Long-ass Road : Austin to Mesa Verde

I know what you're thinking, you're thinking that mid-May is a great time of year to visit the National Parks in Utah, hang out, do a little hiking. Well, you're wrong. Mostly wrong anyway because guess what little tidbit you didn't know when you planned this trip? Schools in Utah, filled with thousands upon thousands of smiling little Mormon children are already out for summer. I assume it's so they can harvest alfalfa or otherwise engage in activities that don't involve caffeine, but regardless they and their loving parents are now joining us at the National Parks and on our little hikes and most annoyingly in our preferred campsites.

Aaargh! That is why you are wrong. Another reason you might be wrong? The weather in spring is unpredictable and it might not cooperate with your daydreams about hiking in warm sunshine and light breezes. It might instead decide that you would have more fun if it was cold, or even better rainy and cold. Even better than that cold, raining, snowing, with wind gusts of 40 mph and for a short while over an icy mountain pass, also hailing.

But I digress. First things first. We left Austin on May 16th after several sloggy days of schlepping crap to the Bambi while getting rained on. Family commitments prevented my normal fretting and list making and double checking and I ended up just pretty much chucking everything in the camper and Fred drove like a trucker on meth for 11 hours to Santa Rosa, New Mexico.

We didn't even bother to unhook, see those storm clouds in the distance. Yep, the weather is about to get pretty crappy.

Two things struck me about our stay here. One, we got the last available spot and, two the clouds started rolling in and it got damn cold. Why on earth would this little state park be crowded on a Monday with threatening weather. Hmmm.

Sure enough, as we drove toward Taos early the next morning a steady rain began and the higher in elevation we went the worse it got. Then it began to snow and hail and temps dropped into the 30s. Did I mention the wind gusts?

Lucky for us the snow and hail stopped in Taos but not the rain, cold and wind.

Also, lucky that Fred had made reservations at an RV park right next door to a large micro-brewery.

Coincidence? I think not.

I love Taos, I do. We have been here several times. If you can avoid the kitsch selling, dream catching, crystal healing, kokopeli obsessed residents you will be rewarded by the real beauty of Taos, it's micro-breweries.

After some fine New Mexican chilies and some short hikes through the sage brush, we were ready to move on to our first of several National Park visits. Mesa Verde.

Nice, quiet, cold hike through the sagebrush

Rio Grande River Gorge

The hotline over the gorge is for people whose spouses listen to nonstop Grateful Dead

Great spot for fiery dinner

Mesa Verde National Park

Just like the first ancestral Puebloans, we settled into the last camping spot in the only RV campsite in the Park, and just like those ancient peoples we left after a short stay. In our case, not because of drought or crop failures or socio-political problems but because the campsites at our next stop, Capitol Reef National Park, are first-come, first-serve.

We did drive to all the ruins but we have been here a couple of times before and, well, guess what? The ruins look exactly like they did those first two times. About the only new thing this time, is that the people who know about these kinds of things have decided to stop calling them Anazasi ruins because apparently that's a Navajo word and the ancient Puebloans were not Navajo.

Not sure if you can tell but there is a coiled, green garden hose off to the far right which either indicates that the indians were more advanced than current science has acknowledged, or that one of rangers is at home with a nagging feeling that he left something at work today