December Vacation - Day 1

Lawrence and I decided we would take a week long vacation as it had been a long time since we have had one of any length. Namely, about three and a half years. We were long overdue! We weren't sure for a while exactly where we would go as the weather is tricky this time of year, so up to departure day we watched the forecasts for different areas of the southern U.S. To visit. Discussions included West Texas to see mountains, then up towards Amarillo and Palo Duro Canyon. Other ideas were to go north towards Oklahoma and hit some casinos, and maybe on to Kansas City for the same reason, then curve back down to Texas.

As we prepared to leave, it was decided. North to Oklahoma, then east towards Shreveport, Louisiana, then back south to Lake Charles, Louisiana, then back to Houston. No Kansas City this trip.  We'll make an appearance there next June when we head up to Minnesota.

As usual, we got a late start out of Houston. I slept-in late, then had some laundry to do before packing, then we had to do some shopping to pick up some accessories for our new iPhones and iPads. The car was loaded with suitcases, all sorts of electronic gear, and of course, Desiree the dog and all her supplies. We first went by and visited with my mom who is temporarily in a nursing center. She is nearly 93 years old and pretty much needs full-time care.

We finally departed Houston around 4pm and turned north towards Dallas. I decided to take the Hardy Toll Road out of Houston as traffic on I-45 can be brutal. We got about one mile on the toll road and hit a wall of traffic. They had the whole thing shut down for roadwork and all traffic was diverted to the service road. We finally made it through and there were no more problems from there. We of course stopped at Buc-ee's in Madisonville for potty breaks, a pulled pork sandwich, and a beverage. It's a law in Texas that you have to stop at any Buc-ee's you approach. Not really, but it should be. Great place.

It was well after sunset when we hit downtown Dallas. We transitioned onto I-35 northbound towards Oklahoma, and let me just say here that I despise this stretch of freeway between Dallas and Denton. It's always under construction, you got jockeyed around all sorts of detours, and the lanes are very slim. I drive a big car, so it's like driving in a destruction derby.

We made our next stop at the enormous Winstar Casino, which is at Exit 1 as you cross into Oklahoma from Texas. They call themselves the "Worlds Largest Casino", and I think they're right. This place is huge! I lost a little more than I wanted to (?), and Lawrence was only down a few bucks. We are now checked in at the Rodeway Inn just outside of Gainesville, Texas. A little ratty, but the price is good.

We'll be out of here about noon tomorrow, get some gas, and head back to Winstar for a short time before heading north to Oklahoma City and the Riverwind Casino. Hopefully, I'll do better there.

Yeah, right.

Chama - Taos - Santa Fe

Saturday, October 4, 2014

After an exhausting day yesterday, it was good to be able to sleep-in a little this morning. I was in no hurry since I was only traveling a short distance today. I ended up leaving Chama about 9:30am after saying goodbye to a number of people in our group and planned to head south towards Santa Fe, but I decided since I was in no hurry I would detour and go east towards Taos for a quick visit. I'd always wanted to see the place, and here was my chance.

I dropped down out of Chama into the Chama River Valley and the temperatures started to rise. It was 37 this morning when I left, and thankfully no ice this time. It got up to the upper 50's before too long until I started heading east and had to climb over more mountains. The higher you climb, the colder it gets, so were back down into the 40's again until I dropped down the other side. The drive east wasn't nearly as scenic as the drive north from Albuquerque this past Tuesday. No splashes of color, no dramatic rugged peaks, just lots of pine trees guiding the way. I dropped down into another valley and I could see Taos far in the distance next to another mountain range. I had two options when I arrived...I could go through old town Taos, or detour and go towards the ski area. I decided to just stay on the road I was on and go through old Taos. There's not a lot to see there except a lot of arts and crafts stores, very hip looking art galleries, and lots of restaurants. I knew ahead of time that this was a very artsy place and it didn't disappoint. 

After sailing through town I continued back southbound towards Santa Fe, my overnight destination. I couldn't go to Albuquerque because all the hotel rooms were sold out because of the balloon festival. I arrived at the friendly Best Western and checked in about 1:30pm, a little early. They had a room ready so I got my luggage settled and cleaned up a little, then headed for the regional commuter rail system in this area called the New Mexico Rail Runner, which runs between Santa Fe and Belen, NM, which is south of Albuquerque.

Once aboard the train, which is very nice, clean and fast, I decided to go back to the casino I enjoyed this past Tuesday since the train conveniently had a stop there. I would have about four hours before catching the train back northbound, just enough time to gamble a little, enjoy a delicious dinner, and relax. My first trip to the casino I broke even. This trip I was down a little, but not too bad. I had fun.

