What do you do on a windy day?

When we host guests, we always hope for perfect weather so they will enjoy their precious vacation time. But while our friends, Connie and Steven were here in Angel Fire, we had some unusually windy weather. All of our camping neighbors assured us that this is totally unusual, and we heard that the same crazy winds were plaguing other parts of the country. We're used to windy afternoons, that calm into beautiful evenings. But these winds blew so hard all day AND all night that we had a hard time sleeping. So what do a group of sleep-deprived people do on such a windy day?  You head to a canyon for wind break!

We are in Cimarron Canyon, about 15 miles from our campground, on the Clear Creek Trail. True to its name, that creek is very clear, and we will have to cross over it many times in the course of our hike. Notice we are wearing jackets, because it is cool here in the mornings in New Mexico in the summer.

We started on the ground floor of that canyon, but we're heading up on the side of the rocks beside Clear Creek.

We had just started our hike when Steven realized his old hiking boots were falling apart. It's a good thing that Mark carries duct tape in his backpack so we could tape them up and continue the trail.

It's a physics thing, that if you continue to hike uphill along a creek, you will eventually come to a little waterfall,

and a bigger waterfall,

and then another waterfall,

until you get to the biggest waterfall.

We spent some time enjoying that last waterfall. That will include Mark dashing across the canyon wall to get different perspectives. He's there in the center of the picture below.

Mark can get to the opposite side of the waterfall by making some pretty sketchy water crossings,

while Denisa's style is to sit in one spot and let Mark move around. We're a good team!

While Mark is taking pictures of the big grand views, Denisa is taking photos of the tiny flowers that are lining Clear Creek in the canyon.

Besides having a blow out on his hiking boots, our guests are still getting used to the lack of oxygen at this higher elevation. Steven decided to take a little rest on that nice comfortable rock.

After the last waterfall, the trail headed steeply up. Now instead of being down in a canyon, we are getting views of the cliffs that have been looming high above us.

When we got to this scree field, our guests decided to head back towards the car. But Mark and Denisa aren't that smart.

We headed straight up that steep trail until we could get a bird's eye view of the mountains around us. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the awful wind doesn't seem to be a factor even at the top of the canyon walls.

We obviously have a hard time stopping until we get to the end of a trail. After these views at the top, we could finally point our hiking boots downwards to catch up with our friends. We felt that our plan to hide from the wind in a canyon was successful.

We headed back to the motor home as quickly as possible, because we had another special guest meeting us there. Our nephew, Stephen, was on a road trip through New Mexico and was coming to eat dinner with us. We forgot to take a picture, but it was a monumental evening. It was the first time we had a sit-down meal with five people around our little table while still having the sofa made out into a bed. It would have been a good picture of a cozy meal. It was a little confusing to have a Steven and a Stephen in the dinner conversation, but it is really nice to have special friends and family with us--even on a windy day!