Too Much $$$, Rookery Bay, 10,000 Islands, Fakahatchee Strand, & Big Cypress

After finishing a couple of really fun weeks in Sanibel, we moved down to Naples for the remainder of December.  We’ve been in Naples several times in the last 10 years or so, therefore, it is not a place we are unfamiliar with.  The question becomes: “What can you learn from a place in which you have spent a fair amount of time?”  The answer, of course, is complicated.  You can learn a great deal more from a place with which you are familiar, but it usually isn’t profound.  The same is true for us in Naples.

As a starter, we took the trolley to rediscover the lay of the land.  This place, like much of America, has had the audacity to change significantly while we were away, but some things remain the same.  Naples is a playground for the superrich and, hence, abounds with up-scale shopping areas; which has gown almost as fast as the mega-mansions.  Most towns have one or two high end shopping areas; Naples is lousy with them.  Needless to say we worshiped them from afar.  The automobile de jure is the Bentley—a nice little set of wheels running in the mid to high six figure range.  We did splurge by attending a film (Lincoln) at Silverspot, a movie theater that pretty well defies the name.  It has a restaurant, a bar, popcorn that requires a second mortgage to acquire, and wide, leather seats reminiscent of a La-Z-Boy showroom.  The price of the flick was pretty amazing, too.  Fortunately, the movie was really outstanding. 



City Dock from our luncheon restaurant





Naples Pier



Rookery Bay Reserve Natural Estuarine Research Reserve is an 110,000 acre reserve abutting the Everglades National Park on the south and the City of Naples on the north, excluding Marco Island.  The curious can learn all they care to about the estuary (the zone where fresh water and salt water collide).  Mangrove forests, birds, alligators, and too much vegetation to attempt to describe reside in this region and participates in a symbiotic dance that, when functioning properly, assures the survival of all of the fauna and flora.  We spent a productive several hours in the education center, took a hike along a trail through the grounds and signed up for kayak tour late next week.  Other than a few Black Vultures we saw no wildlife outside the education center where we did paw around in a touch tank full of fascinating critters.  Perhaps the kayak outing will yield more observations.

You've been "mooned" by a conk in the Rookery Bay touch tank

"Right Hand" & "Left Hand" shells



They grow 'skeeters big in Florida



Supplies ran low and we were forced to make a Costco run on Sunday.  Wow!  We live in a world largely devoid of shopping mania, so we were stunned to find the place crawling with thousands of people (all of the shopping centers we passed on the way over there---some 15 miles—were also totally packed).  There was grid-lock in most of the aisles and the little old ladies handing out food samples were swamped by greedy, shoving old people.  The range of language made us feel like we were trapped on the upper floors of the tower of Babel…and very little of it was English.  Since we were stocking up for our next leg of travel that will include two months in the Keys, we stocked up on staples and spent a fortune—we felt like we fit right into the massive hoards.

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary owned and operated by the Audubon Society is another of those natural gems that foresight helped preserve.  In the dawn of the Twentieth Century, ladies' hats were the rage and those hats were bedecked with the plumes of wild birds.  Many of those birds made Florida their home.  Like a lot of things in this country that will yield a profit, profiteers set about to get rich and to decimate the bird population all in one fell swoop.  Appalled by this behavior, Audubon and others set out to right this egregious wrong.  They did it by pushing the government to pass laws forbidding the harvesting of bird plumes and then set up wardens that supervised the nesting grounds to keep the scofflaws at bay since the government couldn’t be bothered.  Later in the 1950s loggers decided to continue their relentless pursuit of old growth Bald Cypress trees in Southwest Florida.   Alarmed by the further decimation of wildlife habitat and the clear-cutting of trees in this region, the Audubon Society set about to purchase some 2,800 acres of land northeast of Naples to keep it pristine; thus we have Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary.  Thinking that Christmas Day would be a good time to have the place to ourselves, we packed a lunch and headed out for a field trip.  Two thirds of the human population of Southwest Florida thought it was a good idea.  The Sanctuary set a daily attendance record on Christmas Day.

