Tucson to Denver

We're sitting in a Lathrop State Park campsite tonight, west of Walsenburg, Colorado. We can't believe we can send and receive email while we are out 'camping'. We do have an electric plug in, so it helps.

We started our trip Sunday, with our furry kids (our cats) in the motor home, traveling thru Globe, AZ, thru the Salt River Canyon up to Show Low, AZ in the White Mountains (about 6000'). The Salt River Canyon is very pretty, but has 6% grades on both sides. Outside Show Low, we stayed in the sister resort to where we live in Tucson (Voyager), which is built around a golf course -- very picturesque. Some of our new friends also have a site up there; we had a wonderful dinner at the Munich House in Pinetop, which was situated on Fred's Lake. Much to our surprise, there were osprey there fishing on the lake -- it was beautiful. Then on Wednesday, we headed up US77 thru Taylor and Snowflake. In Taylor, there were US flags hanging on poles all down Main Street. In Snowflake, the old-fashioned lamp posts all had beautiful flowers in flowerpots. We passed a street named Bellybutton Lane. Ah, small town Americana -- isn't it great!

At Holbrook, AZ, we got on US40 (which paved over the old Route 66) on our way into New Mexico. At every town along the way there were markers for the 'Historic Route 66' -- all the old main streets. As we got closer to Gallup, we saw petrified wood logs all along the highway -- what a sight. We passed thru Gallup on our way to Grants, the red rock buttes were beautiful as the sun highlighted the vivid reds and the clouds made shadows on them. Around Grants there are a lot of lava rocks on both sides of the highway. The El Malpais lava beds are close by. Jim and I had seen them sometime ago, so we didn't stop this time.

Wednesday night we stayed on the west side of Albuquerque in a really nice RV park with nice sites, lots of trees, a pool, and even a free continental breakfast. Thursday we got a later start than we had planned, but what the heck -- we're retired! We ran into a lot of road work and several thunder storms, so the going was slow. You wouldn't believe how green everything is. It rained so hard that water was flowing across the highway and there we puddles everywhere in the fields. We really slowed down -- the picture of a 31' motor home hydroplaning is not a pretty sight!

The Lathrop State Park was really nice and quiet, and very pretty. The next day we had a fairly uneventful drive to Denver. We had planned to park next to Jimmy's (our old) house, but there isn't really room so we set up not far away in another RV park. The cats will be happier here, because we will have A/C if we need it. (One of our travel days, Callie one of our cats got overheated and was frothing at the mouth, so we're really more conscious of the heat's affect on them.) We will be here in the Denver area for a while, taking care of some business, doing the 'doctor thing', etc. We do need to make a quick trip to South Dakota to get our driver's licenses.

So until next time, take care and be safe.

For all you RV'ers, the Albuquerque RV park is named American RV Park on US40, and we would highly recommend it. It is very pretty and very clean. The Lathrop State Park was really a find! There are loops with electricity and some without. Water is available, there are nice showers, and there is a dump station. There are a couple of hiking trails and a nice lake for swimming and boating. The park is off the highway, so it is quiet. The views are spectacular -- the Spanish Peaks look close enough to touch.