In October, we spent three weeks on the road visiting destinations in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. We had originally planned to attend an Elderhostel (now Exploritas) Spanish course in northern New Mexico, but when it was cancelled, we decided to go ahead with our trip anyway. We're glad we did. It was a beautiful time of year to be in this part of the country.
Our first major stop was at La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona. We have stayed here several times since 2004, and we've enjoyed it every time. It was built in the 1920's as a Fred Harvey Hotel, designed by architect Mary Colter. Most travelers reached the hotel via passenger trains on the Santa Fe Railway's Chicago-Los Angeles main line. Eventually it ceased operating as a hotel and became a railroad office building.
After the Santa Fe stopped using it, the building was threatened with demolition but was saved by Allan Affeldt and his wife, artist Tina Mion, who have been recreating Mary Colter's masterpiece with a blend of originality and faithfulness to Colter's vision. It has a wonderful restaurant (the Turquoise Room), a cozy bar that's reminiscent of a railroad club car, and the most fascinating public spaces of any hotel we've been in. Much of the wall space is taken up with Tina Mion's paintings, and throughout the hotel there are other works of art and craft, both old and new, including some pieces designed by Mary Colter that have found their way back to Winslow after years in the hands of collectors.
From Winslow we traveled to Gallup, New Mexico and then north through the Navajo Nation, en route to Mesa Verde National Park in southwestern Colorado. As the park service web site says, Mesa Verde "offers a spectacular look into the lives of the Ancestral Pueblo people who made it their home for over 700 years, from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1300. Today, the park protects over 4,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings. These sites are some of the most notable and best preserved in the United States."
We took the self-guided tour of Spruce Tree House and the ranger-guided tour of Cliff Palace, as well as the driving tour of Mesa Top Loop Road where we saw more structures and remains from different eras of civilization. There are many impressive things about the cliff dwellings, not the least of which is that the dwellings were accessed from the mesa tops by means of hand- and foot-holds dug into the sandstone cliffs. The engineering of the dwellings is amazing, too, given the limited tools that the Pueblo people had available.
We stayed in the park at Far View Lodge, in a rustic but well-furnished room with a balcony and an expansive view of the Colorado landscape. It appeared that the rooms in this section had recently been updated. We had an excellent meal in the lodge's dining room; the menu had a lot of local foods which were well seasoned and spicy. That evening we went to a ranger program on the contrasts and similarities between the Mesa Verde settlements and those of others nearby during the same period of time.
Following our tours of the the cliff dwellings, we left for Durango, Colorado, about an hour away. We spent two nights at the Country Sunshine B&B, about 12 miles north of town. We often use TripAdvisor in picking places to stay, and this B&B had one of the highest reviewer ratings we had even seen on the site. The accommodations were fine, but the reason Country Sunshine is such a standout is the personality of the host, Walter Hammerle. He's from Austria, and he runs the B&B with his wife Jodi, who's from the U.S. Walter goes out of his way to make each guest feel welcome, and he's a gourmet chef, too. He learns why each guest is in the area, and then makes suggestions and recommendations to enhance their stay. Each night he prepares a special dessert for guests and in the morning he makes a superb breakfast.
The reason we were in Durango was to ride the Durango & Silverton, a remnant of the Denver & Rio Grande narrow gauge railway system that once spread across southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. The train runs from Durango north to Silverton, a distance of 45 miles, much of it through the canyon of the Animas River. The trip takes most of the day, and includes a two-hour layover in Silverton, which bills itself as a "gritty little mining town with Victorian pretensions."
As Marcia wrote in her trip journal, we had "great blue-sky weather with gorgeous scenery along the way, through the wilderness of mountains and canyons, climbing mountainsides with dropoffs into the valleys below." Tom spent most of his time in the open-air gondola car so that he could get the full benefit of smoke and cinders from the steam locomotive.
Our next stop was Chama, New Mexico, for another narrow-gauge trip, this time on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, another segment of the former Rio Grande network. Unlike the Durango & Silverton, which has a long history as a tourist attraction, this 64-mile section of the railroad was saved by a group of locals and rail enthusiasts who were (and are) passionate about preserving service over 10,015-foot high Cumbres Pass, the highest mountain pass reached by rail in the U.S. The railroad is owned by the states of New Mexico and Colorado and operated by an interstate agency, which hires a private group with rail operations and maintenance expertise to oversee daily operations.
We took a bus to the east end of the railroad, Antonito, Colorado, and boarded a train for the trip to Chama. Some might say that the C&TS's scenery isn't as spectacular as the Silverton train's, but there was plenty of variety and several places where one could look over the side of the car into deep gorges and scenic canyons. The C&TS strives for authenticity, and at several places along the route, old buildings, water towers and other structures have been preserved, allowing the passenger with a little imagination to understand how hard railroading in this country must have been in the late 19th and early 20th century, especially in the winter. Our lunch stop was at Osier, where we had a cafeteria-style meal which was included in our ticket price. Again, Marcia enjoyed the comfort of an enclosed car while Tom went the smoke-and-cinders route. The open-air car had an excellent narrator, Bob Ross, who has been involved with the railroad for more than 30 years and is a director of the Friends of the C&TS.