Is that a 'gator back there?

Corkscrew Swamp

We spotted this one on the roof of a car as we
went through Macdonald's drive thru
 

While it was a pleasant outing and we enjoyed our stroll around the 2.25-mile boardwalk, there was little wildlife and lots of humankind afoot in the refuge.  We saw a few birds (and not a single Wood Stork, who have historically made this area its primary nesting area), but not much better than one can find in almost any area of standing water anywhere in the state.  Apparently global warming is contributing to the movement of Wood Stork further north into Georgia for nesting in huge numbers leaving the historic areas bereft.  There are those who claim that this no such thing as global warming, but apparently, they forgot to tell the birds.  There are also those who will allow that things are warming but that it is simply a matter of natural cycles…except that natural cycles take thousands of years, not  short decades, to accomplish much.  These folks don’t want to concede that humankind’s activities have any hand in all of this fairly rapid change because then they would have to question their economic model or change behavior.

Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge, Fakahatchee  Strand Preserve State Park, and Big Cypress National Preserve are just three set-asides along with Everglades National Park and the aforementioned Rookery Bay RNERR that strive to preserve the natural area that comprises all of South Florida.  Immortalized as the “River of Grass,” the Everglades region is an amazing area that historically supported a vast variety of wildlife quite unlike any other place in the country.  It has had its ups and downs over the years and the developers, hunters, and agriculturists almost succeeded in completely drying up the entire region and killing off the fauna that, at one time, comprised much of the southern third of the state.  Fortunately, saner folk prevailed and much of the region is being reclaimed, although it will never be like it once was.  All of the current mitigation efforts cannot undo decades of pillage, and climate change is adding to the further degradation of the “Glades.”

10,000 Islands

Bald Eagle in Fakahatchee Strand













A few 'gators in Big Cypress Preserve





 We spent a day this week exploring pieces of each of these set-asides.  A short nature trail in 10,000 Islands yielded a few shots of egrets, ibises, and wood storks.  The 22-mile gravel (pot-holed) track through the Fakahatchee Strand showed us lots of swamp land and a few birds and a couple ‘gators.  Big Cypress had lots of viewing areas for alligators, and the bird population (egrets, wood storks, herons, anhingas, ibises, bald eagles, ospreys, king fishers, and cormorants) was fairly abundant.  Like other outings here in Naples, the places we went were very crowded with the exception of the Fakahatchee Strand fairly primitive road; otherwise it was packed.  English is not the language heard most frequently on these outings.  Many varieties of European tongues are present, along with mucho Español.
 


The view outside our front window in Naples

COOLPIX

Our stay on Sanibel continues to be fun, and we have explored new places daily.  We’ve learned that the best way to get around is on a bicycle.  Parking is at a premium and traffic is always dense.  There are no stop lights and few stop signs, but motorists are alert to cyclists and pedestrians, and we always feel safe.  We may have to refer this visit as our ‘get close to nature trip.’  None of the NFL teams we follow were on TV Sunday afternoon, so that freed us for some more exploration.  We took the bikes to the Bailey Tract of the “Ding” Darling NWR.  This was land privately held and had been dammed to create a fresh water catchment for the purpose of attracting wildlife.  It was a pleasant ride, but only yielded a turtle and an alligator.  We were hoping to see more birds than we had the other day at the main facility, but it was not to be.

Monday found us off island running shopping errands to Costco, Camping World, and Publix.  Costco had a Nikon Coolpix camera on sale, one that Susan had been wanting for some time, so we decided that since ole St. Nick would probably not be bringing it to us, we would treat ourselves.  When one gets a new camera it is necessary to try the thing out; hence, we hit the aviary here at Periwinkle Trailer Park and the beach to see how well the camera worked.  The camera worked fine, but the operators need some OJT to sharpen their skills.  However, we managed to get a few pretty good shots which we will share with you.  The Periwinkle aviary contains some very exotic birds that are bred by the owner.  Two birds that we met and got to know pretty well are Piper and Peaches, Moluccan Cockatoos from Australia.  These are colored differently than the Sulfur Crested Cockatoos we were familiar with in Canberra, but just as noisy.

