We finally left Redding on 2 April and started heading back to Virginia. Our track thus far includes a lot of North and South and not all that much East. We've been having a great time and the new (to us) RV is doing great, keeping us warm and cozy on cold nights and cool and comfortable on the hot ones. It's a great fit for us and we're very happy with it.
Among other things, we have
- visited Lake Oroville, CA and had wild turkeys courting in our campsite
- spent 3 days with and made new friends in Grass Valley, CA, and toured the Empire Mine, the largest hard rock gold mine in the US. This is a scale model of the mines. Each little wire represents a shaft directly below the town of Grass Valley
- drove over Donner Pass and down the east side of the Sierras near Mammoth Lakes which got over 40 feet of snow last winter
- visited Death Valley, this time with relatively pleasant springtime temperatures in the mid-90s
- visited Pinoche, NV and their lovely small town museum (no photos, sorry)
- saw our first cowboy of the trip in Nevada, who then proceeded to entertain us by falling off his horse, getting up, dusting himself off, and with his dog, start running to chase down his horse (sadly, no photos again, it all happened so fast as we were driving by)
- headed south to warmer weather to Page, NV where we spent a couple of days wandering around the desert taking in the beautiful views and the profuse wildflowers. As an aside, it having been a pretty wet winter, we have been enjoying the spring wildflowers everywhere we've been so far on this trip
- saw some traditional Navajo drumming and dancing in Farmington, NV, where we also had arguably the best salsa ever at Francisca's - an old, secret family recipe at a small family run restaurant. Yum!
Now we're in a campground at the Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico. This is our first trip here and we are finding it fascinating.
Chaco is a world heritage site and we can see why. Over the course of about 300 years (from about 850 AD through about 1150 AD), native people created an incredibly complex series of buildings. The largest one
here, Pueblo Bonito, contained over 600 rooms and used 225,000 logs from forests 50 to 70 miles away for beams - all carried to the site by hand! It was arguably the largest building ever built in North America until the 19th century.
Linked to various settlements by over 400 miles of roads, these great houses were sacred places and became the centers of Chacoan society. They continue to be revered by the Native American Indian tribes who trace their roots back to these sites.
We'll spend another day here soaking up as much of the ambiance as we can, then start working our way up to Rocky Mountain National Park. That is, if it's not snowed in by the time we get there....
Movin' along,
Mark & Julie