I got back to the hotel around 10:30pm and started writing. It wasn't the most exciting day I've had on this vacation, but I saw some new areas of New Mexico I'd never seen, new cities I always wanted to see, and rode a train I wanted to ride, so overall, it was a good day. I'll head out of here about 8am tomorrow and drive straight to the Albuquerque airport and turn in my rental car. My flight leaves a little before 11am.

With all that being said, this will be my final entry for this trip. It was a great vacation, and I look forward to getting home. I hope you have enjoyed reading about my adventures this week, and hopefully we can do it again soon. I have no travel plans set for the rest of the year, but that could always change. Also, thanks for all the kind comments you have left this week. There were so many, and I was so busy I haven't had a chance to reply to all of them, but I assure you I read them all, and I appreciate every one of them.

See ya next time!

The Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad

Friday, October 3, 2014

It was another early and frosty morning, and surprisingly I woke up at 5:45am, well before the alarm. It was again about 32 degrees outside and a thick layer of ice was all over the vehicles.

The group walked to the diner for breakfast about 6:45am before we headed to the train station. This trip involved us riding a bus to the other end of the line and riding the train back to Chama, and the bus left at 8:30am. While we getting ready to load onto the bus, a large group of deer came running through the parking lot of the railroad depot! They were beautiful and glistening in the sun. We arrived in Antonito, CO about 9:30am, took pictures of the train in the morning sun, and perused the gift shop. The train departed on time at 10am as we settled into the rear car on the train called the Parlor Car, which comes with our own attendant who served us complimentary fruit plates, muffins and refreshments, as well as a rear platform to stand on and enjoy the sights, sounds and smells you encounter riding behind a steam engine traversing the mountains in the cool morning air.

Riding the train is a treat, but the real excitement started when we encountered a large black bear near the tracks, a group of very large elk, lots of deer, and even a bald eagle soaring above us throughout the trip. Another thing we encountered flying above us was a large personal drone with cameras flying all around the train. I bet that guy got some amazing video!

About halfway into the trip, we arrived in Osher, which is a stop on the railroad literally in the middle of nowhere, where both trains meet from either end of the line, and lunch was served to all passengers of both trains, which is included in the price of the ticket. Passengers can choose either turkey and dressing with all the trimmings, or meatloaf and it's side dishes, and of course, dessert. It's amazing they can serve such delicious food to so many people at the same time, and in the middle of nowhere.

As we were getting ready to depart Osher, one of our group was invited to join the engine crew in the cab and help fire the locomotive for a little over an hour. Bob Krieger is retired from the Union Pacific Steam Crew, so he knew what he was doing, and everyone in our group was ecstatic that he got to do that, and we all knew he needed it. When he got off the engine and walked back into our private car he was grinning from ear to ear, and we all applauded. It was another special moment for our group today, but especially for Bob. We arrived in Chama around 4:30pm and headed for the motel with plans to meet for dinner at 6:30pm.

You may have noticed that it only took one hour to ride the bus from Chama to Antonito, but it took six and a half hours to get back by train. This is because motor vehicles can maneuver up and down steep mountain grades with ease, but trains cannot because of the heavy weights involved. To climb up a mountain, the train has to weave back and forth over and over again slowly gaining altitude, and then have to come down the other side of the mountain with the brakes on the entire time so the train won't run away. It's a tricky business, but this crew has done it a long time and do it very well.

6:30pm arrives and our group of 22 people walked across the street from the motel to a restaurant called High Country Steak House, and the food and service was amazing. I had the ribeye steak, which was cooked perfectly. We all waddled back to the motel for the night, and we said some goodbyes to some of the group leaving very early in the morning to head home to various areas of the country. I'm only driving to Santa Fe, which is about two hours south of here, so I plan on sleeping in as late as possible.

Although I try, It's hard to fully describe how all this feels if you're not here with us. With steam trains chugging through mountains ablaze with the changing colors of a winter quickly approaching, absolutely perfect weather, a group of friendly people, and the lucky sightings of wildlife all around us, our group felt very lucky to experience all of this on a most perfect day. Life is good.

Chama, NM

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Although I had the alarm set for 7:30am, I actually got up around 7:00am, and I could hear someone in front of my room making a scraping sound. I looked out and they were scraping a very thick coat of ice off their car's windshield. I checked the weather and it was exactly 32 degrees.