Still chomping at the bit, Susan talked me into taking her to a fresh water catchment operated by the City of Sanibel to control storm water.  The evening drinking crew at Periwinkle had told us about the catchment and that it usually had quite a few birds and an alligator or two.  There were no alligators that we could see, but we did see some Wood Storks, Egrets, and Anhingas.  It is amazing that this little wild place is located right in the heart of the main business section of Sanibel and few people know about it or go there.

Rain has come to Southwest Florida--an event much welcomed by the denizens of the region.  It has been drier than usual in this the dry season.  For example, November was the driest November in many moons…they only go 29 inches of rain.  Egads, Colorado would float away with that much rain in a year.  Temperatures remain in the low 80s during the day and low 60s overnight.  Some slightly cooler, but drier weather will show up  tomorrow with the passage of a frontal system…this is the same one that has dropped temperature into the teens in Texas and brought snow to Colorado and New Mexico earlier in the week.  The best thing about rain is you don’t have to shovel it.

 

Erata, Mad Hatter, "Ding" Darling, SCCF, & CROW

It is uncommon for us to make a blatant error in our blog.  We rarely do things on the fly or make stuff up as we go.  Historical and factual references are researched and are believed to be accurate when they are posted.  However, occasionally something will slip in that is dead wrong.  Frequently, readers will notice the error and will correct us, at other times we find the mistake ourselves.  In our last blog we were waxing elloquently about Sanibel and mentioned a couple of notable residents.  Oops, it was the late, great Dave Brubeck who resided on Sanibel, not Stan Getz.  We had Christmas Eve dinner at Ellington’s Jazz Club here in 2004--a club that Brubeck played at and was associated with for a number of years.  Alas, Ellington’s is temporarily closed, so we'll have to celebrate elsewhere.

From our table at Mad Hatter

At almost every longish layover we will treat ourselves to a really nice meal at a top rated restaurant.  Friday night it was at the Mad Hatter.  As many of these places are, it was kinda pricey.  Actually, the food wasn’t too bad, but the wine list was outrageous; the lowest priced wine was a lowly Pinot Grigio at $30 a bottle.  The food, we both had Grouper, was fantastic and the service was better than pretty good.  Mad Hatter is located right on the beach near Blind Pass, which separates Sanibel from Captiva.  It presents a wonderful place from which to observe a spectacular sunset with a glass of wine, free from no see-ums.

Front entrance to Mad Hatter

Earlier we mentioned the “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge and other conservation efforts on the islands.  The NWR was created by Harry Truman in 1945 and the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation was formed in the 1960s in response to Lee County (where the islands are located) approving wide-spread housing develop on the islands.  To head off this development, the SCCF began acquiring land to hold in its natural state.  The NWR comprises some 6400 acres and SCCF has more than 1300 acres of land set aside for natural protection--all on an island 12 miles long and 5 miles across at its widest point.  It is one of the things that sets Sanibel off from her brasher sisters.

We spent a couple of days this week re-exploring these natural wonders.  This time of year the bird population is relatively low, so it wasn’t as spectacular as it has been on other visits, but it was quite satisfying none-the-less.  For the first time, we visited C.R.O.W. (Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife) which, essentially, rescues injured wild birds, reptiles, and some small mammals and returns them to their natural habitat once they are healed.  CROW was also founded in the 1960s. (Who said that these were worthless times occupied by worthless people?)   There are dozens of interns and other volunteers from colleges and universities around the country as well as a staff of veterinarians that reside here.  They do remarkable work and have rapidly expanded their operations on Sanibel.  Indeed, they operate two daily pickup runs to local vets and animal control agencies throughout Ft. Myers and Lee County.

