Above Rio Arriba

 

If I'd been standing here 500,000 years ago,
I'd be on the southern shore of Lake Alamosa
watching mastadons and saber toothed tigers.

Instead,
I'm here now
with my wife
and I only feel 500,000 years old

We are at the first bridge
above the Rio Arriba section
of the Rio Grande

We are tourists here
They are tourists here

But the bridge has no name
no plaque

Not even a Go Slow sign
or a posted weight limit

The Colorado Tourism Bureau
has missed a sure bet here

See how much Cyndi enjoys touristing here?

Or is she displaying symptoms of
Cabin Fever Mania ?

Let's go back to the beginning
500,000 years ago

When Lake Alamosa was the northern most
of several land-locked, salty lakes along
what will become the Rio Grande Valley

Volcanic activity a few million years ago
damned up whatever drainage there had been
and created these lakes
that grew and shrunk along with glacial cycles

Until sometime after I imagine having been there
an exceptional glacial cycle
caused the lake to overflow the basalt dam somewhere around here

The water flowed down the top of
what we now call the Taos Volcanic Plateau
finding cracks in the rocks along the rift
and eroding away the rock to leave
the Rio Grande Gorge.

For reference
here is the gorge a bit downstream from here

While here, now
it looks like this

This is nicer
not as dramatic
but much nicer

We decided to explore the Taos Plateau
and headed down this very nice Colorado county road

and to this passable New Mexico country road
Camino del Lovato

and entered the Taos Volcanic Plateau
a place well loved by sportsmen

On a mission to find
the World's Smallest Volcano

At the Tarantula View Point

We found this small volcano

And then we saw this little guy behind us

And, later, after this 80 foot beauty,

se realized there are a lot of small volcanoes

and, with that, left the area

We were hungry

Time for lunch

Fall in the Tusas

 It's fall. We have cabin fever. 

So we took a couple road trips around the Tusas Mountains. 

You''ll never guess what happened. I took pictures.

We started at Abiquiu, the place Georgia O'Keeffe made famous. 

The lake is low, almost gone.

Below you see the Abiquiu dam on the right,

the lake on the left.

They don't even come close to each other.

I guess this dam was intentionally designed that way.

But you can see that the water has reached at least the bottom of the dam
and maybe nearly the top of the dam.

Down the road is the town of Coyote.

And there were lots of horses.
And many white horses.

When my parents took us kids on a road trip,
they would promise a dime for each white horse we saw.

I don't recall seeing any.

So Cyndi and I proceeded down a beautiful road
and I didn't get any pictures,
'cause I'm a klutz

But I un-klutzed when we got to Brazos Cliffs

A quartzite face with so many colors

And just to be sure, 
we got pictures from multiple angles.

And we rushed back down US Hwy 64, 
only to encounter

We drove slowly behind the flock as they trotted along
with the herders waving at us 

Finally, frustrated, a herder / cowgirl came back to us and said
Just drive thru. 
Push them out of the way

So we did. 
And the sheep got out of our way
just barely
and then immediately closed in behind us

We felt we were parting the sea

Did I mention the llamas we saw?

We kept a keen eye out
but we didn't see any yaks

We finally arrived at the El Vado State Park
and watched Lake Heron for a while.

Yep, water is low here, too.

But at least the lake reaches the dam this time

We wandered over to the Rio Chama canyon

And we said
OMG! 
Is that a bear feeding in the river?

Ummm,
maybe not

We did see fish in the river

We enjoyed the rim walk a bit

And then, like always,
Cyndi started collecting rocks.
See got 3 very nice ones

And then, her eyes got big.
I want that one

I said No

Cyndi is serious about her rocks

Before we left, I spied an eagle's nest

It wasn't until I got home

and looked at the photos on my computer

that I spied the eagle.

So we headed out and into the Jicarilla Apache Reservation

The dirt roads on the reservations were much nicer 

than the adjoining paved county roads.

The moon joined in on the fun

We also found a fox trotting along the road
You will just have to believe me

Given how dry the resevoirs are

we were pleased to see a lot of little ponds,

even in the driest of places

And soon another white horse

who was standing on the continental divide

Kind of curious that we have to go downhill

to get to the continental divide

On our way back, we snuck into Colorado

We followed the Cubres-Toltec railroad
a narrow gauge tourist train
we rode on about 30 years ago

And if you come visit, we might let you

... make you ...

ride it too

At the Conejos River overlook,

we took a few minutes to practice our selfie skills

A snap of an aspen grove

and the sky

I was finally happy