Road Trip Roundup (including Gunnison)

I realized that, in my effort to bring the blog up-to-date, I skipped two fabulous day trips we took in the car (from La Cueva, NM), so jumping in the time machine, back we go…

… first, all the way back to the first weekend in September, for Santa Fe's 89th Annual "Burning of Zozobra," a highlight of the Fiestas de Santa Fe (which started in 1712!).  Zozobra ("Old Man Gloom") is a giant marionette invented by a local artist (Will Shuster) back in 1924.  Meet Zozobra:

Santa Feans bring their worries (and sometimes even legal matters!) in writing to put in the "gloom box" that burns at Zozobra's feet during his fiery demise: every year, Zozobra (sporting a different hair color) burns to relieve festival participants of their troubles. 

As he burns, he waves and points at the audience, wags his head back and forth, and opens and closes his mouth in simulated agony, as shrieks, moans and groans are pumped through loudspeakers.  It is quite an awesome spectacle (and probably pretty scary to the kiddies).

Isn't he just fabulous!

And, when Zozobra is finally reduced to a smoldering heap, 

his annihilation is celebrated with a spectacular fireworks display!

Yes, indeed: Thank You, Santa Fe!

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The following weekend, we drove to Bandelier National Monument.  Bandelier is home to a spectacular set of Pueblo Indian ruins, built between 1150 and 1550 AD.

[Aside:  I just hate the erroneous term "Indian", and the fact that the name has stuck for, oh, the last 500+ years.  It also speaks to the arrogance of Christopher Columbus: I mean, if you had a bad map and ended up in, say, Nova Scotia, instead of Maine, would you persist in calling the local people "Mainers?!"  Sheesh.]

Anyway, the Pueblos settled in Bandelier because they were able to dig elaborate cave homes into the (relatively) soft volcanic ash-based rock called tuff, ejected 1.14 million years ago by the Valles Caldera Volcano eruption.  They also used the underlying, harder shales and sandstones as building materials, for additional housing and ceremonial round-houses called kivas.

Houses were built with shared walls: is this the original apartment complex?

Perhaps our favorite aspect of the park was the danger/solo factor: 
we only saw two other people the whole time we walked around… 
and no one scolded us to keep both hands on the ladder:

The view from inside the ruins was pretty fabulous too:

We also encountered some impressive flood debris.  The region had been hit by a major drought, followed by the Las Conchas forest fire in 2011, and had not yet recovered.  When a fire burns and kills trees, they are no longer around to absorb water: ironically, then, a region desperately in need of soil moisture cannot actually trap rainfall after the fire has wiped out its trees.  So, you end up with flash flooding every time there is a serious rain… and the water moves away from where it is desperately needed.  Awful.

One last dangerous bit of hiking (Nate insisted...) and that wrapped up our visit to Bandelier!

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At last, let's flash forward to the actual day trip I promised I'd write about in this post: on February 8th, we drove from South Fork to Gunnison, CO.  We'd been feeling like we'd fallen into a bit of a routine/rut, so we thought a little day trip would perk us up a bit.  Why Gunnison?  Well, we'd been told by several people that the drive (in particular, from Creede to Lake City) was one of the most spectacular in this whole part of the state… and we were absolutely starved for snow.  After hearing that we'd be regularly snowed-in for the entire winter, we'd been consistently let-down by the warm, dry conditions.  Boo, Climate Change.  Boo.

So, here's our route (not a fan of the new Google maps, which wouldn't let me customize this for you): we drove up to Gunnison on 149 (in gray at left) and back on 114-to-285-to-160 (in blue).

It really was a gorgeous drive.  Here's a bit of the scenery we thought we should share: 

After you pass Creede, you come to the headwaters of the Rio Grande:

As you can see, we definitely got the snow we were craving!

And then arrived in Lake City, CO (cute, tiny town):

Found a fabulous house with a cave below it (how cool is that?):

Saw some gorgeous mountains

(assuming these are what they call 14-ers: minimum 14,000 feet at their peaks):

And then, finally made it to Gunnison, where big flakes of snow were falling and coating the whole town in a blanket of white.  We hit a couple of thrift stores and-- miraculous!-- finally found Nate a $5 pair of cross-country ski boots.  Afterward, we ate a late lunch (or was it an early dinner?) at a great little pub that makes homemade giant, gooey cookies.  

Yeah, we had to have one.  ;)

We took a faster route back: less scenic, but we did most of the drive in the dark anyway.  It had been a very long day of driving, but we're glad we saw just a bit more of SW Colorado before we leave for Oregon… which, by the way, is happening at the end of March, not the end of April (thanks to our gracious landlord)!

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