 

The weather this year has been remarkable.  It has been in the low 80s most days and dips into the high 50s overnight.  Two years ago it was much cooler and actually felt like winter.  The balmy weather has enhanced our beach wanderings and bicycle excursions.  We are thoroughly enjoying Florida this time.  We had lunch at Doc Ford’s Sanibel Rum Bar & Grille after visiting Ding Darling and picked up a new Randy Wayne White novel.  We discovered novelist White in 2004 while having lunch at Doc Ford’s.  We have since read most of his offerings.  Doc Ford is the protagonist of all of White’s novels.  The good doctor is a marine biologist who lives, fictionally, on Tarpon Bay.   We recommend his books for those who like fiction and who particularly relish books set in this part of America, as well as a pretty good yarn, too.  As Susan recently said, "Reading RWW is like sitting down and chatting with an old friend."



Black Swans at Periwinkle Trailer Park

 

Sarasota Reunion & Sanibel Stoop

When we last left you, we had just arrived in Sarasota for a week-long stay.  We’ve done this many times over the years, but this year was exceptional because my siblings and I were going to get together for the first time in 10 years.  My brother and his wife live in Sarasota, so visiting them has been fairly common as we have traversed the state, but my sister from Colorado was coming to join us for a belated Thanksgiving.  It was very nice having us all together once again.  Rochelle, my brother David’s wife, and sister Sandra whipped up a delightful Thanksgiving feast for us and we all had an opportunity to catch up in person rather than by phone or email.  Additionally, we managed to carve out some time for a water-side lunch and a tour of Casey and Siesta Keys.

Los hermanos - Thanksgiving/Birthday Dinner 

Los hermanos en Siesta Key

Sanibel Island is our home for the next two weeks.  The last time we were here Hurricane Charley had just devastated the place.  It has completely recovered and things look to be back to pre-storm normal.  Indeed, there are many new restaurants and all of the beach resorts have been repaired.  In December of 2004 there were lots of blue tarp roofs, and debris, both natural and manmade, littered every street.This year, our first order of business after setting up in our RV park was to walk the short distance to the beach and enjoy a long stroll along the Gulf of Mexico--an activity that has become a daily ritual.

A 12-mile spit of sand, shells, and silt jutting out into the Gulf of Mexico, Sanibel is world famous for its shelling. Up and down every beach are people doing the “Sanibel Stoop”--that bent over crouch that signals the finding of yet another prize. Because of geography, Sanibel is uniquely situated and shaped to scoop shells from the Gulf. Rather than lining up north/south along the coast like its more compliant barrier island cousins, Sanibel is comma-shaped and juts out into the Gulf. That unusual configuration makes it ideal for those who love shelling, and who doesn’t? We’ve been told that there are some 275 kinds of shells found in the shallow waters of Sanibel and approximately another 500 species found further out in the Gulf of Mexico, many of which wind up on the beaches here after a strong northwestern winter blow. These mollusks are an integral part of the Gulf’s life chain.

Guess who!

When asked why we like Sanibel Island so much we usually reply with banalities, but the truth is that it is hard to put into short, distinct reflections.  However, I will now try to be succinct:  Sanibel’s culture is what makes it exceptional.  Started in the 1830s as a colony established by land developers, it has become a place where the elite come to play and, occasionally, live.  For example, a former CIA Director and jazz great Dave Brubeck have made their homes here.  There is also plenty of room for regular folks like us.  We stay, not in one of the hundreds of resorts and vacation rentals, but at Periwinkle Trailer Park here on the Island.  It is far from the usual up-scale places we prefer, but it’s the only place on Sanibel to park and live in a motorhome.  One parks on the sand, but they’ve recently added cement patios to most sites, which is an improvement over what we had in 2004.  It is also a short walk to the beach and has excellent access to the myriad bike paths scattered throughout the island.  The park’s owners are wild bird breeders and have extensive aviaries in the park.  There is a fascinating array of fowl to peruse…they screech, honk, and whistle at passersby.  One pair of exotics here that we don’t see in the USA often are black swans that were common when we lived in Australia.