When we got back to Chama it was late afternoon, but we had one more goal for the day: to visit Tierra Wools, in the small town of Los Ojos, south of Chama. The weavers of Tierra Wools are local women, mostly of Spanish and Mexican heritage, who create beautiful rugs, blankets, garments and other items. The wool is shorn from local sheep, and washed, dyed, spun and woven entirely by local people. They give classes to outsiders and sell their products through their store in Los Ojos.
Our next overnight stop was Santa Fe, but en route there from Chama we passed through Abiquiu, where Georgia O'Keeffe had lived and worked for many years. The scenic beauty of this country would inspire any artist.
We also visited Taos, about 70 miles north of Santa Fe. Thanks to our GPS and some misleading maps, we ended up on a very steep mountainside dirt road without guardrails in the Rio Grande Gorge. While unintended, this route still gave us some beautiful views.
We only spent a couple of hours in Taos, mainly walking around the plaza, but this will be on our to-do list the next time we visit northern New Mexico.
We spent a full day in Santa Fe exploring the plaza and visiting nearby museums and shops. One highlight was the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, where we saw her interpretations of some of the scenes near Abiquiu that we had viewed the previous day. Our delicious lunch was at Milagro 139.
From Santa Fe we headed south to Las Cruces where our friends Con and Susan have lived for several years. Their house has a view of the Organ Mountains, so named for their resemblance to organ pipes. We sat on their rooftop patio one evening watching the colors of the mountains change as the sun set.
We spent two days with our friends, the first one devoted to exploring the area around Las Cruces and nearby Mesilla, where we had an excellent Mexican meal at La Posta, and later explored shops and other attractions around the plaza. In Las Cruces, we spent a long time wandering through the aisles at COAS Books, one of the largest and best-stocked bookstores we've seen in any city.
On the second day, we spent some time exploring the Aguirre Springs Recreation Area on the east side of the Organ Mountains, and then headed east to White Sands National Monument, which has 275 square miles of dunes consisting of fine particles of gypsum. The dunes are constantly being changed by the winds, and the white sand combined with the backdrop of nearby mountains makes for a beautiful landscape. Susan and Marcia joined the other kids there to ride their "snow" coasters down the dunes. The sand doesn't get hot, even on a bright sunny day.
On the way back, we stopped at the museum of the White Sands Missile Range, which has played a role in U.S. missile development since World War II.
From Las Cruces it was on to Tucson, where we stopped at the eastern section of Saguaro National Park, which has thousands of examples of its namesake cactus as well as hundreds of other plant species typical of the Sonoran desert environment. It's on the fringe of metro Tucson, so it's a stark example of a place that could have been overtaken by developers had it not been designated as a national park.
After Tucson, we spent some time with our friend Jeanne in Phoenix. She grew up there, so she knows the area very well, and she took us on a tour of the city as well as neighboring areas including Scottsdale. She works as a hostess at a Mexican restaurant, Aunt Chilada's near her home, and before we left town we had a delicious Mexican breakfast.
Our next stop was Prescott, a city that played an important role in the early history of Arizona and was once its territorial capital. We stayed at a budget Marriott hotel, but we had dinner in the bar of the historic Hassayampa Inn, which we can highly recommend. From Prescott we went to Clarkdale for another train ride, this time on the Verde Canyon Railroad. This 20-mile ride along the banks of the Verde River passes through red rocks country similar to nearby Sedona. The combination of geology and vegetation makes for spectacular scenery.
After leaving Prescott, it was back to La Posada for one more night, but first we stopped at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff. If you ever have a couple of hours to spare in Flagstaff, go to this museum. It does a fine job of explaining the development of Native American culture through the centuries in the Colorado Plateau area, using a combination of artifacts, scientific explanations, and art.
At La Posada, we enjoyed another terrific meal in the Turquoise Room. In the morning we awoke to a dusting of snow (in the desert, no less). If we hadn't already been headed for home, that would have been a signal to do so. We spent one more night on the road, in Kingman, Arizona at a chic new Marriott Springhill Suites. We found a great hotel restaurant through TripAdvisor, and enjoyed our dinner at Hubb's Bistro in the Hotel Brunswick.
The next day, we arrived home in Santa Maria, with the feeling that the past 20 days had been well spent. Have we used enough superlatives in describing this trip? Yes, we had a great time.
Our first major stop was at La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona. We have stayed here several times since 2004, and we've enjoyed it every time. It was built in the 1920's as a Fred Harvey Hotel, designed by architect Mary Colter. Most travelers reached the hotel via passenger trains on the Santa Fe Railway's Chicago-Los Angeles main line. Eventually it ceased operating as a hotel and became a railroad office building.
