Wanderung 3

Rocky Mountain Ramble

May - July 2003

June 29th - Raton, New Mexico

The last walk of the convention was held at Raton, New Mexico, which was just a 20-minute drive south from our hotel room. We stopped at a Denny’s for breakfast and had the classic Slam for $3.00 each—very cheap. But when I went back out to the truck after breakfast I was accosted by a hobo/panhandler on the street. I ignored him and climbed into the truck, and he tried to open the door and climb in with me! I was irritated and pulled the door shut again and locked it, but I thought afterwards how that kind of behavior could have really frightened a single woman. How would she know whether this was aggressive panhandling or an attempted carjacking? The hobo gradually drifted away as I started the car and Monika came out from the restaurant, so we drove around the corner to the starting point, a parking lot of a K-Mart. We signed in and were bussed en masse to Sugarite Canyon State Park in a big yellow school bus. It was all I could do to keep myself from singing, “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round!” along the way.

This walk was a big figure-8 loop around two small lakes, Lake Maloya in New Mexico and Lake Dorothea just across the state line in Colorado. Lake Maloya was the larger, downstream lake and had apparently been stocked with fish because we certainly did see fishermen trying their luck. The views of the craggy mountaintops from across the lake were just very pretty and the path around the lake was a nice walk in the woods.

Lake Dorothea was the smaller, upstream lake but also quite charming. We saw a beaver dam and lodge on the upper reaches of the lake, and apparently earlier walkers had seen the beaver swimming about. We waited for a while but he did not deign to put in an appearance. Other small streams and babbling brooks fed this small lake, but we didn’t see any fishermen—maybe it was too small or Colorado didn’t stock it.

One odd thing that happened while we were walking is that we were once again mistaken for being British. That’s the second time this trip we have been mistaken for being Brits, and I’m not sure what to make of it. I did in fact watch some British comedies when we were back at home, but I’m certainly not trying to imitate the accent, at least not consciously. Monika thinks her German accent combines with the precision of our speech to give the impression of a British accent, but I’m not sure about that either. Anyway, we just joked about our “Northern Virginia” accents with the lady and continued around the lake.

After finishing the walk we rode the bus back to our car and had a late lunch with Marlene and Nelson before driving off. We crossed the gorge of the Rio Grande, almost as impressive as the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas. The country side was dry and arid but there was water at the very bottom of the gorge.

From there we headed for Taos, New Mexico, which I have always wanted to see because of some vivid ski posters I had back in college. You can imagine my surprise when we arrived only to find that Taos was located in a broad, flat valley beside the mountains rather than nestled in the mountains themselves—no mountains and no snow as far as I could see. I also was surprised to find 4 art galleries as we drove into the town and at least 6 more art galleries along the main street. In fact, that was about the only type of shop I did see along the main street, so this really seems to be a town dedicated to art shopping rather than skiing as I had expected. So much for those old posters of ski bunnies zipping down steep slopes of deep powder with the legend “Ski Taos” on them!

In the middle of town crowds of people thronged the streets combining with a crush of cars to make a quite decent traffic jam, which we definitely did not expect on a Sunday afternoon. But we saw signs proclaiming the June 27-29 weekend as a celebration of “Solar Music” and that explained all the people, I think. But what exactly is “Solar Music”? Music played on instruments powered by solar cells? Music synchronized to sunspot activity? Music with a “sunny” topic such as the theme song from Sesame Sreet? Music that can only be played in the daytime? I am really not sure, but the crowd seemed to be mostly aging, well-to-do hippies, so maybe it was some kind of New Age Nonsense.

In any event we decided it would be fruitless to try to find discount hotel rooms in Taos that evening, so we drove up and over the next mountain range with a pass at 10,500 feet! We followed Highway 64 as it turned north to the town of Chama, New Mexico where we found a motel with a vacancy and stopped for the night. Our motel had only 16 units, bags and bags of rustic atmosphere and 2 friendly cats, which was all very nice. On the downside, our room had no air conditioning so we were glad it was sufficiently cool that evening that we could get by with the ceiling fan blowing gentle breezes down at us. We bought some milk and bread for a simple dinner at the convenience store next door and then relaxed for a while before turning in for the night.

Copyright 2004 by Robert W. Holt and Elsbeth Monika Holt
Prolog Map Epilog

May 2003
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June 2003
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July 2003
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