Another busy day – We set out through Santa Fe, one of the few decent New Mexico cities, although I think I’d get tired of brown fake-adobe, and through Los Alamos to Bandelier National Monument.
Like the larger Mesa Verde in Colorado, Bandalier was built/excavated by the Ancestral Pueblo People. These homes carved out of volcanic tuff were used for about 400 years before they moved on.
Leaving Bandalier, we headed north to the 565 foot high Rio Grande Gorge Bridge (7th highest in the US):
Continuing north from the bridge, we passed by the mountains of Taos. Skiing Taos is still on Todd’s bucket list.
The plan at this point was to stop at the New Mexico / Colorado border and pick up the Welcome to New Mexico sign that we skipped earlier but apparently we are meant to return to New Mexico because of all the borders to not have a sign, this was the one.
So on it was into southern Colorado and the drive was really great. Although the scenery was not terribly interesting at the beginning (see our photo of Western Oklahoma/NE New Mexico, Southern Wyoming as reference) eventually 14,351′ Blanca Peak of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains appeared in the window and steadily grew until it’s full prominence of 5,325′ filled the windshield.
Taking a left at the peak and circumnavigating to the back side, we arrived at Great Sand Dunes National Park…
where the dogs absolutely loved the wind in their faces:
280 miles today, 2,707 total.
