Eagle Nest and on to Colorado (07-01-20)

Looking at a map, our goal was to find someplace that looked interesting, where perhaps we had never been and someplace cooler than 90 degrees.  The small town of Eagle Nest, NM- population 300- fit the bill.




The most popular pastime in this area is fishing, and seems like everywhere we looked, whether it be Eagle Nest Lake, or the nearby rivers, we saw people doing just that.

This is one of the tightest RV spots we have ever had to squeeze into, and I don’t want to say how long it took.  But once in, the people in this park are some of the friendliest we have encountered.

 We were told that in a normal year there would be more socializing, but with Covid, they were just doing a distance Happy Hour on the pavilion.















We even had someone play the guitar for us one night.  It was definitely fun and it felt good to be in the company of others.














With a name like Eagle Nest, I had my eye out for some eagles, but we never did see one.

We hiked two trails in our 4 days here.  The first was Oeste Vista Trail. It was about 3 miles and 500 ft of gain, but the altitude is almost 9000 ft, so we were huffing a bit, for sure. The view from the top wasn't spectacular but there was a nice bench to sit on, and overall the trail was decent.









On our way home we stopped at a very well done Vietnam Vet Memorial.  We could only walk the outside, so I never found out why it was here, sort of in the middle of nowhere.

Our second hike was shorter but more fun. The trail follows Clear Creek, with several small waterfalls and a few bridges that crossed over the creek.

Once we reached a pool about a mile in, the scramble started- up a very steep embankment and along a rock ledge. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it past that part, but I did- no pictures though, I was too busy trying not to fall.  Ironically, once we made it past the tough spot, I decide I had had enough.

From the trailhead we drove down the road to the historic town of Cimarron. To get there we passed by Philmont, the 140,000 acre Boy Scout camp. We would have explored more if more things were open but as it was, we just decided to have lunch in the very historic Express St. James Hotel. 






The Hotel was originally built as a saloon in 1872 by Henri Lambert,  and hotel rooms were added later. Well known guests included Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Annie Oakley. During it’s wild wild west days, the common question around town was “ I wonder who got killed at Lamberts last night?”

Its much tamer now, and has a great outdoor patio, and the food was great!













Our visit to Eagle Nest finished, we plotted our course for our next destination- Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Colorado is full of mountains, so it does take some planning. We chose to go up and over Wolf Creek Pass.

This sign along the way was quite ironic, as the landscape surrounding it was definitely dull and brown.

As we chugged up the mountain, with a 7 percent grade in some places, Paul realized that the truck has yet another issue.  The turbocharger that we had replaced about a year ago is not working again, and we crawled up the hill at 30 mph. Not good.  We did eventually make it to the top of the pass, thankfully, but our relief was short lived.

As we started the trek downward, we were bombarded with signs of all sorts, some detailing the location of hair pin turns, others warning us when we were going over the 25 mph speed limit, and yet others letting us know how far we were from the runaway truck ramp.

I was so busy being nervous, I could barely enjoy the gorgeous scenery around us.  Imagine my horror when the truck started beeping an alarm and the “CHECK BRAKE SYSTEM” alert started flashing on the dash.






As Paul was calmly trying to explain to me what the problem was, I literally couldn’t understand him and told him he needed to pull over to talk. Being a good husband, that's what he did, and then explained that there was no problem with the brakes, it was just a bad sensor. Most of me believed him, but I was still happy when we got to the bottom of the hill.

At that point I could pay attention to the gorgeous scenery, and the colors of Colorado went from brown to beautiful shades of green.

The day ended on a high note when we got to our campsite and saw how close it was to the river. Now we could relax with an adult beverage ( or two).