Real people live on Sanibel and they run bicycle shops, book stores, restaurants, and sea shell shops.  Most are understated and are not garish like one would find at Fort Myers Beach on the other end of the causeway.  There is a $6 toll to cross the bridge, so that probably keeps some folks at bay.  Sanibel dwellers are ecologically aware and have preserved a great deal of real estate to protect wildlife…the renowned J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge comes immediately to mind, but there are also several other organizations protecting nature’s habitat right in the midst of the head-long race to amass the almighty dollar.

Sunday was a day of rest lazing around reading the Sunday newspaper and watching NFL football on TV…we were stunned that both the Cowboys and the Broncos won their respective games; actually, we weren’t stunned that the Broncos won.

On Monday, we renewed our exploration of the islands; yes, there is more than one.  Captiva, a small, exceedingly upscale island on the northern end of Sanibel where the ultra-rich relatives of the Sanibel dwellers reside, can be accessed by a short bridge across Blind Pass or by boat only.  Since our yacht is in for repairs, we took the jeep up to Captiva for a look around and to have lunch at an award-winning restaurant we read about.  The Key Lime Bistro did not disappoint.  We had Crab Cake Benedicts for a mid-afternoon brunch accompanied by a fruity rum drink for me and a pretty good Pinot Griego for Susan.  For company, a jazz flautist kept us entertained while we dined al fresco on the bistro’s intimate patio.  Well above our heads, a sea eagle of some sort had his/her brunch of some variety of sizable fish…we think he/she enjoyed the music, too.

 

Hangin' on the beach with that jolly old elf!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two years ago when we last visited Sanibel-Captiva, we stopped off at an open house for a place that was for sale on Captiva. We don’t recall how many millions of dollars they wanted for the place, but it was more than we had in petty cash, so we passed. However, we were impressed with its size and the fact that there were two houses on the property as well as a pool and a covered boat slip. The four-car garage was under the main house. We couldn’t find that specific house again, but took a shot of a similar one for you to appreciate.

Captiva beach shack

 

"Audemus Jura Nostra Defendere" & Other Southern Oddities

Your incurable nomads are back on the road.  We are off to Florida for the winter, taking Thanksgiving week to get there.  Stops thus far have included Shreveport and Livingston, LA, for one night each, and, then, four nights in Elberta, AL.  Thus begins our travel blog for another four month segment.

The drive across the piney woods of East Texas on Monday was interesting in that there was a distinct change in color amongst the various deciduous trees.  Efforts to capture images through the motor home windows proved fruitless and there were no convenient stopping places that afforded a decent view.  Hence, you will have to take our word for it.

After an uneventful night in Shreveport, we took I49 south to I-10.  This route passes through only a couple of towns and leaves the traveler feeling as though he/she has spent the entire day in the central Louisiana boonies.  Traffic was not bad until we hit I-10 and then it got fairly thick…particularly as we passed through Red Stick (Baton Rouge).  The highway through LA’s capitol has been under perpetual construction/repair for at least 10 years that we have firsthand knowledge about and, perhaps, since early settlement days.  The sad part is that it is apparently a futile effort as the highway remains choked with traffic all the time.

Between Lafayette and Baton Rouge lies a fascinating stretch of geography.  The Atchafalaya Basin is an enduring drainage system that dates back more than 10,000 years.  Covering almost a million acres, it stretches about 100 miles from north to south.  Although we just drove through it this time (yes, there is a bridge some 20 miles long that passes through it), we have taken small-boat tours through the swamp on previous visits here and have been amazed by it.

 

Just East of Baton Rouge, Livingston is a pretty good place to spend the night if, as we have, one decides to break the travel day into 250 miles or so increments.  Since we are on a bit of a time crunch (brought on by ourselves), we have had to travel on interstate highways, those vast ribbons of concrete crisscrossing the country east and west, north and south.  They are a boon to those who need to make good time from one point to another, but as we have observed elsewhere, the trip is the same no matter where you go.  The gas stations are the same, the fast food joints and the same, and all of the stores—big and little box—that line the interstates are all the same.  To find any flavor other that plain vanilla, one must abandon the interstate highways and find small roads that pass through the heart of small towns.

