Wonderful Williams Part 2!

One of the views we have from the Grand Canyon Railway RV Park is Bill Williams Mountain, we’ve never been to the top so waking up to another gorgeous day we decided, courtesy of our Williams Guide, we’d follow the drive to the top. 

We took Highway 73 out of town and turned right onto FR111, it’s a 7½ mile road that dead ends at the fire lookout at the top.   Even though it’s a one lane fairly good dirt road, there is just about enough space for two trucks to pass very carefully. 

Our first stop was the Finger Rock trail it’s a short easy trail to the viewpoint, with tremendous views. 

As we drove higher we encountered some switchbacks, while we love BT it doesn’t have a great turning circle, so if the switchbacks are a bit sharp it takes a bit of maneuvering to get round.   Sometimes it can be a bit on the scary side, especially if it’s really a high, tight, turn.

 

We came across some gorgeous autumnal aspens, so of course I jumped out to take photographs, aren’t they beautiful?

After the last steeper, rougher section of road we found the parking area and then walked up to fire lookout tower.

This is one lookout tower you are allowed to climb, the views were amazing. 

Looking down on FR111

West across I40

Sanfrancisco Peaks and Dog Town Lake

negotiating the switchbacks on the way down.

back at the bottom

It’s a great drive with fabulous views and well worth it.

Have fun, we are!

Wonderful Williams!

We arrived at the Grand Canyon Railway RV Park in Williams, Arizona, on a day filled with wall to wall sunshine and clear blue skies.   Fabulous!   Well it should’ve been but it was also the day the US government shut down so all National Parks, including the Grand Canyon were closed.   (Yes, I’m still catching up).   But, not to worry, we thought, there is a public road right through the park.   Wrong!   Everyone else thought the same thing so the road was closed to anyone but residents.   Ah well!

 

After we got set up and settled in our first trip, one of our favourite drives, was along Old Route 66, at one point we stopped to watch this bird circling overhead, we think it could be a harrier, but………

 

Naturally we stopped at Parks Deli for coffee and spent a while watching the world go by, Parks is a quiet place, but you’d be surprised just how much world does go by!

Further along we enjoyed fabulous views of the Sanfrancisco Peaks,

before stopping to watch a colony of prairie dogs, they’re very cute to watch, but I don’t envy the people in the nearby houses.

Have fun, we are!

Gallup, New Mexico

We’ve driven past and through Gallup many times but never actually stopped, so we decided it was time to visit. 

 

Our first stop was on Route 66 to visit the world famous El Rancho Hotel http://historicelranchohotel.com

 

Built in 1937 the hotel is on the National Historical Register and was used as a base for film stars and film crews on location.   Photographs of the film stars who have stayed at the hotel, John Wayne, Errol Flynn, Kirk Douglas, Doris Day to mention but a few, cover the walls.

Two Presidents, President Regan and President Eisenhower have also stayed there.   Rooms are named after film stars and I am absolutely convinced I sat in a chair used by John Wayne, okay probably not, but he did stay there so who knows?

 After reading some of the posters on the walls

we enjoyed coffee in the restaurant, we asked the hostess if anyone famous had stayed there recently apparently Paul McCartney had visited not long ago.   No-one famous was staying the day we visited, but let’s face it the hotel wouldn’t tell us if there was would they?   Our next stop was the Cultural Centre where we had a very nice, although rather large, lunch before looking around.

Inside the Story Teller Museum at the Cultural Centre

Sand paintings,

Native American pottery,

Kachinas

After looking round the museum we found an RV park that has fairly good reviews and then drove back to Grants. 

There’s a lot more to see in Gallup, so I think next time we travel this way, we’ll stop and explore some more. 

Have fun, we are!

In search of pie

Our next stop was Grants, New Mexico, the plan, was to visit Chaco Canyon NHP, needless to say the weather didn’t co-operate, it turned cloudy and a lot cooler.   A couple of people also staying on our campground tried to get there and had to turn back because of rain and washed out roads.   So once, again our plans to return to Chaco were abandoned, one day!

 

Instead we decided we’d head over to Pie Town and try some of the famous pie.  I always thought we were nearer to Pie Town when we stayed at Kiva RV Park, in Bernardo but DB said he thought we were closer in Grants (more of that later).

 

It was a cloudy, chilly day and as our route took us along NM177 to Quemado we filled up with diesel and coffee before we headed off.   It’s a long, lonely two lane road that takes you through El Malpais, past the Sandstone Bluffs and La Ventana, a beautiful natural arch, along The Narrows where the lava flow almost seems to lap like waves against the sandstone cliffs and then out across the wide open plains.

 

We stopped, briefly, in Quemado, it was so cold we took our photographs of the church out of the truck!  

We turned for Pie Town, getting quite excited at the few glimpses of sun through the clouds, thinking it was going to warm up, needless to say it didn’t, but then again we were at 8,000 ft.

Due to its strategic location travellers have always stopped at Pie Town for rest and refreshment, the pies made by the first merchant in town became famous because of their quality.   Locals and travellers alike started to refer to the town as Pie Town and the name stuck. 

We stopped at the Pie-O-Neer Café,

The counter inside the café.

So which one should we choose?

After much deliberation Mike had peach pie and I had New Mexico apple with green chile, pine nuts and huge dollop of ice-cream both were very nice.

