Dancing Ground of the Sun

We left Heron Lake the first week in October and headed for Santa Fe. The town is an interesting blend of both the Native American and Mexican cultures. The city was founded in 1610 by Spaniards as the capital of a province of New Spain. It is the highest capital in the US at 6998 feet above sea level. The area was first inhabited by the Tewa people, who called this area the Dancing Ground of the Sun. We set up camp at Rodeo Santa Fe, right in town. The camping space is basically a dirt lot at the rodeo arena. We arrived on a Saturday, so there were quite a few horses, trailers, dogs and people around the lot. The other thing in abundance were goat’s head stickers. These are nasty little balls covered in spines that resemble goats horns. They get stuck in your shoes and torture the dogs by sticking in between their pads. Any place that had some vegetation had to be avoided at the rodeo lot. We stayed here because it was convenient as we wanted to explore Santa Fe.

Museum of Contemporary Native American Arts. October 2025

We like to avoid crowds so we visited the downtown area on Sunday morning. It does payoff in smaller crowds but the downside is not everything is open. Which was the case on this day. We wandered the streets and the Plaza downtown and enjoyed the architecture of the different buildings. The street vendors were setting up their wares for the day. We did get to go in some of the shops and galleries that were open. We grabbed a gluten free pizza across the street from the San Miguel Chapel and ate outside on a bench next door.

Scottish Rite Masonic Center. Doesn’t sound Native or Mexican but it is an interesting building,

San Miguel Chapel is the oldest church in the US. The original structure was built before 1628.

Loreto Chapel

Cool fountain at The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi

The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi.

It wouldn’t be New Mexico without some chili peppers.

We did walk around the capitol building and admired the sculptures on the grounds. We decided to come back in the morning and take the self guided tour of the inside of the capitol. The NM capitol is the only completely round capitol in the US. We arrived before most of the staff and legislators got to work, just after 7:30. We were able to wander all the floors of the building and admire the many the works of art. Since nobody was there we also walked through the legislative chambers from the upper gallery. There was a lot of artwork on display and made for a very impressive gallery that is free to visit and enjoy.

Outside the Capitol building.

The seal under the rotunda.

There was a large display of quilts with many styles.

Very cool bison sculpture made from trash. Enlarge the picture to see the details.

Where the sausage gets made.

This is a hallway with legislator offices directly entering it and used to display more artwork. Everything in this building is round.

We really enjoyed visiting Santa Fe. The city is nice and neat, well laid out and is interesting with it’s southwest feel. The art gallery at the capitol was a surprising treat. We spent longer here than we expected to. We will definitely make a point to visit more state capitols as we travel.

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Heron Lake

Heron Lake State Park is in northern NM, not far from the Colorado border. Due to drought, it has less than 20% of the water that it should and it has been years since it has been at capacity. We had originally planed to spend a week here but after cutting our time short at Taos and looking at our next stops, we ended up staying here for 2 weeks, in a few different sites. We knew the lake was low and figured the park would be fairly quiet as the main attraction is a bit dry. We didn’t have any firm plans for anything here, except to just hang out and relax. We were surprised by how much there was to do in the area.

Exploring the dirt trails at the far end of the lake from camp. September 2025

Heron lake is a manmade lake that dams up Willow Creek. Just below the dam, the creek flows into Rio Chama. Rio Chama creates a rugged canyon running through the park as it passes through. We walked a trail that follows the rim with views into and across the canyon. There is a trail that takes you to the bottom and up to the other side of the canyon. One morning I took the dogs down to the bottom and across the steel bridge.

Rio Chama canyon in Heron Lake State Park.

Willow creek and the dam are to the right and Rio Chama is on the left.

We spent most our our visit in the Willow Loop campground, which does have electric and water at each site. One morning we started at 38 degrees and then it got up to 82 in the afternoon. The temperature swing is pretty dramatic here. The mornings were cool and dry but we would need to run the AC for a few hours every afternoon. The picture is from an overlook that we would pass on a short trail that starts in the camping loop. You can see the lake looks a bit pathetic. The buttes and sky still made a nice place to sit for a while and enjoy the view. I would take the dogs on this little trail a few times each day.

Sunset over Heron Lake

As we drove around the region we saw many cars that had pulled off the road and people were out collecting something from the tree line along the roads. We learned that they were collecting pinon pine nuts. Inside the pine cone, there are small nuts behind each scale. Peeling back the husk reveals a white nut that has a slightly sweet taste with a bit of moisture in it. They are very expensive if you want to buy them but they are free for the taking along roads and in the woods in this region. They are a bit tricky to get, though. If they are on the ground, it is most likely that some rodent has already scored the little treasure inside. Getting to them requires you to dig in between the scales to pop them out and that is quite a messy task as these pine cones have a ton of sap all over them. it literally drips off of them. There were several of the these trees along this trail, so I was able to harvest a few so we could taste them. There was a neighbor at camp that went out every day to collect nuts. It seems like an awful lot of effort for the payout.

