Then it's straight down as we headed through Red River and beyond. We've taken this road many times in the last month in the car, but it's certainly more challenging in a vehicle that weighs 26,000 pounds and is 53 feet long with its tow vehicle attached!
We're not in any hurry to get to our camping spot today, so we actually spent some time on the side of the road in the shade near the Red River.
In fact, Mark used some river water to clean the front windshield. That's Rocky Mountain fresh windshield washing!
Denisa used her time more productively, taking pictures of butterflies on the wildflowers.
The pictures were so clear that you can see the butterfly holding on to those tiny blooms with the front legs, and then inserting its long proboscis into each flower. It's also fun to look into the eyes of a butterfly. That's one of God's tiny little wonders.
We are in no hurry, because we are boondocking tonight, and at a lower elevation than we are accustomed to. That means that it will be warmer than we are accustomed. We'll be without any hook-ups, and without any shade in the BLM land next to the Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument. At this point in history, we should note that BLM stands for the countless acres of public land administered by the Bureau of Land Management--not Black Lives Matter.
Just a few miles outside of Questa, New Mexico, this new national monument has not opened its campgrounds this year because of Covid-19. But the visitor center was kind enough to mention the option of free camping right outside of their boundary on BLM land. When we pulled into that area, we actually had some great views of the mountains in front of us. We were also glad to see that the traffic on the road beside us slowed down in the evening. So it turned out to be a good camping spot for us.
We are here to explore this national monument that opened in 2015. It's main feature is the deep canyon that was carved by the Rio Grande River. We have heard several recommendations for the trails that take hikers down (and back up) in this canyon. We thought about making the hour-and-a-half drive over here while we were staying in Angel Fire. But it's on our way to our next stop, so we opted for this overnight stop instead. After eating a delicious Mexican dinner that we picked up at the tiny cafe in Cerro, we drove the car into the park. We would have certainly preferred to stay in the park campground, with views like this. But the New Mexico governor still hasn't opened public campgrounds. In fact, the visitor center, bathrooms, campgrounds, and all facilities are closed "until further notice."
But the roads and hiking trails are open, and we made use of both. The next viewpoint was even more dramatic, with views deep into the canyon.
Our last viewpoint on our car tour was of the confluence of the Red River and the Rio Grande River. Each of these rivers has carved a deep canyon, and the two join together at La Junta point. The sign on the overlook told us that La Junta means "meeting or joining" in Spanish. Where the two rivers join is the deepest and widest part of the Rio Grande Gorge at 800 feet deep.
Now that the car tour is over, it's time for us to get down into that deep gorge. Since we love a good loop hike, we're parking the car at the "Big Arsenic" trail head. Mark had the great idea that instead of hiking the connecting trail on the rim, we could ride our bicycles to the "Little Arsenic" trail head.
We made the bike ride and locked up the bikes, and then started the long, steep descent into the canyon.
At the canyon rim we are at a lower elevation than we are used to, and we are hiking lower with every step. We've heard how hot it gets in the canyon by noon, so we've decided to try this evening hike to beat the heat. The sun was already low in the western sky by the time we got started. So that means it is lighting up the canyon walls nicely on our side of the canyon.
It's a mile hike down to the bottom of the canyon. Once at the bottom, we still had quite a hike to get to the Rio Grande River.
But instead of having the sun beating down on our head while we were at the bottom of the canyon, we watched the sun drop down below the western rim. We were in the shade after that early canyon sunset.
That means our river pictures are all in the shade. Our photos aren't great, but the temperatures down at the bottom were very nice.
We have obviously wandered down into another of God's wonders!
As we climbed up out of the river bottom, we climbed back into the sunlight.
The bad news with canyon hiking is that the easy part of descending comes first when you are rested. The long steep hike out of the canyon comes when your legs are tired.
The good news is that we stayed in that canyon shadow until we were almost back to the rim.
As we got closer to the top, we caught up with the light from the setting sun. If you look above the canyon rim behind Mark, you can see that the moon was rising over the eastern cliff as the sun was setting below the western cliff.
Denisa is blending into the rock wall at the top--triumphant at making it all the way out of the canyon before it got dark. It was a 4-mile loop that included plenty of time down in the canyon. We would recommend an evening hike here--especially since our home is parked just a few miles away outside the park entrance.
We drove the car back to the other trail head to pick up the bikes, glad that because of our earlier bike ride we didn't have to hike back to where we started our descent into the canyon. Then we were back to the motor home to start the generator and some air-conditioning. Generators need to be exercised every month, so adding a night of boondocking is good. Earlier today, Mark built a rock and water circle around our generator exhaust to make sure we didn't get this dry desert landscape too hot.
The moon that we saw rising over the canyon was bright over the desert prairie. It was so bright that it was casting moon shadows. Mark took a picture of his moon shadow well after dark.
It was a great first day and night of being back on the road. This is a perfect cure for the "itch-hitch" we had, as we successfully got to the bottom (and back up) at this new-to-us national monument.
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