colorado & new mexico

I’m starting this post off much like the last one (from AUGUST), with an apology for not writing this up way sooner. My last late post was just due to laziness; I have some legitimate excuses this time. The last quarter of 2018 had been a whirlwind of international travel, unanticipated events, and general displacement/homelessness. And we exited a period of more “homelessness” in the new year for the the entire month of January while the rig was undergoing some big repairs. Since then I’ve just been slacking on this. Anyways —

After we left Moab, we headed east into Colorado to hit Breckenridge. We didn’t have anything specific in mind for before and after stops, so our stay in Colorado ended up being fairly lightweight and focused mainly on — take a guess — snow sports.

Gypsum

Our first campground in Colorado was in Gypsum, a small town close to Vail. There wasn’t much going on here but the views were beautiful and the weather was fair (and even warm one day). We spent the week working, decompressing, and Chris went snowboarding once - after all, RV life has mostly been an elaborate excuse to get to snowboarding areas. He reported back that Vail was for rich skiiers and not snowboarders who live in a trailer.

Breckenridge

After Gypsum we went to Breckenridge, about a two-hour, very hilly drive away. We stayed at Tiger Run Resort which has probably been our swankiest RV park yet: you need a keycard to get in, all of the sites are paved and level, plenty of room between your neighbors, and lots of “chalets” onsite for people to rent or own. We used our furnace for the first time while we were in Breckenridge because temperatures were getting down into the teens and it worked surprisingly well. It didn’t prevent our pipes from freezing twice, but we were toasty inside.

I left Colorado for about five days to go back to California during this time so I can’t speak to much outside the RV park, but it seemed like a neat place to visit. It’s easy for me to say that now that I’m not up to my shins in snow. And it wasn’t a food desert - a situation we had encountered in Thompson Springs and Gypsum, so it had been awhile since we could get anything like a Whole Foods, or at least something more than your dollar store groceries or the offerings from the local minimart. We also celebrated Chris’s birthday at a nearby distillery. It was Very Cool.

For all my bitching about the cold, the dogs loved it here. I’m sure that surprises no one, but they would refuse to come back home while they were in the dog area. If I had a penny for every time someone commented, “It’s their natural habitat!!!!!” in Breck, I’d have like… 7 pennies.

Lake Pueblo

Following Breckenridge our schedule and destinations were nearly random draws out of a hat. This was around the time we’d check out in the morning and figure out along the route where we were stopping that evening. At first this habit stressed me out a bit but it’s not that difficult to find a place to stop for the night if you have reasonable expectations. You have a choice of public land, various parking lots - Walmart, casinos, and so forth - or take your chances and roll up to an RV park.

We knew we wanted to go to New Mexico but we weren’t married to how we got there; we toyed around with the idea of staying in Denver or Colorado Springs for a couple days, but after considering our options we decided to bypass the rest of Colorado and made our way down to Pueblo. Pueblo isn’t a destination - at all - but it got us to our next state more quickly.

Our stay was only two days at Lake Pueblo State Park, and during this time we made it up to Garden of the Gods and had lunch at a cute brewery afterwards with the dogs. The park itself was fine, you checked yourself in, picked where you wanted to park, and each spot had a covered picnic table. You can also fish and take boats out on the lake - I believe - but we didn’t do any of that. There were some crazy winds at the time.

Santa Fe

After Pueblo we drove to a campground just outside of Santa Fe. We considered staying in Taos but the snow must’ve been gone by that time, or something, I don’t remember, but I’m glad we ended up in Santa Fe. Our original reservation was for only a week and we ended up extending it while lazily contemplating where to go next and when. Santa Fe was good to us.

I loved this city. We went on walks around town, visited art galleries, went on bike rides, and visited Meow Wolf. We ate lots of green chile and barbeque. I would live here. However, I don’t know anyone in Santa Fe, or New Mexico, or anyone really east of Phoenix until you hit New York, so —

We also visited Albequerque one day. It was mostly for a Costco run but we also hit the aquarium and botanical gardens where we overheard a first date talking about what guns they owned. The only thing I regret missing is not taking the Breaking Bad tour - the one where you actually take the meth RV around town.

Church Rock

We then started our drive back to Arizona and stopped for an afternoon/night at Church Rock, New Mexico. We went on a hike with the dogs among a bunch of cool rocks before settling in, smelling a propane leak, and getting an early start the next morning.

By this point in time we felt fairly experienced full time RVing: we had encountered weather complications, long drives, about every mechanical failure inside the trailer you could imagine, and came out the other end not entirely wanting to quit. It also felt like we were finally doing what we had set out to do, which was to explore places like we wouldn’t normally (read: we could actually take our animals to cool places, too! We chose what to see and visit without pressure!), figuring out how to balance new work and enjoying our lifestyle, and pushing beyond our comfort zones. A lot of the hesitations I had with full timing also went away with the change in weather, strange!