(Click on any photo to enlarge)
We took the self-guided tour of Spruce Tree House and the ranger-guided tour of Cliff Palace, as well as the driving tour of Mesa Top Loop Road where we saw more structures and remains from different eras of civilization. There are many impressive things about the cliff dwellings, not the least of which is that the dwellings were accessed from the mesa tops by means of hand- and foot-holds dug into the sandstone cliffs. The engineering of the dwellings is amazing, too, given the limited tools that the Pueblo people had available.
Following our tours of the the cliff dwellings, we left for Durango, Colorado, about an hour away. We spent two nights at the Country Sunshine B&B, about 12 miles north of town. We often use TripAdvisor in picking places to stay, and this B&B had one of the highest reviewer ratings we had even seen on the site. The accommodations were fine, but the reason Country Sunshine is such a standout is the personality of the host, Walter Hammerle. He's from Austria, and he runs the B&B with his wife Jodi, who's from the U.S. Walter goes out of his way to make each guest feel welcome, and he's a gourmet chef, too. He learns why each guest is in the area, and then makes suggestions and recommendations to enhance their stay. Each night he prepares a special dessert for guests and in the morning he makes a superb breakfast.
The reason we were in Durango was to ride the Durango & Silverton, a remnant of the Denver & Rio Grande narrow gauge railway system that once spread across southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. The train runs from Durango north to Silverton, a distance of 45 miles, much of it through the canyon of the Animas River. The trip takes most of the day, and includes a two-hour layover in Silverton, which bills itself as a "gritty little mining town with Victorian pretensions."
As Marcia wrote in her trip journal, we had "great blue-sky weather with gorgeous scenery along the way, through the wilderness of mountains and canyons, climbing mountainsides with dropoffs into the valleys below." Tom spent most of his time in the open-air gondola car so that he could get the full benefit of smoke and cinders from the steam locomotive.
We took a bus to the east end of the railroad, Antonito, Colorado, and boarded a train for the trip to Chama. Some might say that the C&TS's scenery isn't as spectacular as the Silverton train's, but there was plenty of variety and several places where one could look over the side of the car into deep gorges and scenic canyons. The C&TS strives for authenticity, and at several places along the route, old buildings, water towers and other structures have been preserved, allowing the passenger with a little imagination to understand how hard railroading in this country must have been in the late 19th and early 20th century, especially in the winter. Our lunch stop was at Osier, where we had a cafeteria-style meal which was included in our ticket price. Again, Marcia enjoyed the comfort of an enclosed car while Tom went the smoke-and-cinders route. The open-air car had an excellent narrator, Bob Ross, who has been involved with the railroad for more than 30 years and is a director of the Friends of the C&TS.
Our next overnight stop was Santa Fe, but en route there from Chama we passed through Abiquiu, where Georgia O'Keeffe had lived and worked for many years. The scenic beauty of this country would inspire any artist.
We spent a full day in Santa Fe exploring the plaza and visiting nearby museums and shops. One highlight was the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, where we saw her interpretations of some of the scenes near Abiquiu that we had viewed the previous day. Our delicious lunch was at Milagro 139.
On the second day, we spent some time exploring the Aguirre Springs Recreation Area on the east side of the Organ Mountains, and then headed east to White Sands National Monument, which has 275 square miles of dunes consisting of fine particles of gypsum. The dunes are constantly being changed by the winds, and the white sand combined with the backdrop of nearby mountains makes for a beautiful landscape. Susan and Marcia joined the other kids there to ride their "snow" coasters down the dunes. The sand doesn't get hot, even on a bright sunny day.
After Tucson, we spent some time with our friend Jeanne in Phoenix. She grew up there, so she knows the area very well, and she took us on a tour of the city as well as neighboring areas including Scottsdale. She works as a hostess at a Mexican restaurant, Aunt Chilada's near her home, and before we left town we had a delicious Mexican breakfast.
Our next stop was Prescott, a city that played an important role in the early history of Arizona and was once its territorial capital. We stayed at a budget Marriott hotel, but we had dinner in the bar of the historic Hassayampa Inn, which we can highly recommend. From Prescott we went to Clarkdale for another train ride, this time on the Verde Canyon Railroad. This 20-mile ride along the banks of the Verde River passes through red rocks country similar to nearby Sedona. The combination of geology and vegetation makes for spectacular scenery.
At La Posada, we enjoyed another terrific meal in the Turquoise Room. In the morning we awoke to a dusting of snow (in the desert, no less). If we hadn't already been headed for home, that would have been a signal to do so. We spent one more night on the road, in Kingman, Arizona at a chic new Marriott Springhill Suites. We found a great hotel restaurant through TripAdvisor, and enjoyed our dinner at Hubb's Bistro in the Hotel Brunswick.
The next day, we arrived home in Santa Maria, with the feeling that the past 20 days had been well spent. Have we used enough superlatives in describing this trip? Yes, we had a great time.
Text and images ©2009 Tom and Marcia Murray
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