June 5th was mostly a "driving day" .
To be honest, I really can't say much about the rest of Kansas... don't get me wrong, KS is a great state, but the route we were driving on was flat, flat flat and sad.... most of the towns were tiny and dieing or dead. The route took us through the panhandle of Oklahoma, and Jerry noticed we were maybe 45 minutes away from Texas, and he's never been in Texas... so we took a Slight detour mainly so we could take a picture of a sign of Texas. Hey, after all flat and sad even a detour to Texas sounded fun!
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| added about an hour to hit Texas from OK. |
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| peppers and "land of enchantment" ... could be misconstrued no? |
The Detoured really paid off though, because it meant we drove through ( and stopped and had supper) at Des Moines, NM!!! So I think the detour was totally worth it. Food was pretty good.
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| The view of our room from the courtyard |
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| Jesscera Slept in, this is me taking her picture from the outside! |
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| Our room was the originally the master bedroom - huge! |
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| Jerry catching up on facebook in the lovely courtyard |
The Bed and Breakfast is called
Casa del Gavilan and located in Cimarron, NM. Cimarron is famous for being the location of Piedmont, the Boy Scout urber camp. We actually drove by it 3 or 4 times looking for our hotel... by that point it was raining cats and dogs and we literally missed the sign.. and when we found the sign, it was a locked gate. The phone reception was non existent and we missed the little sign telling us to use the buzzer.. which we couldn't see either through the rain.
Still after a few more scenic near night tours of the surrounding countryside in torrential rains, we finally figured it out.. The rain stopped basically :)
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| View from the back yard of the Bed & breakfast |
As you can see from just a few pictures, the house was gorgeous and comfy and the next day was bright and sunny and just amazing. The Mountains as our back yard?? Splendid.
The main reason I picked this location? One of the planned stops for June 6th was Elizabethtown, NM, one of the more than 400 ghost towns hanging out in New Mexico. E-town, as it's called, is about 1 hour away from Cimarron.
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| Tombstone in the Elizabethtown graveyard, about the only thing of real interest in E-town |
Sadly this was a disappointing stop. Most of the town is gone, just 1 building remains in ruins and the gift shop was closed on June 6th. The graveyard was kind of interesting.
Actually June 6th was sort of a wash -- quite a few businesses in the area were closed for Monday. I guess tourists are supposed to travel Tues -Sat only judging by the signs. There were several interesting artsy shops in Cimarron we didn't get to go to, because they weren't open.
Still, most things were in Red River, NM which was a blessing, because we had a small issue driving around the mountain roads... a hole big enough to ruin the tire. Red River seemed to be a tourist trade kind of town, and had a full auto shop. What could have been the biggest monkey wrench on our trip was only a couple of hours side-tracked. Jesscera and I went shopping! Jerry ended up buying 2 replacement front tires, so it was sort of expensive, but seriously, just think if we had to stop out in the middle of no where on a back mountain road with a busted tire!!!! The rest of the day was pretty uneventful and we jumped on a interstate to make up some of the time... last stop of the day Grants NM. Grants is right off Route 66 stops and home to the ice cavern, which was the "big" stop for June 7th. I'll tell you all about the surprise at the ice cavern next blog!
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| The river is really small at this point in NM, but the gorge is huge!!!! and deep |
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| Jesscera and Jerry enjoying the rock formations around NM! |
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| This was the toilet in the malt shop in Red River, NM. what a hoot! |
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