Driving Day from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Towaoc, Colorado - Tuesday, July 25, 2023

Before I get any further into my blogs on this trip, I wanted to give you an overview of our summer plans. We are taking two weeks to make the drive north to Evergreen Coho SKPs campground in Chimacum, Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula. 

Once there, we will meet with Hadley of rover.com who will be taking care of our two cats while we go on a weeklong cruise to Alaska with family and friends (11 in all). We will give her instructions on giving Sunnie his insulin twice a day, and show her where everything is located (cat food, kitty litter, cat toys, nail clippers, treats, etc.) and give her the keys to our 5th wheel.

When we return from the cruise, we have two more weeks on the Olympic Peninsula. I plan to do quite a bit of walking with my friend Diane Howell Evans before she leaves town on August 16. We may do a day trip to an Alpine Slide in the Cascade Mountains. Bob and I will spend time hiking and exploring the Olympic Peninsula, going to rugged beaches, checking out fresh farm stands to buy peaches, apricots, and other fruits and veggies in season, and visiting small towns to see what fun things we can find to do.

From the Olympic Peninsula, we will head east to North Cascades National Park for four nights. We haven't been there before and we look forward to hiking to waterfalls and enjoying scenic drives. Then, we'll go farther east to Chelan, Washington. I've always wanted to take the boat ride on Lake Chelan to Stehekin, Washington. We'll be doing that and going on a tour of Stehekin to see a waterfall and a historic schoolhouse. The tour bus will make a stop at the local bakery. 

When we finish in Chelan, we'll make a beeline to Wilsonville, Oregon, where we will take time to see my family and many good friends. There will definitely be a trip to Cannon Beach, and I'll play laser tag with my son. We will be in the Portland area for eight nights.

Heading farther south, we plan to spend a week in Sutherlin, Oregon, at Timber Valley SKP Park. At this park, our visitors will be jackrabbits, wild turkeys, and deer. This park is very close to the area where we took the kids camping each summer, swam in waterfalls, took trips to Crater Lake, and hiked to numerous non-swimmable waterfalls. We're a little scared of what it will look like because a huge fire tore through there about two years ago.

From Sutherlin, we will head northeast across the Cascades and spend a week at Tumalo State Park in Bend, Oregon. The Columbia River Volkssport Club (a member of AVA: America's Walking Club) is hosting a walking weekend in Bend, Oregon. We will hike to waterfalls, in the forests, to the top of a cinder cone, around a resort area, and in town. 

When the Bend walking weekend festivities finish, one week later a Canadian Volkssport Club is hosting a walking weekend in Vancouver, B.C. We plan to get there a few days early to do additional walks around southwestern British Columbia.

Then, we will head south before it gets too cold. On the way home, we will stop for a West Texas Trail Walkers walking weekend in Palo Duro Canyon State Park. That is our last event before heading home. 

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Today, we didn't feel like leaving at the crack of dawn. Bob had some work to do, and he wanted to make bean and cheese omelets for breakfast. Everything was humming along. 

Bob got his work done. Then, he made omelets. Breakfast was delicious! Thanks, Bob.

When Bob went to empty the gray and black tanks, he found the handle to the black tank was broken! Arrgh! He was able to dump both gray tanks. He called three mobile RV repair businesses in Albuquerque, but they were all busy. No bueno.

Our black tank doesn't have to be dumped for seven days, so we decided to continue onward. Bob called ahead to Reno, Nevada, to a shop that had repaired our black tank when we first started RVing 12 years ago. They had an opening Friday at 1 pm. That's perfect. As soon as we pull into town, we can go there first, get our black tank handle fixed, and then head to our campground in Sparks, Nevada. We are going to have positive thoughts that nothing else on the RV will break on this trip!

At 9 am this morning, we left High Desert RV Park in Albuquerque and headed west on I-40 to Gallup, New Mexico. I drove from Albuquerque to Gallup. The freeway had varying degrees of traffic. 

Not far from Albuquerque, a pickup truck towing a pop-up camper had fishtailed off the side of the highway and jack-knifed. The police were there.