You can see the nuts in there, and lots of sap.

Not worth the effort once curiosity was satisfied.

We took a day trip up into Colorado to look for fall color. On the way we went through the small town of Chama. As we passed through, the steam locomotive was getting ready to pull out of the station to head up the mountain. We drove up the road and stopped several times to get pictures of the train going past the mountains and aspens. We visited this area right about peak color for the aspens. They were incredibly bright and they shimmered in the breeze.

The Cumbres and Toltec Scenic RR.

So many aspens.

Another day trip we took was to the Abiquiu reservoir area and Georgia O’Keefe’s Ghost Ranch. The terrain is covered with lots of eroded sandstone of many colors, giving the land the appearance of being some place in Utah. We had planned to do some boondocking in this area but realized we needed to stick closer to electricity. It was definitely worth driving down for the day to see all the cool formations. While wandering down a back road, I caught a glimpse of a balanced rock down a dirt trail. We turned back and went down the trail to discover this area of bright white formations. Later, on a map, I saw the area is called Cerrito Blanco. It’s on National Forest land but is not managed in any way. It seems this beautiful spot has become something of a dumping ground for some locals. Even with that, it still is a wonderful place.

And we had it all to ourselves while we were here.

Shawna and the pups.

Good lighting for a selfie of us. In almost all pictures of me, I’m squinting.

While we were here for almost two weeks, I did not see a single heron. I didn’t see many water loving birds at all here. The lake is named after Kenneth Heron who had the idea to divert water from Colorado to these dry areas of New Mexico. What we did see were elk. Lots of elk. Probably hundreds of them. At the far end of the lake there is an area for primitive camping that is accessed by dirt roads. It is mostly for tents but some smaller campers and vans can get to these lakeside spots. While wandering down these dirt trails in the truck I would get out at times. At the edge of the lake I noticed so many tracks it was hard to tell just what animal made the tracks. As the tracks separated I could see that they were elk tracks.

Since Shawna is working during the week, we got up well before sunrise when we were out here in New Mexico. Shawna keeps her work day on Eastern time, so I was up well before the elk start moving in the morning. The next morning, I drove out to the end of the lake and went up on a small hill that overlooked the end of the lake. From where I was I could see dozens of elk leaving the lake and heading back towards the high hills and buttes that they call home during the day. The following morning I went down the trail but stayed close to the line that separates the state park and the land of the Jicarilla Apache, which is well posted. I found a spot that had lots of tracks and parked. I waited there as the elk started coming in from the lake. There was near constant bugling as there were so many of them. Once in a while I could hear the clacking of antlers as the males sparred. I did not get any decent pictures as it was still quite dark by the time they dissolved into the woods and hills but I did get some videos so we can hear the bugling.

Heron Lake may not look like much at first glance but this is quite the gem of a state park. We hope to be back one day.

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Boondocking

Once we realized that traveling by RV would make the most sense for us and our needs, we found there are different ways to approach “camping” in an RV. Parking at a private RV park or resort is the least appealing to us. Your camp spot is usually small and feels like a parking lot. It also typically costs more than other options. The upside is that it almost always has water and electric at your site and many times even has a sewer connection.

The next style would be what we call a public campground, whether it be a national park, state park, national forest or Army Corps campground. These cost less than an RV park and many times have electric and water available, with a dump station nearby. They usually are laid out nicely and you feel more like you are in nature.

The idea of boondocking is the most appealing to us. This would be camping out in the wilds, so to speak, with no water or electric hookups. Many times it is free or very low cost and you have lots of space to your self to enjoy nature. You get to park in places that have great views with no neighbors. This sounds perfect to us.

A pull off along Hwy 64 along the Enchanted Loop. I forget which canyon this is. September 2024

In preparation for doing a lot of boondocking, we got the camper set up with solar. We put 8 panels on the roof and added in 3 lithium batteries. We tied it together and added an inverter, so we could run small appliances like a rice cooker, toaster, hot plate and hair dryer. I did some calculations and this should work good for our needs if we were off grid for a week at a time. One thing we cannot do is run the air conditioner. It uses way too much power for us to even think of it.

Our plan for this trip was to use some state parks and mix in boondocking whenever we could to cut down the cost and get some experience camping off grid. As I said in an earlier post, the weather did not cooperate. From our research, we had hoped to be camping with afternoon temps in 60’s or 70’s. Sadly, we rarely had any days under 80. It was unusually warm this year for northern NM. In New Mexico, there is not much shade to hide behind, so the camper becomes an oven pretty quick in those temps. Because of this, we had to find more camping spots that had electric available, just so we could use the AC. We wouldn’t get much boondocking in with this trip.