I got showered and met my friends in the parking lot and we all walked down to a local diner to have breakfast. When we walked in I noticed a catholic nun in full regalia sitting by herself, and later when we were eating she came over and asked me if my t-shirt was real. It's an HPD Dispatch shirt, and asked because she said she was from Dallas. I said it was, and I stood up and shook her hand, we exchanged pleasantries and went our separate ways.

After breakfast we walked back to the motel, loaded the vehicles and headed out for a day of train chasing through the mountains. We chased the same train we will ride tomorrow. We all got a lot of neat pictures and videos, but it's rough going as most of the roads and rocky and not maintained. Beautiful blue skies, no clouds and perfect temperatures made for wonderful captures of digital images.

We made it back to town and started chatting with more of our party that arrived today, with a total of about 22 people now in our group. Various forms of alcohol were being consumed and the stories got bigger as the evening went on. We all ordered burgers and salads from a local eatery and enjoyed the group dining experience. I slipped out quietly as it was getting late and I had been going since early this morning.

We meet tomorrow morning at 7am for breakfast, then load on buses to catch the train at the other end of the line and ride it back to Chama. There are weather warnings issued for tonight as they are forecasting temps around 27 degrees overnight. Most of the passenger cars are open-air and we'll be above 10,000 feet most of the time, so it will be very chilly. I'm all set though and look forward to once again riding this beautiful train over the mountains and through the brilliant yellows, reds and oranges of the aspen trees turning for the winter.

Albuquerque to Chama

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

As tired as I was last night, I had a bit of a restless night. Between being in a strange bed and ongoing lower back problems, I woke up still a bit tired. But the day had begun and it was chilly and 49 degrees in Albuquerque with sunny skies and I needed to go get my rental car. The hotel shuttle had a flat so they called a taxi for me, and they paid for it. I made it to the airport right on time.

You gotta love car rental companies. They rent you a car at a certain rate, then try and get you to buy this special insurance coverage, and many other things all the while sounding quite ominous on what will happen if you don't. I have full insurance coverage for anything I drive, so I wasn't worried. Besides, I look at those "offers" like a casino would offer things. If they offer it, it's to their advantage and to make more money. No thanks.

I get back to the hotel and load the car, which by the way is a bright red Toyota Yaris. It's about the size of a broom closet, has manual windows, and no cruise control. All for the low, low price of $64 a day! It's usually about $18 a day, but the Hot Air Balloon Festival took care of that.

Oh, by the way...have you ever heard the joke about what La Quinta stands for? The usual line is "next to Denny's". Not here. In Albuquerque it means "next to Fuddruckers".

I headed north towards Santa Fe where I planned on stopping for lunch. The mountains were lit up with morning sunshine and it was beautiful. I made it to Santa Fe about 11:30am and asked Siri for a list of the best restaurants in Santa Fe, and she provided me with a suggestion of a brew pub named the Second Street Brewery, so that's where I went. I had the chicken schnitzel with mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes and green beans. It was all delicious and satisfying.

After lunch I headed north towards Chama which was a couple of hours ahead. As I got up into the mountains the scenery was breathtaking. Amazing peaks and lush valleys, twisting highways through it all, and I stopped a bunch of times and shot some amazing pictures with my iPhone. I didn't bring my professional Canon camera this time, but I should have. I sent a bunch of pictures to Lawrence in Houston, so many in fact I probably annoyed him.

I also stopped at a couple of points of interest on the way including Abiquiu Dam, which was an Army Corps of Engineers project in the 1950's to be used for flood control. Turns out it wasn't actually needed. The water never gets high enough to actually touch the dam! The only thing it's used for now is a small power generating station where they get the water from Lake Abiquiu through underground pipes, not the dam. The lake was already there before they built the dam. Typical government waste.

Further down the road I stopped at a place called Ghost Ranch, which is privately owned and is an artist's colony, which immediately tells you there are some interesting characters running around the place. They have a lodge for overnight guests, a paleontology museum and a anthropology museum. They have also dug up a bunch of dinosaur bones. It was also used for two films...Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull with Harrison Ford, and City Slickers with Billy Crystal. Some of the old sets are still there for touring. Pretty neat.

After all of that, I decided to not make anymore stops and head straight for Chama. I arrived around 4:30pm at about the same time as the other people I was going to meet there, so that worked out well. We all visited and caught up on stuff, and then went inside the residence of the proprietors of our motel and ordered pizza and had a lot of laughs. It was good seeing old friends again, as well as meeting new ones.