I-40 was in pretty good shape, but the right lane (where the semis drive most of the time) had some big potholes. I did my best to avoid them. I-40 climbed up to the Continental Divide at 7,275' at the town of Continental Divide, New Mexico. At Gallup, we turned north toward Colorado on U.S. 491. 

At Gallup, Bob took over the driving duties. Fuel at stations on I-40 has been running at $4.49/gallon. Bob wanted to fuel up. He pulled into a truck stop and tried to get fuel. This particular station required a fuel card which we don't have. The truck fuel fill area was under construction with a chain link construction fence next to the exit to the main highway. As Bob was pulling out into traffic, I could see that the chain link fence got caught on our 5th wheel. It didn't fall down that we could see so we kept on going. [It was only later, after we stopped, that we saw damage had occurred to our 5th wheel. The chain link left a couple of deep scratch marks on the passenger side of our 5th wheel, broke a part of the fiberglass door (it looked like a hammer had hit it), scratched our dining room window, and took off quite a bit of paint from our door handle. Yikes!]

I can only describe U.S. 491 as "bouncy." I could picture the cats catching air in the 5th wheel. Bob drove pretty slowly and that didn't help. We would not go north from Gallup on U.S. 491 to U.S. 64 ever again. 

The scenery was what Bob described as "stark western." There were grasses sometimes, lots of sand, rocky places, arroyos, and caprock. Farther north, huge rock formations dotted the landscape, Shiprock being one of them. I was not able to get a good photo of Shiprock today. Here are similar large rock outcrops.

Northwestern New Mexico, north of Gallup.

Northwestern New Mexico, north of Gallup.

Northwestern New Mexico, north of Gallup.

Northwestern New Mexico, north of Gallup.

Northwestern New Mexico, north of Gallup.

Yay! We made it to Colorado.

After crossing into Colorado, thirty miles of U.S. 491 is all that remained of our drive to Sleeping Ute RV Park in Towaoc, Colorado. The highway improved once we crossed the state line. It seemed like we'd never get to the campground. "A- watched-pot-never-boils" feeling encompassed me. I watched the miles crawl by on my Garmin. I took photos of the scenery. 

Colorful Colorado.

Colorful Colorado. (If you say so.)

Colorful Colorado.

I saw the Ute Mountain Casino Hotel, the beacon to the entrance to our campground. We made it to tonight's destination.

It is 96 degrees at 4:30 pm with a strong, hot wind. We walked over to the casino to have dinner at Kuchu's Restaurant. Bob had the Native Taco which was very flavorful. I helped him eat his dinner. 

I ordered the Sirloin Steak with demi-glace finish, roasted red potatoes, and "chef's vegetable." The waitress didn't know what the vegetable was, but she guessed it was corn or squash. My sirloin steak was perfectly medium rare and tasted delightful. The demi-glace was a light accompaniment to the steak and enhanced the flavor. The chef's vegetable was overcooked canned corn. (Blah!) The roasted red potatoes were dry and shriveled, like sickly French fries. Now that I'm back in the 5th wheel, I'm going to have a big green salad!!

Here are photos of Sleeping Ute RV Park next door to Ute Mountain Casino Hotel. We are on site #29.

Sleeping Ute RV Park, site #29, with the Ute
Mountain Casino Hotel in the background.

Sleeping Ute RV Park. 

We love being next to the big tree!

The view from our site (#29).

At the end of September, we will come back to this park for two nights so we can spend a day at Mesa Verde National Park. We'd like to take one of the tours into a massive cliff dwelling. Bob has never done that. In 2010, for my mom's 80th birthday, my sister and I took her on a Cliff Dwelling tour. It was awesome. She climbed down a long ladder, crawled through a rock tunnel, and amazed us. I'd like for Bob to experience one of these tours, too.

Tomorrow night, we'll be staying in Richfield, Utah. Thursday night, we'll be in Eureka, Nevada, and on Friday, we'll be driving the Loneliest Highway in America to Sparks, Nevada.

Travel Bug signing off early tonight!