There is also a windmill museum in Pie Town, but it was so cold and windy that we literally ate our pie, drank our coffee and left.

This is when we discovered it was going to be a much longer drive back to Grants than we’d planned.   Our return route short cut was along what turned out to be dirt roads, probably because of all the recent rains they’d become rough and washboardy, we thought if we carry on, the road might get better, wrong!

After a few miles of being bounced around, DB said he’d had enough, and I must admit so I had I, not to mention the fact that it was probably going to take us much longer to drive back that way than we’d thought.   So we bounced our way back, (we really are fair weather dirt road travellers!) to the main road and returned the same way we’d come along nice smooth paved roads.

 

While we enjoyed our trip to Pie Town, I have to admit, had we realized quite how far it was from Grants we probably wouldn’t’ve gone.

 

Have fun, we are!

Exploring NM 63 high up into the Pecos Valley

We decided we’d explore more of the Pecos Valley by following NM 63 to its end high up in the mountains, at Cowels, well that was the plan.

 

Driving into Pecos, we turned left and followed the road as it wound its way up the canyon, it’s a very picturesque drive.

 

On the map I’d seen a sign for an area with the intriguing name of ‘Holy Ghost’, but when we reached the turning the road was closed.   

We stopped to have a look at the old bridge crossing the river

After exploring for a while, we crossed the new bridge and arrived at Tererro, we didn’t go any further as it looked as though from there it was a rough dirt road, so as we didn’t know the road conditions further up we turned back.

On the way back we stopped at the lovely old church of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in San Antonio-El Macho.   The existing church was built by Spanish American colonists in 1858, replacing the church originally built in 1830.   It was restored in the 1950’s after a back wall collapsed.

During the restoration 35 wooden coffins were found under the church floor and reburied in a common grave.    Before 1900 people were buried either ‘en la capilla’ or ‘en la iglesia’, the first recorded burial is in 1904 although there must’ve been burials before that.  There is an old cemetery on the hill above the churchyard, but in the church records there is no distinction between churchyard and cemetery.

The church is only 16’ x 26’ it has nine rows of pews on each side of the aisle with room for 4 people in each pew.

We really enjoyed our trip up the Pecos Valley, but what we hadn’t realized was that because of the devastation caused by the Tres Lagunas Fire earlier in the year and the danger of mud slides in the burnt areas caused by the torrential rains, the whole area had been closed until the end of August and almost all of the campgrounds and day use areas were still closed.

Have fun, we are!

Villanueva State Park, New Mexico

 

After reading about Villanueva State Park and how nice it was, we headed east on I25 exiting on NM3 and then followed the narrow two lane road into what was once Old Mexico.

 

Our first stop was at the church in San Miguel del Vado.   The Spanish Government approved the San Miguel del Vado Land Grant in 1794, settlements, including San Miguel were established along the Pecos River.   Once a port of entry, travellers and caravans entering from New Mexico paid customs and taxes to the Mexican government, customs activity continued until the area became part of the United States in 1846.

Once through San Miguel, the road follows the river most of the way, the verges were covered with wildflowers and bright green fields ran down to the river, it was very pretty.   In places we could see where sand and mud had washed over the road before being bulldozed away.    When we came to the sign for Villanueva State Park we turned left. 

The long narrow park is right on the banks of the Pecos River, with sites along the river and higher up the side of the valley.   This is a very historical area Conquistadores, including Coronado in 1540 came this way, followed by Francisco Sanchez Chamuscado, Fra Augustin Hernando and Rodriguez Gallegos in 1581, and Antonio De Espejo and Castaño De Sosa in 1592-1593.

Unfortunately for us the day we visited the visitor centre was closed, but a friendly ranger gave us a park map.  In view of all the recent floods in the area we asked if the park had been flooded, he told us that although the river had been very high and they’d been on evacuation standby they hadn’t needed to.  In fact he told us that at this time of the year (September) the river wasn’t usually this high.

 

Map in hand, although as this was the only trail across the river and we couldn’t get lost, (yes, we’ve heard that before as well!) we crossed the river and turned right to follow the trail to the top of the mesa. 

The trail climbs steadily up, passing a ruin on the way up.   From what the Ranger said it’s not known whether the ruin is Indian or Spanish, maybe it was Indian and then used by the Spanish, it’s a good spot for a lookout so maybe that’s what it was used for, but who knows.

We followed the trail right to the top and lookout, the views were tremendous and you could see for miles, in fact far in the distance we thought we could see the Wagon Mound but as we forgot to take a bearing we couldn’t really be sure. 

It was quite windy at the top and we needed to hang on to our hats, we tried calling Mum, but the call floated in and out with the wind so after a brief chat we gave up. 

This is the view of the campsite and river from the top of the mesa.

 

After enjoying the view for a while we followed the trail across the top of the mesa,

Before heading back down to the river, this section of the trail is steeper and rougher I was really glad we’d started off the other way. 

Once at the bottom the trail followed a ledge just above the river back to the bridge. 

Back at the truck we explored the rest of the park and then headed back, it’s a great little park and we really enjoyed our visit. 

Have fun, we are!

Merry Christmas

Have a magical Christmas

 

 and

 

 truly wonderful New Year