I gotta hit the hay early tonight as we are all meeting for breakfast at 8:30am tomorrow, which is way too early for me normally, but I'll adjust. The temperature is dropping fast as it's already 43 degrees with a low tonight near freezing. I'm not used to turning on heaters in my room this time of year, but up here, you have to. Tomorrow is kind of open as to what we are all going to do, but we'll figure it out as we go.

Houston to Albuquerque

Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - 4:00pm

Here I sit in Terminal B at Houston's Intercontinental Airport ready to begin my long overdue vacation! It's been a couple of years since I last traveled anywhere, and I am definitely ready.

Today I fly to Albuquerque on United Airlines in one of their small jets, which can be a bit cramped, but it's only a two hour flight. This will be the first flight on United since they merged/killed Continental Airlines a few years ago. I have flown Southwest since the merger out of protest, but I decided to use my leftover miles for a free flight since United recently announced that my miles would expire if I didn't use them.

My eventual destination will be Chama, New Mexico, which is a couple of hours north of ABQ and just south of the Colorado border. I'm meeting some railfan friends there to ride a steam train through the mountains. We always make this trip this time of year as it's already cold up there and the Aspen trees are changing colors to bright yellow, red and orange. A spectacular sight I always look forward to.

I was originally supposed to fly out last Friday the 26th, but due to some complications at work, I couldn't leave until today. When I originally booked my flights, rental car and hotels, everything was reasonably priced. Moving everything up to this week has dropped me into ABQ in the middle of their annual Hot Air Balloon Festival, which is their biggest event of the year and everything jumped in price. My $20 a day rental car went up to $85 a day for the same car, and the $59 hotel rooms went to around $160. Luckily, I was able to use either AAA, AARP, or obtain a government rate, which helped, but it's still outrageous. My cheap getaway just tripled in price. This always happens to me. I usually fly into Denver and drive south, but I wanted to see different scenery since I have made that drive so many times, and look what it got me. Sigh.

I am staying at an airport hotel tonight and will pick up my rental car tomorrow. I've never been to ABQ so I'm not sure what to do tonight. They have a regional commuter train called the Ridge Runner that runs between Santa Fe and Belen, so I might go ride that. We'll see.

The flight is boarding soon, and I'm glad the weather is calm. It's also hot here. In ABQ it's a lot cooler, and when I get to Chama tomorrow, it's getting down to about 32 degrees every night with highs in the 60's during the day. I never know what to pack for that kind of weather, so I pack one of everything....one small windbreaker up to a heavy parka, a knit cap and some gloves. I've made the mistake in the past of not packing like that and froze my butt off a few times. This time, I'm gonna look like I'm mushing across Alaska!

Albuquerque - Late night

The flight was smooth with no problems, other than being sandwiched in a very small jet for two hours. It's one of those that only has three seats across.....a single seat, then two across the aisle. Luckily, I got a single, so not too bad. These jets have low ceilings so if you're over 5'8", you're gonna be walking like a hunchback through the plane. Luckily I'm 5'8", so I was good. I was three rows from the rear "lavatory", and it's the only one. Lucky me.

When we were about 30 minutes out of ABQ, I noticed all the windows had frost built up on them. Let's see.....the temperature drops three degrees for every one thousand feet, and we were around 35,000 feet, and the temperature in Albuquerque was 65 degrees according to the pilot, so that means it was approximately -40 outside. Yep, that'll frost your windows!

On our descent into ABQ the sun was just setting, and that beautiful light was bathing the tops of the mountains all around us. It was spectacular.

I hopped aboard the shuttle to the La Quinta near the airport and got checked in. I got cleaned up and decided to try my luck at the Sandia Casino here in town, so I tried one of those new non-taxi services that are becoming popular around the country, and it's called Uber. I downloaded the app, got signed up quickly, and ordered a car. It was at the hotel in two minutes! Nice young man in his Honda held the door for me, and off we went. It took about 20 minutes to get there, and it cost $30. That's a LOT cheaper than a cab would have cost, and a much more pleasant experience. When you arrive at your destination he hits a button on his cell phone and the bill is sent to your e-mail address immediately, and you approve payment right there. No cash changes hands, and there is no tipping. Very easy and affordable. I used them again for the trip home and it was just as great.

