From Chloride to Los Alamos

April 05

After several more days in Chloride without the convenience of having access to the internet, we were heading out on Tuesday. Our destination was Bandelier National Monument a little west of Los Alamos. Last time I saw this park was in 1998. So I am curious as to whether there’s been changes. After our visit to the Gila Cliff Dwellings this would be a follow-up on the cave-people.

After we had mastered the curvy and partially steep road out of Chloride we ran north on the big I-25 towards Albuquerque. With very little traffic on the interstate we made good progress. Had a lunch stop on one of the very few reststops along this stretch before we passed the big city. From Albuquerque to Santa Fe it is only one hour and pretty soon we saw the Adobe-town stretched out in front of us on the west side of the highway. We turned onto Hwy 285 and started looking for a gas station. Well, that proved to be quite a task. One was for small to pull into with our 59ft ri. The other had no diesel, a third one was not accessible because it was on the left side of the road and close to an intersection. So we drove on through Santa Fe, roundet a few corners and all of a sudden we found a gas station on the right side of the road and another motor home already at the pumps. We squeezed in and I had an immediate conversation with the other motor home owener. Pretty soon a pickup truck pulled in and another driver, he looked like a big ole-farmer,  started ranting about these sick gas prices. O-well….what can I say.

After spending way over $200.00 we were off again and leaving Santa Fe towards Los Alamos.

The entrance to Bandelier was some miles west of White Rock and we curved down on a road dropping down into a deep canyon.

After paying our entrance fee of $12.00 we started our look-out for a campsite..

Camp site No. 55

Obviously the campground was brand new, and not made for rigs our size. The curves were narrow and to be sure to create problems they had left trees standing right along the black top. But we got into our site No. 55 where we have everything we need.

After a nice supper I found out that there was firewood left from the previous visitor. So we could have a bonfire in the fire ring. Dusk came and went, the stars got out 

and we were what you can call HAPPY CAMPERS.

Happy Campers at Bandelier