An interesting observation (well, it’s interesting to me) is that the major truck stops such as Pilot, Flying J, Love’s, TA, and one or two that I can’t think of are running a rip-off.  The cost of fuel is always many cents higher at these truck stops than is true off the beaten path.  They also price fuel differently for cash or credit…always more for credit, of course.  Even their cash prices are higher than at other stations just a few blocks off the interstates who apparently can’t afford to differentiate because they lack the volume of the big stores.  It is kind of the reverse of Wal-Mart and other big box retail stores' tactics who price little folk out of the market by having lower prices that the mom and pop shops can afford to offer.

Back on the road:  The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is among the busiest travel days of the year and our experience on I-10 from Livingston through Mobile, AL, where we left it to head south, reflected those statistics.  While traffic never came to a halt, it did run heavily for the entire time.  Some folks were crazy, and some were not, but we all managed to get somewhere safely.

Lake Osprey RV Country Club

Our four night stop in Elberta included Thanksgiving Day as well as my birthday on Saturday.  We had dinner with the other homeless folks here in the Lake Osprey RV Country Club.  The park management provided turkey and ham and the rest of us brought a plate to fill out the menu.  There were lots of traditional things, but some unusual stuff as well.  For example, we brought pecan pie ice cream from Trader Joe’s.  We all ate too much, drank a lot of wine, and bragged a lot about our adventures on the road.  Sometimes you walk away from experiences like that with newly minted life-long friends, other times you just walk away. 

We have fond memories of meeting Brad and Nancy Robb nine years ago in San Diego, and we have been friends ever since.  Brad and I have birthdays two days apart (he’s the old one).  That first year we had a satisfactorily good Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant at a marina in Chula Vista.  That meal pretty well sealed the deal for the four of us.  We’ve been running into one another all over the country as well as keeping in touch via email.

You never know what you are going to find when you get off the beaten path.  Just south of our RV Resort, a fellow has built a new marina and along with places to park the boats, he has added a marble fountain and a number of prehistoric sculptures.  It sounded odd to us, but when we explored it, we found it was indeed true.

 

 

Sixty-nine is a milestone for many people and I’m no exception.  To celebrate the occasion we ventured out to one of our favorite haunts in Gulf Shores, Lulu’s.  The restaurant is owned and operated by Lucy Buffett, the “crazy sista” of Jimmy Buffett of Margarita fame.  Our previous experiences there have been fun, but on Saturday Alabama and Auburn were playing for football bragging rights in Alabama.  True to their Southern roots, they had the sound up excruciatingly loud on the many, many large-screen TVs located throughout the store.  Needless to say, those of us with background noise discrimination issues found it more than annoying.  The food was good, however, and in spite of the racket we had a good time.  We’ll just avoid the place on football game day in the future.

We had two more days to Sarasota, our first week-long stop.  We took a back roads round-about way from Lake Osprey to I-10 through the red-dirted Alabama countryside to avoid going through Pensacola.  The stretch across the Panhandle was uneventful, though traffic was very heavy.  About 10 miles outside of Lake City, our intended overnight stop, we decided we were making outstanding progress and would, therefore, go 60 miles further down the road Sunday afternoon.  Subsequently, we changed reservations and then about five miles further traffic came to a full stop.  This was 4-5 miles west of the intersection of I-10 & I-75.  We eventually got to I-75 and turned south to find the three lanes of traffic almost completely stopped.  It chugged along for the next 2 ½ hours until we got to our over-night stop some 60 miles down the road.  What a nightmare!  We traveled on the same days last year in Arizona and had no experiences like this.  Apparently, everyone in south Florida who knew anyone north of Lake City went there for Thanksgiving and were consequently trying to get home on Sunday.

The next day we had an easy drive into Sarasota without incident and almost no traffic. There will be a short family reunion of the Henderson siblings (the first in 10 years) and we will report on that if it proves appropriate to do so.

