Mon, Jun 6, 2011

Monday, June 06, 2011

We have some friends who thought the way we traveled sounded exciting… no plan, all spontaneity, so they tried it.  They headed out for a four-day weekend… lasted two days then they headed home.  Unplanned vacations are not for the faint of heart. – Donna Downey

We were up early because we knew we would be leaving the cooler temperatures as we left the high altitudes of northern New Mexico.  But we did have a few more miles of wonderfully curvy roads thru the mountains south of Taos. We made two nice stops along the Pueblo River giving the pups another opportunity to play in a cold rocky stream.  This may be their last chance.  It ended up probably being our last cool weather of our trip. ;-(

As we descended from the mountains the temperature began to climb but we found a nice place to stop in La Cueva, NM.  It was the Salman Ranch Gardens.  The Ranch’s main product is raspberries and they have an old ranch store where they sell a number of their products.  Beside the old store is their flower garden.  We have stopped there a couple of times but never when the flowers were blooming.  Since most of the garden is under old cottonwood trees it was quite shady and comfortable and we spent a good deal of time looking at all the flowers.

We spent most of the rest of the day putting some more miles behind us.  We decided to head toward Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge near Socorro, NM.  We arrived in Socorro about 4:30, got a room and then headed out to the refuge.  The temperatures had climbed into the upper nineties earlier in the day but it is a dry heat and does make a major difference.  Also as the sun slipped behind some of the smoke filled skies (from the huge wildfire in eastern Arizona) we had kind of a filter which made it quite tolerable and it only got better as the sun set behind the nearby mountains west of Socorro. 

The Refuge covers more than 57,300 acres in the Rio Grande River Valley and is a winter gathering place for many migratory birds but this time of year is home primarily to local wildlife.  Still it is a beautiful place and we knew we would find a beautiful landscape and plenty of wildlife.  We were not disappointed as we quickly saw deer, quail, doves, coyote, a variety of birds, egrets, ducks, a very large frog, and a beaver.  After a supper picnic in the refuge we headed to our room.

We are well tonight, although the dogs are not very excited about leaving the cooler temperatures.  We hope that y’all are well too.

Peace, Hope & Love,

Donna, Charles, Paris & Dodger