Our boondocking spot near the Rio Grande, outside Taos, NM. That gash is the Rio Grande

When we left Clayton Lake, we aimed for a forest service road in the Carson National Forest. It looked like a pretty area along the Enchanted Loop, that was at higher elevation with cooler temps. We arrived on a Saturday morning and found that most people had shown up on Friday and snagged most of the camping spots along this road. There were a few left that would be suitable for a van or tent camping but nothing of use for us and our trailer. So, we headed back down the mountain and found an RV park in Taos where we could come up with a plan. It was nice little park, with a lot of full timers and a great view of sunrise over Wheeler peak.

From here, we wandered around the Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument. While exploring one area that overlooks the old bridge at the bottom of the gorge, we scouted some campsites that looked interesting to us. We had planned to stop out there for a night or two on our way past but now we would spend most of a week out there, being off grid.

Sunrise over the Carson NF, from the RV park in Taos.

As we headed out the next morning to find our free spot, it started to rain very lightly. To get out to the camping spots, we had to travel several miles down dirt roads. As we got on the dirt it was getting a bit slick already. The dirt turns to mud very fast. So, I locked in the 4WD and we headed down the dirt road. As we went, the light rain kept coming down and the road got even slicker.

By the time we got to the roads where camping starts it was very slick and we didn’t want to get too far off the “main” road. We pulled into the first spot that we felt we were out of the way and set up camp for the night. The rain did stop later in the day and when the sun came out the next day, things started to dry out. But that morning things were very muddy and even taking walks was not appealing as it meant everyone would get sloppy and messy.

We got a wee bit muddy.

While we were parked in that spot I did do some scouting and found a nice camp spot just about a quarter mile further in. In the afternoon things dried out and were good enough we did move down to this new spot. Late that afternoon we got a surprise thunderstorm that moved through. It got very windy and we had a lot of marble sized hail. Inside the camper it sounded like they were softballs hitting us.

We did spend a few nights at this spot and enjoyed the quiet solitude that it offered. We could watch the sunrise and sunset from our spot and even saw a few hot air balloons in the distance on a couple mornings. We had planned to move on Sunday but they were calling for some light rain on Saturday. We decided we had better get out while the getting was good and made our way back to the RV park for a couple of nights.

Nika and Jemma wondering why the Rio Grande doesn’t have any squirrels.

Since we were at the RV park in town we decided this would be a good time to wander through the town of Taos and other nearby areas. We did take a drive on more of the Enchanted Loop. It is a pretty drive but not as dramatic as we had expected. Wheeler Peak is the tallest mountain in NM and the loop goes around it and the national forest it lies in. Wheeler is over 13,000 ft but sits far enough back in the forest that we only got a few glimpses of it on our drive.

We also went into the downtown of Taos and wandered the shopping and gallery area. We were both a bit disappointed by this outing. There was not much of interest and things felt a bit in need of attention and upkeep. To be fair, it could be that way because there was major roadwork going on right next to this area. Then again, even the grocery stores here felt in need of some serious cleaning. The walmart felt exceptionally unsanitary.

While we did enjoy our stop in the Taos area, we don’t feel the need to swing through here again. We did some laundry and loaded up on food to get ready to head further north and west looking for cooler weather. We did not do as much boondocking as we had hoped but we did learn that our solar and battery setup would do what we need to. I’m sure we will have more chances to get off grid in the future.

Quite a few of the shops and galleries in Taos were closed when we went. We did enjoy the architecture of the town.

The Alpen Glow at sunrise from our boondocking spot near Taos, NM.

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Hit the Road

Ready to go, with our first truck and camper setup. September 2024

We couldn’t hit the road immediately. We had a few doctor visits to take care of and we wanted to spend some time visiting family before we truly hit the road. We got moving the first weekend of September, right in time for Labor Day. We had been planning to go to Utah this year and visit canyons and arches. We did lots of research, had our route mapped and most of our stops planned out when we decided to change plans.

The dam and locks at Toad Suck, Arkansas

Now that we were going to live in the camper full time we figured we needed to get used to “living” in it more than going to epic places this year. Our plan was to head out the first of September and be back in the Carolinas by early November. It seemed it would be easier to deal with winter camping being back “home” and we would have places to moochdock while visiting family and friends. Two months living in the camper would give us a good taste of what this new normal would be like. Then we could refine what we were going to do over the winter.

Sunrise at Toad Suck Landing.

Once we left the Carolinas, our first work stop was in Toad Suck, Arkansas, at an Army Corps campground on the Arkansas River. It is a very nice little campground, next to a dam and lock system that allows traffic to travel up and down the river. We spent 5 nights here so Shawna could work and then we headed off for a few more days of driving.