Siesta  Key, Sarasota

 

Land of Entrapment

We’ve wrapped up our summer sojourn to New Mexico & Colorado with a short stop in Albuquerque.    ABQ, as it is affectionately called, is a favorite stop of ours in our transmigration of the West.  From here it will be two moderate road days and then we will be home.  Our plan was to hide out here through the Labor Day weekend, so as to avoid excess traffic on I-40 to Amarillo and US 287 to Denton.  Hence, we will be leaving here on Tuesday morning.  This six day stop over allows us to see a few things we’ve not seen, visit some favorite haunts, and load up on green chili—Hatch chilies have just been harvested and vendors with roasting machines are everywhere.  It has worked splendidly.



Vendors Roasting Chilies



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our trip started in Taos and while there, we were near the Rio Grande River Gorge.  At Creede, we were parked for a month on a short bluff overlooking the Rio Grande River and hiked around the river’s headwaters.  Now that we are in ABQ, we have once again encountered the Rio Grande River.  I suppose we should have called these series of blogs our Rio Grande Odyssey.

Rio Grande River in ABQ

Thursday found us prowling around in Old Town.  The oldest building (the Catholic Church on the Plaza) there was constructed in 1793, although the area was inhabited long before then.  We go to Old Town for the flavor and for a green chili enchilada fix.  Little Anita’s is our favorite restaurant, but we’ve learned to branch out and sample other places.  We always go to Old Town before the crowds and usually have most of it to ourselves with a few other hearty souls.  We don’t much like the mass of humanity that shows up there around noon, so we are usually finished by then—or at least well hidden in Little Anita’s.  Most of the shops carry junky tourista stuff, but there are a few jewelry traders that carry authentic Native American-made pieces.  Our favorite one has lots of old pawn jewelry; you know that stuff wasn’t stamped out in Taiwan.

San Felipe de Neri Church

 

Jewelry Vendors in Old Town

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sandia Mountains lie to the east of ABQ in much the same way as the mountains are east of Salt Lake City.  For those of us from the front range of Colorado, this arrangement is distinctly disconcerting.  We grew up with the major range of mountains to our west and they served as a marker for direction for decades.  In many ways the adjustment to no mountains is somewhat less troubling than having them on the wrong horizon.  One could liken it to learning to drive on the other side of the road; it takes all of your concentration to get it right.  In all of our visits here we have never actually been in the Sandia Mountains.  We decided to correct that.   ABQ has an aerial tram that goes to the top of the Crest, but we did it the old fashioned way—by driving the twisty 14-mile road to the top.  On Friday, we took the Turquoise Trail (NM 14) up the east side of the Sandias to the Sandia Crest road and then to the top (relatively short at 10,650’, it is the tallest around ABQ).  We were hoping for spectacular views, but some agency was doing a prescribed burn in the area and the skies were full of a smoky haze that seriously limited visibility.  Oh, well, there is always next time.

Smoky downtown ABQ in center or picture

Not to waste the day, we drove 20 odd miles up to the old mining town of Madrid (pronounced MAD-rid) for a look around and lunch  It started as a coal mining town in the late 1800s and continued in that capacity until the 1950s when it became a ghost town.  Recently, the town has been taken over by art galleries, and, presumably, artists.   We love art and were temped, but we’ve used up all of our wall space at home and there is no wall space in our RV, so we just looked.  A few years ago when we last visited Madrid we were talking with one of the gallery owners and she allowed as how she was from New Mexico originally, moved away, and then returned to finally settle down.  She said for her, “New Mexico isn’t the land of enchantment; it’s the land of entrapment.”  Wow, what a powerful sentiment.  We agree with her in many respects…the high desert, the mesas, and the canons all speak to us in countless compelling ways.


Typical Madrid gallery/shop

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This will be our last blog for this trip unless we decide to write a summary of the summer.  We will resume our travels in mid-November with a trip to the southeast, including a visit to the Florida Keys.  Feel free to comment on any of our blogs, we would like to hear from you.