Los Alamos, NM

As I walked around Juniper Campground at Bandelier NM, this day, I came upon a middle aged couple who were tinkering with what looked to be like a toy airplane. I asked about it and in fact it was one of those small glider/airplanes that lifts the single passenger up into the air and carries them around low to the ground. Their life is spent going around the country and meeting up with other folks who also enjoy gliding around scenic areas of America where the wind currents are predictable and favorable to this type of adventure. Very nice folks. They had their children involved in it and they were making great memories with their camping and hobby lifestyle. I wished I had brought my camera but it was not with me.

Today, I made a few short but rewarding trips around the area. I made one last hike in Bandelier National Monument through the various cliff dwellings in the canyon. It was up close and personal of these ancient homes where hundreds of families made their living and surviving for hundreds of years. To climb these tall ladders up to the dwellings and into their ceremonial chambers was a invigorating experience for me and apparently several other hikers I encountered today. Many families are out and about on these trails and I was so proud of the parents for getting them into the parks and away from the amusement parks.

In the afternoon, I enjoyed a short trip into the historic part of downtown Los Alamos, New Mexico, not far from the campground. Here is a plethora of history. From geologic to national  history and beyond, I enjoyed learning much from their wonderful hiking and biking trails taking the visitor to structures where the atomic bomb was developed and where today a large national research facility exists. No matter what one's feelings are towards the development of the bomb, history shows that it played a critical and important part of ending the worst and most widespread war in history. I was amazed at the museums and the wonderful volunteers who spent their time to help folks better understand the history of this mountain town.

Click on the photos for a better view.

Back at Juniper Campground in the camper and among the beautiful canopy of the high Ponderosa pines, I am soaking up the quiet and peace that has surrounded the area during late afternoon. There is something very tranquil about dry camping here where there is no need of air conditioning and other loud electronics. Just quiet. Only birds chirping and the breeze whispering through the pines. You know what I mean. Serenity now.

Thanks for checking in!

Hamburger Hike!

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I am sad to say the only photo I have of my new California friends is the photo of them around their camper. As you can see, even that is not a good photo of them. But that is okay because the memories I have of them are rich enough.

After breakfast in m little camper this morning, I decided to hike from Juniper Campground about 4.5 miles down into the beautiful canyon that has the visitor center, ruins, river and today, most importantly, the small little outdoor cafe that cooks great hamburgers. Carrying only a little water, I started down the well developed trail and enjoyed beautiful vistas of the surrounding mountains and canyons. At one point, I stopped to enjoy an interpretive sign showing how the ancient Indians lived down in the canyon. The sign told how they built their homes and how they survived and even flourished for centuries. Then the trail started to drop down into the canyon along an old road and even an old ancient trail that rangers said the Indians used way back in their day. You can see the trail cut into the slope of the canyon and it makes its way down. The temperature is wonderful this day and even though the sun is bright, the temperature is great for hiking.

I encountered only one other group of hikers: a young couple from San Antonio. They were enjoying the hike but they were especially enjoying escaping the brutal heat and drought conditions of South Texas. I slowly but surely made my way to the canyon floor and up to the visitor center. What a wonderful building this place is. It looks as though it was made by the CCC and I think it was. Rustic yet functional and very welcoming.

But  my belly reminded me of our goal: fat cheeseburger with fat french fries and a nice large cup of iced tea. I found the nice outdoor cafe, next to the gift shop and made my order. While waiting for it, I walked around taking photos of the area which I hoped would be of interest to my readers. I tried to capture the atmosphere of the whole place. While eating the burger outdoors in the nice sunshine, I enjoyed reading the local newspaper. Folks visiting the area walked in and out taking their time soaking up the slower paced courtyard of this nice national monument.

Almost back at my campsite, I passed by the nice little outdoor amphitheater near the campground. I have a special feeling for these outdoor theaters. During the daytime, they seem kinda sterile and uninviting. But at night, with a little campfire and a ranger in uniform, and the right mix of people both young and old. The whole place comes alive with great outdoor fun. I learned a lot from these programs and it helped to kinda break the ice with folks in the area. They come from all over the world and it is a real joy to see the fun and excitement they have by visiting America's treasures. The national parks may not be America's best idea but it certainly is one of the very top ideas.