At the casino I did OK for a change. I played slots and blackjack for a few hours and broke even, which is rare. I'm actually down on the night if you include the Uber fares, but I had a good time. I decided to eat dinner at the casino and went to their sit-down restaurant and ordered the half-rack of St. Louis Ribs, which came with fries, pineapple cole slaw, and the best  damn charro beans I've had in years! The whole meal was delicious and amazing, and was only $13. The plate was overflowing, and I couldn't eat it all, and for anyone that knows fat little me, that's saying something! They even gave me a warm moist towel to clean my hands and face after dinner, and I needed it.

Overall, it was a great day, and I'm tired. I'm taking the hotel shuttle back to the airport in the morning to pick up my outrageously priced rental car, check out and drive north through Santa Fe to beautiful downtown Chama, NM.

Chama is a very small place. In fact, here's a traffic report for Chama: "The light is green".

Chama to Denver

After the big trip yesterday, everyone was pretty exhausted and went to bed early. Most of the group met for breakfast at 8am again, but not me. I'm not a big breakfast person. I got all packed up and loaded the car and met everyone at the train station for the 10am departure of the steam train. We were hoping they would double-head two engines being that it was a Saturday with the possibility of more passengers on a weekend, but no luck this time. Just one engine and the same consist we had yesterday. It was cold again this morning so the steam looked great as they pulled out of town.

We all said our goodbyes and I was ready to head to Denver, which is a little over 300 miles from Chama. I was planning on going the fastest and most direct route, but I was convinced by one of the group members to go a different way that was more scenic and would take about the same time. I head towards Antonito, then up to Alamosa, where if you remember I stayed a few days ago on the way to Durango. I stopped for lunch, filled up the car and cleaned the windshield. I took Highway 17 north out of Alamosa, which is the same road I came in on from Cripple Creek last Sunday.

About 20 miles north of Alamaosa I came upon a UFO viewing platform in the middle of the desert. I guess they have quite a lot of activity in this area because it was a pretty elaborate set-up, including a gift shop that wasn't open and a two level viewing platform. There wasn't another person in sight, but I stopped and paid the $2 requested entry fee and started to walk around a bit. The sign on the building said "you are welcome to leave a bit of your energy here, but please don't take other people's items". I had nothing to leave that would contain any of my "energy", unless you consider a used gum wrapper as some kind of cosmic magnet. There were cartoonish alien characters in different places and in various positions, but what I found interesting was all the items other people had left that contained their "energy". Lots of hubcaps, dolls, stocking caps, felt-tip pens, hotel door keys, old satellite dishes, used lottery tickets, etc. You get the idea...just about anything you could think of was there. It was all a little weird for me, but still cool at the same time.

I continued northbound on Highway 17, which eventually turned into Highway 285. As I headed into the mountains I started seeing low clouds hovering right along the tops of them. I had heard earlier that Denver had received some snow yesterday, and there was snow falling in Cheyenne just this morning. As I started climbing, the outside temperature started dropping, which wasn't unexpected. As I approached the pass going over the mountains, I got into those low clouds and it got quite dark, very foggy, it started to drizzle, and the temperature outside was showing as 25 degrees. The pine trees along both sides of the road had a good accumulation of ice on them already, and now my windshield was getting ice on it as well. The defroster went on high heat and the windshield wipers were scraping off the drizzle and ice, and I slowed way down. This Houston boy is not used to driving in this kind of stuff, and yes, I did get a little nervous, especially when I started to see sand trucks going by. All the locals were driving their normal speeds and none of this seemed to bother them at all. They probably thought I was some old lady being overly cautious as slow as I was going. I'm sure they knew I was from Texas, or somewhere else that didn't have to deal with cold, fog and ice on mountain roads.

As I came down the other side the outside temperature started to rise and got to exactly 32 degrees, which is where it stayed all the way into, and all over Denver, and the drizzle stayed as well. It was just a miserable night and I was glad to get to my friend's house and get out of it. I went out to the car a little later and there was already a thick sheet of ice forming on all the cars in the neighborhood. We have no plans for tomorrow, and depending on the weather, we might just relax here at the house. I've been running crazy all week, as you are well aware, so a nice quiet day wouldn't be too bad.

I fly home on Monday afternoon, so I will wrap up this latest adventure at this point. For the moment, I have no future travel plans in the works, but that could change. I do know that I will try and go to Alaska next year for a train convention, but that's not until next September. We are going to try and finish up all the work needed on the new house, so that's where my priorities will be through the winter months. If I end up doing a trip, I'll let you know.

Thanks again to everyone that has been reading the blog, and I appreciate all your comments. I'm really enjoying sharing all of this with you.

Until next time, take care, and keep in touch.