More New Mexico

 

Subject: More New Mexico

 

Hello once again,

 

We are still in New Mexico and probably will be for another week at least.  We don't do anything very fast it appears.  And since tomorrow morning starts the "birthday week" of Michael, I'll keep this short.  I'm going to be his slave and need my rest.

 

Ok - so we went to the White Sands National Monument and I thought it was weird.  It looked just like snow but it was HOT.  It was just too weird for me.  It was interesting how it was all formed from gypsum and all of that but it was not a place that I would stay and "enjoy" at all. 

 

We headed for the Gila National Forest (pronounced heela).  It was just about Memorial Day weekend so we went on Thursday and camped at Lake Roberts.  And a good thing we did because it was full all weekend.  We hiked along the lake and had campfires....Mike did lots of projects and I read lots of books.  The weather was wonderful. 

 

After the weekend we drove up to the Gila Cliff Dwellings which were super interesting.  It was a lot of work to build those walls inside the caves for the only thirty years that they were used about 700 years ago.  It makes you wonder what was going on with those folks that they would leave such a nice place.  There were pictrographs in the area as well.  We had to walk further than usual because a bridge was out on the access road......good exercise.

 

Further around the loop in the Gila National Forest there is a hike called "The Catwalk".  It goes up a canyon and has catwalks out over the river in most places.  It was a three mile walk and had many bridges including a suspension bridge at the top.  Also a pretty cool butterfly who was posing just for me.

 

We spent a couple days up at a remote spot or two along the way and then today we visited the VLA (Very Large Array) Radio Telescope Site near Socorro, New Mexico......about 75 miles south of Albuquerque.  Very intesting place and you just need to Google it to find out more.  I'm not going to try and explain all of that stuff in this email.  Plus they had huge jackrabbits and antelope in the area which need no explanation.

 

So we drove to Albuquerque and went to Costco and headed east about ten miles.  We're at a little place near Tijeras and plan to head toward Santa Fe in the am.  The plan is to eat Mexican food in Santa Fe for Mike's birthday on Tuesday. 

 

Our phone works (808-256-5252) usually and we'd love to hear from you.....truly.  George, (let's see if he really reads these) send me your phone number and hometown again - I can't find it.  Use the kauaians@gmail.com address.  And I also want Lori and John and Kyra and Roger to know that the "catwalk" is a beautiful trail and the first half is wheelchair accesible.....pretty neat. 

 

I'm going to bed......

 

Aloha,

Gayle