After lunch, it was time to start hiking back up the same trail towards my camper. It was wonderful. It got warm but not hot. It was just right for hiking without your shirt on. I felt like a little boy again during summer time when the only thing I would wear back then is shorts. What great memories this hike and this visit to Bandelier National Monument has made for me.

Now I have arrived back at my camper. Time for a late afternoon nap...

Twin Falls Trail at Bandelier National Monument, NM

I had taken the advice from several campers in Juniper Campground about this nice trail. They had suggested it as a must do hike and so I did. I started the hike at about 4pm and so I met most people coming back from the hike and encountered very few that had started as late as I did.  I was thinking it would be unbearably hot but as it turned out, the weather could not have been better.

What a great hike to be able to walk in thick Ponderosa pines and other vegetation that is common along streams and canyons of the southwest. They told me that the stream really flows well during the spring but I was really impressed with how well the river was flowing later into the summer.

Click on the photos for a better view.

No bugs. That right there makes the hike a success. A nice breeze and much of the sun was shaded out during this time of the day by the western slope of the canyon. I could not have planned a better time to hike.

I saw lots of wildlife and because I was apparently the only one on the trail by the end of the hike, I actually got to enjoy solitude and quiet in this little canyon that feeds into the Rio Grande. I hope you can see from the photos that this is a very inviting trail. There is some degree of difficulty but to me that adds spice to the enjoyment of the hike. I can't imagine anyone having a tough time with it. There was a group of young college students on a geology field trip here today. They were on their way back to the visitor center and they were all enjoying being out and having a good time. Their professors were enjoying the day, too.

When I returned to my camp in early evening, my next door campers from California were outside and invited me over for a drink and a visit. That was great fun for me: a great hike and a great visit with new friends. They had taken this hike the day before and so we compared notes. I guess my only disappointment was that my new friends had no computer, digital camera, email or any way to stay in touch with them except for a good old fashioned written letter. We exchanged addresses and have stayed in touch. They said they were not interested in getting into the technology of today and so their lives were much simpler and they seemed very content about it. There is something nice about that attitude and I wondered how difficult it might be for me to give up all the e-attachments I have today.

Tonight, I was thinking about my hike for tomorrow. How about a 4 mile hike down into the canyon and to the outdoor cafe for a good old fashioned hamburger? More about that in my next entry...

Thanks for reading.

Bandelier National Monument, NM

In July, I enjoyed an almost 3 week camping trip up through the high country of northern New Mexico. My destination for the first leg was a 5 day stay at Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos. At over 8,000 feet in the cool Ponderosa pines, this campground is a paradise. No air conditioner is needed here and so I could enjoy not using any power or other hookups. Off the grid, so to speak.

Before I got to Bandelier, I stayed a couple of nights at Brantley Lake State Park in southeast New Mexico near Carlsbad. It is a wonderful desert park and the lake is fed by the Pecos River. It is not a big lake but it will be full some day and it will really be wonderful. I just happen to like this little campground. It has great views and wildlife.

After I arrived at Bandelier, I walked around the Juniper campground campsite and checked things out. I saw a prime spot and it just so happened that the camper next to me came out and we started talking. He said he would hold the spot for me until I got there. After I got set up, his wife came out an we visited. They are from California and they are wonderful campers and people. They love to dry camp and he showed me some techniques that they have used for years to conserve power and live trouble free.

After and snack and nap, I drove down into the wonderful canyon that is Bandelier. The visitor center was the first stop to re-learn all the attractions to this spectacular secret gem of the national park system. Much of the facilities were built by the CCC back in the depression days and their trademark craftsmanship is apparent on each building.

I learned that I would really enjoy the Falls Trail which takes the hiker into a nice cool canyon to two waterfalls and finally down to the Rio Grande river. That excellent hike will be the subject of my next entry. You may get a better idea of this park by the 2007 entry of a blog I enjoy reading every day.

The Cycle of Life

 

The students have been fascinated by the Ball python we have in class. It is about 2.5 feet long and very likable. It loves to be handled by warm blooded beings and kids seem to take extra special care when handling it. We don't know if it is male or female. They have named it lots of names but one that seems to stick is: Precious.

We received the snake as a free gift from a young married couple who had it as a house pet. They recently learned that they will be expecting their first baby soon and so they decided to get rid of it before the baby comes. I don't know why. :)

So, the kids clean the cage, water it, make sure there is plenty of warmth. And, they love to feed it. Thursday, one of the boys brought in a nice little mouse which they all decided would be a good meal for the snake. Such is the cycle of life. The mouse is cute and many kids did not want to see the violence take place, but many kids did. So we made a big deal out of it and we tried to make it a teachable moment.