We usually plan for 4 hours of google map driving time. With the camper, dogs, lunch and potty breaks this ends up being about 6 hours of time getting to the next stop. Shawna typically works Tuesday-Friday, so we drive Saturday to Monday. We prefer not to drive all 3 days but will when needed. After the next spurt of driving we landed in Clayton Lake State Park in the NE corner of New Mexico.

Sunrise Over dinosaur tracks at Clayton Lake State Park in NM

Our new plan was to spend this trip wandering around Northern New Mexico looking for pleasant weather in the 60’s and 70’s. The weather did not cooperate. It was continually in the low and mid 80’s, which required AC to keep the camper tolerable. The AC in campers is quite loud so we really wanted to avoid using it but we had to find electric hookups as these tin boxes heat up quickly in the sun with temps of 80 and above.

Nika peering over the edge at Clayton Lake SP. She loves to peer over edges.

Clayton Lake was great place to stop. It’s a pretty little lake in the middle of nowhere and nothing around. It’s just hilly, scrubby land with a small town nearby. The town of Clayton did have a decent grocery store and a laundromat, so it would work for our week stay here. The park has a few trails and the shoreline is easily walkable along the cliff edge.

When Clayton lake was being built they discovered dinosaur tracks where the spillway was being placed. These are some of the best tracks we have seen so far. There were bald eagles, osprey, road runners and owls along with lots of other bird life that enjoyed this little oasis in the scrubland. We enjoyed spending a week here, too.

Shawna making her way up through the Beehive area at Clayton Lake SP.

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Change of Plans

Sunset View from our home near Lake Lure, NC. August 2024

Just before Covid hit, we bought a camper and we were planning to take some trips over the summer. Since Covid spread we stayed pretty close to home. As we got into 2021, Shawna needed to have a series of foot surgeries, which kept her off her feet for several months recovering. While she was down and recovering, we hung out and watched movies, shows and other videos on Youtube as we couldn’t do many outdoor activities. We watched several different Youtube channels about people traveling in their RV’s. As we watched them, we started thinking about taking some longer trips in the RV, so we could get out west and see some of the many interesting sites that are out there. While there are a lot of beautiful places on the east coast of the US, most of it has a similar feel. To get some real variety, we need to get out west. And it takes time to get out there.

Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde national Park, Colorado

Early this year, 2024, we decided we would take a one month trip in October and go to Utah. We could drive a few days, then Shawna could work for a week and then drive a few more days to get to Utah. We would then have 2 weeks to explore the area and reverse the process to get back to NC, all within a month. After watching some of the travel videos, we thought that one day we might like to close the house up and go travel for 6 months at a time to explore some new areas and take our time doing it.

Most of the time when we travel, we rush around quite a bit trying to see as much as possible. We have limited time and don’t know if we’ll ever make it back to that area, so we want to see as much as we can. With the RV and more time, we could go slowly and spend more time in one location. A more relaxed pace sounds like it would be very enjoyable while still seeing most everything we want to. But this trip to Utah would be a bit rushed in getting out there and back.

Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

We had fun planning the Utah trip and had it mostly mapped out, then we had a change of plans. On and off for years we talked about doing more traveling and several things led us to ask ourselves why we were waiting. We’d recently had several friends encounter serious health issues and some who passed away. Things like that really make you think about the time you have left that you are healthy enough to do the things you want to do. And no on knows how much time we get.

We considered renting out our home but we knew that the upkeep of our house and property would be too difficult to maintain if we were away for several months of the year. So, we decided to see what we could sell for and had some realtors come out to give us an idea of what the value of our house was. Selling it would give us more options and be less stressful than trying to maintain it. It was a very difficult decision because we truly loved the house, land and the view we had, and we knew that we wouldn’t find anything quite like it again. In the end, selling seemed the best option because it would allow us much more freedom to travel with less stress. So we decided to become full time RVers!

Crater Lake National Park, Oregon. Yes, the water truly is this color.

At this point we’ve lived in this home for 10 years. It’s the longest I’ve ever lived in the same house. When we built the house, we figured that we would be here for a few decades. At least until the upkeep became to much to handle some day. But life seems to make a habit of changing things, regardless of what plans you previously have made. It took just over a week to get a buyer and we had our closing about a month later, in mid August.

Everything went smoothly with the sale and the new owner was thrilled with her little home with the awesome view. We got rid of lots of stuff. Sold some and donated much more. Then we put some things into a small enclosed trailer for safekeeping. We made some modifications to the camper to work best for us. We loaded up the things we would need for this trip and moved into it with our two dogs and a cat. Let’s see where this new adventure takes us.

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