Living Our Dream: Now in Angel Fire, New Mexico

Yesterday morning we packed up the RV and hooked up the car, and zoom - up Interstate 25 towards Santa Fe. Our destination was Angel Fire, a community we knew from visiting 3 years ago. We had stayed in a park in Eagle Nest which is the next town to the north in the mountains of Sangre De Cristo Mountains, the same ones that Taos is located in. We are 25 miles north and east of Taos but wanted to come back to this area.

Bye bye to Rio Grande

Sangre De Cristo Mountains in distance, at base is Santa Fe

We are following the Santa Fe trail

Dropped south of Santa Fe on I 25, pretty drive

Lots of rain, crossed over the Canadian River

No traffic, no nothing, heading north on I25

Wagon Mound was a stop over for the Santa Fe Trail

Lonely ranch, and not so nice sky

Very uneventful trip, thank goodness. The GPS wanted us to climb up and into the mountains from Santa Fe but we decided to skirt around the mountains and enter Morena Valley which is where Angel Fire sits, coming in from the east. Very desolate road, very little traffic, we watched a storm hoping that it would not get us. Thankfully it did not but once we got into Cimarron Canyon we got into rain.

Unique - cut through a mountain just to make the road

At last - our exit

Soooo many herds of antelope

We visited Cimarron and the Trail stuff last time - so just drove through

That would hurt if we hit one!

Entering Cimarron Canyon and sky looks worse

Still a pretty drive. Winds buffeted us once we turned off i25, but we were on a state road and it was very easy to drive. Most of the drive through the canyon was 25 miles an hour or less due to the twisty roads, and we climbed up and over the mountain range and then dropped down into Eagle Nest with the lake spread out in front of us. The big surprise was the temperature. We watched as the temp dropped from 85 in Albuquerque to 65 when we settled in at the campground.

Cimarron Creek flowing along beside us in canyon

And we continued to climb, raining now

And we crested over and then dropped down to Eagle River

We were told that night temperatures are still going below freezing so please disconnect your water hose. As it was, it only dropped to 41 so we were alright.

Gawked at some of these homes - lovely!!

We were up at the top by the ski lifts

Today we drove around Angel Fire, climbed up the mountain and gawked at the homes nestled into the mountain top, climbing to over 9800 feet, then drove over to Eagle Nest to just lookie-see again, trying to get used to the altitude - we are at 8240. And we feel it. Today just doing stuff around here, then tomorrow off to do some sightseeing.