works to enchant those who brave the cold to visit this refuge on an early winter morning.
The aforementioned Rio Grande is the lifeline of these lands and the signal that we are leaving the area.
Never content to leave perfect alone, we have other plans further down the road as we point the car towards Arizona.
The further west we go, the closer to home we get.
We are in the Gila Wilderness Area and are already on a trail along Whitewater Creek. Of course, we need to stop and smell the flowers or plants, whatever presents itself for inspection.
Can we really ever have too many reminders of those we’ve shared great adventures with? Ten years ago, I would have said my mother-in-law was offering up a half-hearted fake smile; today, I believe it is coming from genuine enthusiasm and the knowledge that she knows she is going to explore the extraordinary with us.
This is the attraction we are visiting in this small corner of New Mexico, the Catwalk Recreation Area, which allows us to walk right over Whitewater Creek, running just below our feet. From here, we’ll focus on our return to Phoenix but what a great way of closing out one year and bringing on another.
Cafe Pasqual’s here in Santa Fe, New Mexico, was where we were supposed to have dinner last night, but the weather had other plans for us, so it goes. With so much ice and cold in town and not wanting to encounter more snow before the day is out, we’ll be leaving far earlier than planned. As for Pasqual’s, breakfast can be breakfast, but it’s their exquisite New Mexican cuisine at dinner that draws us in, maybe another time.
Snow mushrooms dot the highway as we make our way south.
I wonder if people who experience this snow thing every season are as enchanted by it as Caroline and I are. I can admit that New Mexico is right on with its state motto, The Land of Enchantment.
Approaching Albuquerque, we entered a heavy patch of fog, but as we emerged, we were greeted by this spectacular 22-degree sun halo. Not wanting to stop on the freeway to take a proper picture, Caroline grabbed the wheel, and I threw the camera out of the window into the freezing air to snap a couple of shots. This is the one that turned out okay.
With the sun being blotted out you can bet my nerves grew brittle at the thought I might have to drive while it’s snowing. In Phoenix, most of us do poorly when it starts raining.
I’ve probably said it a thousand times before, but one can never grow tired of El Camino Family Restaurant. Normally, there are colorful spheres on the center spire in the top middle of the sign; I wonder why they are gone.
Good fortune remains on our side as the weather cooperates for this earlier-than-expected visit to the refuge; we weren’t supposed to arrive until tomorrow morning.
That’s a Northern Shoveler duck. This aquatic cutey with the spoon-shaped bill has a great scientific name, the Spatula clypeata.
If we were real birders, we might be able to tell you what kind of sparrow this was, but I can’t find precisely what type it is, so it’s just a sparrow for now.
The Northern Pintail duck just doesn’t give a …
This nearly lone leaf, still clinging to its branch, shivers in the cold air here at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, where we are spending the last day of the year and the first day of the New Year.
The idea of drinking ourselves into a stupor, ending a year in a haze, and beginning the next feeling as though the past year smacked you upside the head is peculiar to me, to say the least. My New Year resolutions are simple: every day is a holiday, see something beautiful at least once a day (besides my wife), and help as many people as I can in whatever little way that might make their day, an hour, or minute just a bit better.
We must be doing something right by the universe as we are yet to have a bird poop on us. Karma.
Here we are on the last day of the year, ending on a beautiful note with the hope that tomorrow begins in beauty, too.
Tomorrow morning, we’ll be standing right about here for some aviary fireworks.
We could have eaten elsewhere, especially considering we’d eaten lunch here earlier, but I’m not fooling anyone. If we’re in Socorro, we’re eating at El Camino Family Restaurant. Of course, I had the steak Tampico and Caroline the chile relleno plate. I have no recollection of what Jutta had as once at El Camino; I’m blind to the world. This is how we closed out 2006.
Uh oh, whose dumb idea was it to tune in to the Weather Channel here in our concrete teepee? Now, instead of driving into ignorance, we see that New Mexico was hammered by a powerful snowstorm overnight.
Our destination was/is Santa Fe, New Mexico, but Interstate 40, east of Grants at mile marker 85, is closed all the way to the Texas border. In addition, the I-25 north and south of Albuquerque are closed due to nearly 15 inches (38cm) of snowfall. With plenty of time ahead of us and doubtful that we’ll get far today, we stopped for a leisurely visit at Petrified Forest National Park.
Sure, I caught Caroline with her eyes closed, but the smiles shared between mother and daughter were so nice I had to share the photo.
Into the Petrified Forest with a light dusting of snow to decorate an already beautiful environment.
You’d think it was cold out here the way my mother-in-law is bundled up.
Yep, petrified forest implies we’d be seeing petrified trees, and that’s just what this is, but is a forest still a forest if it has all fallen down?
I don’t think I can ever tire of seeing minerals where wood used to be and bark frozen in time as though the tree was just standing yesterday.
If I’ve not written this in a previous post, I’ll surely be writing it again at some point in the future, but trying to imagine this somewhat barren part of the high desert covered in a heavy forest is truly difficult.
One wonders if early humans moving through this area thought this would make some good kindling for their fire before realizing they were looking at stones.
Leaving the National Park, we enquired about road conditions, traveling east with the idea that we might at least reach somewhere to position ourselves to visit the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge for New Year’s Eve. We were given the great news that the road to Albuquerque was once again open.
We really should have made a u-turn there in the Petrified Forest and returned to the I-40 as this long detour down the 180 through St. Johns and up the 191, taking us 90 miles to reconnect with the freeway, was substantially longer than driving the 22 miles back through the park, but then we would have missed this amazing sight of Witch Well, Arizona, at the intersection of the 191 and highway 61.
A quick stop in Lupton, Arizona near the New Mexico Stateline for a couple of photos before we continued our drive into that state east of us.
In Gallup, we learned that the I-25 was cleared with a narrow path cut for those of us heading to Santa Fe, but from there to Colorado, the road would remain closed through the following day.
We wanted to visit Acoma Pueblo today, but the poor weather only offered us views of this Native American village off the highway.
There is a lot of snow off the road, but sure enough, our way is clear. All the same, I’m a nervous driver when it comes to snow and ice, as Phoenix sees neither. Now we just have to hope it doesn’t start snowing again because the way it looks right now, we won’t be getting into Santa Fe until it’s good and dark.
Sure enough, it’s late, and the roads into old town are icy, which kiboshes our plans for a gourmet New Mexican dinner and leaves us with lukewarm pizza delivery here at Days Inn – well, it beats sitting at home in Phoenix watching TV, not that we have one.
Icicles, snow, and a frozen-over pool are sights unfamiliar to us desert dwellers. Hopefully, tomorrow, the clearing trend will continue as we move south.
Why wait to start celebrating the New Year when you can get out and make an extended weekend of the holiday? That is just what we are doing. It was about 3:00 p.m. as we got underway. Flagstaff was our first stop for dinner at the Beaver Street Brewery – the fondue was pretty darn good, actually.
We had needed to get out of Phoenix early as the proprietor at the Wigwam Motel on old Route 66 in Holbrook prefers his guests to arrive prior to 9:00 p.m. Jutta is smiling because usually, she gets to share the same room with us when we travel, but tonight she got to sleep in her own teepee.
A new twist on the old familiar bus stop. If you are visiting Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, or one of the other half dozen cities that define the Phoenix Metropolitan area, you will typically be hard-pressed to see anyone besides the homeless at these bus stops. More than likely this is due to the formidable heat we deal with on a regular basis, still it is a shame to see empty buses and lonely bus stops that rarely warrant recognition.