We invited a third grade class to come down and watch the event occur and we made sure that we all were aware of what was going to happen. A student videotaped it for us all to see later on. We trimmed it down to about 10 minutes.

It was great to see some kids get over a phobia about certain snakes. We made sure they were not to try this at home where rattlesnakes and other venomous snakes live. We hope you enjoy the video.

Blogger's Block

Well, I have been struggling about something to write to you about that would maybe interest you but these past few days I have not been able to come up with anything. Things are going along smoothly at school. No big news events there.

I have returned from a recent trip with all my folks: we made a nice trip to a Dallas Cowboys game. It is not my kind of trip but I promised I would go and so I did. It was a great blast and we all had a good time. I especially enjoyed taking a Monday morning tour of the new Cowboys Stadium. The tour was led by one of the architects of the stadium and he took all of us into neat nooks and crooks of the stadium the average tourist wouldn't see. It was a nice time. Not one I would want to do again because the traffic in the metroplex is quite a mess. It is a wonder that it all works as well as it does.

One thing that made an impression on me was the behavior of the fans and people in general during the whole weekend trip. Keeping in mind all the horrible news stories about crime and road rage and such in the area, and that these 80,000+ fans had been drinking before, during and after the game, I expected to see the worst in people. But to my pleasant surprise, it was great to see everyone, I mean everyone I encountered to be friendly, happy, and always on the lookout to help someone, if needed. What a great revelation! I met people from all over the world and it was a pleasure to see how well people got along and had a wonderful time being together.

Now, I am back home and plotting and planning my next camping getaway. Hopefully the weekend before Thanksgiving or during the Thanksgiving break. One thing I want to accomplish before my next trip to apply plexiglass to my camper's screen door. A local camper friend had this done to his 5'er and I was really impressed. It would allow me to have the main door open during all seasons to let sunlight in without having the inside temperature escape. Then during moderate weather, I could use the flexible clips to take off the plexiglass to allow natural breeze come in. A local glass company here in town does the whole job for less that $70 so I thought I would spring for it. We shall see.

Anyway, I'll keep my mind open for some topics that may interest you soon.

Hiking Guadalupe Peak!

Click on photos for a better view!

...We wanted to get a fairly early start hiking Guadalupe Peak because my friends had a long drive back home after the hike. So, we met at my camp at 7:30 just in time for them to enjoy my artificial campfire (powered by gas logs), some coffee, and a spectacular clear sunrise showing the beautiful Guadalupe Mountain range still over 40 miles away from us.

We finished our breakfast and got into our vehicles and started making our way to the mountains. The sun was at our backs as we drove and so the mountains were really shining as we drove towards them. El Capitan and the Peak were in full view the whole drive.

At the trailhead, we signed in and posed for a photo and started making our way up the trail which is about 4.4 miles one way. It is a beautifully designed and engineered trail built in the 1980's by National Park Service. It is a hard climb in which you gain over 3,000 feet in that 4.4 miles. The trail takes us up through highland desert, forest of Ponderosa pine, pinyon pine and fir trees. Also, we enjoy seeing maples, Texas madrone and many other varieties of plants. We saw some wildlife but not a large variety.

The weather was splendid: sunny with a slight wind cool enough for a jacket but not hot. We could not have asked for a more perfect day to hike. Up on top of the peak at 8,749 feet, we enjoyed a lunch and conversation with several other hearty hikers. I think we must have encountered almost 100 people today on this trail but it did not seem crowded at all. They were all spread out through the trail and they all had smiling faces as they hiked this difficult but rewarding trail.

When I first hiked this peak, me and my friends had to hike up Guadalupe Springs Canyon because there was no established trail. It was dangerous and we were young and stupid. Later, in the 1970's when I was a seasonal ranger in the park, there was an old and poorly maintained hike up to the peak but it was not the beautiful trail that many enjoy today...

The boy in the red above sat down, then laid down on the rocks and fell fast asleep. He made it look comfortable.

The ranger above was helpful and courteous. He wasn't on a power trip to bark at everyone if they did something wrong. He was quite the model of a good ranger.

Fall colors were in peak condition in the higher elevations.

We are nearing the end of the trail of the high country. Another good hike has come to an end...