Roadtrip Across America, Part Three: New Mexico and Colorado.

Continuing our adventure driving our three rescued dogs in a motorhome across ten states in nine days from our Tennessee house in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains to our new home we built on Puget Sound, we've now left the Lone Star State of Texas in our rear-view mirror and have entered New Mexico, which proved that it could be just as quirky as Texas. This is also where I discovered that Jose Cuervo margaritas now come fully mixed in bottles, which is perfect for the end of a long driving day. . . Just add ice and pour. (As always, if you'd like to view the photos full-sized, just click on the image.)


Needless to say, we didn't stay all that long at this rest stop!


This northeastern part of New Mexico proved to be as flat and wide open as parts of Texas we drove through.


This was our first view of the Rocky Mountains, which are as different as you can get from the gently rolling, much older Smokies.


Hasta La Vista, Baby!


Although it was late May, Colorado wasn't all that colorful. At least not here.


Having grown up reading tails of adventures along the Santa Fe trail, it was cool to be where some of those adventures may have occcurred. From the Santa Fe Trail historic site:

The American tale of the Old West is wrapped in the legend of the Santa Fe Trail. An adventurous William Becknell headed his mules west from Franklin, Missouri, in 1821 loaded with goods he planned to take through what is now Kansas to the Mexican city of Santa Fe. The trip was long and hard but trading was good. Becknell returned home with money in his pockets and tales of the friendly people and the different lifestyle of Santa Fe.

As more and more traders took their goods over the Santa Fe Trail, the road to the West became a busy highway of commerce. After the Mexican War (1846-48), great caravans of freight wagons dominated the Trail. Loaded with trade goods, the wagons generated $5 million in 1855. But as the traders traveled through Native American lands, there was strife and bloodshed.

It took 200 years and a war to settle America from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. It took 80 years for the rest of America to be settled to the Pacific Ocean. For well over half of those years the commerce of the West centered on the Santa Fe Trail. In one six-month period during 1865, 5,197 men, 6,452 mules, 38,281 oxen and 4,472 wagons traversed the Trail.

By the 1870s the barons of commerce turned their eyes to the railroads after the first Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad train reached Santa Fe. In 1880 newspaper headlines declared "The Santa Fe Trail Passes into Oblivion." The story of the Santa Fe Trail is not a long chapter in the history of the West, but there is no question it is an important and enduring chronicle in America's advance to become a great nation.



Things are finally getting more colorful; this is our first view of the Rockies in Colorado.


Colorado Springs is home to the Air Force Academy.


And also what must be one of the largest flags in the country. Unfortunately, this photo can't adequately show its size.


The Denver skyline.


And, for those Bronco fans, Mile High Stadium.


This is right before we passed into Wyoming, where, although it was only three weeks until summer, I was the coldest I've ever been in my life. Including a New Years' Eve spent in Silverton, CO, when the temperature plummeted to thirty-two degrees below zero.


Tune in next week for "Forever West" Wyoming where I have photos about a historic fact which may surprise you. It certainly did me!