"Where the River Runs Dry": Jemez and the return to the Jemez

 At the end of April, we ventured up to the Jemez mountains in search of an adventure and boy did we find one!

This was our first time in this range of mountains and we never were able to get over the beauty that we found here.

As we usually tend to do, we found ourselves quite a road to drive on. The dirt on this part of the ride was made out of volcanic ash and was worn down by lots of use. It was pretty bumpy but we weren't too worried about popping the tires or anything because it was nice and smooth.

Of course we found some beautiful views and fun things to climb around in.

Our destination was a ruin on top of a beautiful mesa. It was super impressive. Some parts of it had been excavated in the early 1900's and this piece above was still standing. There were thousands of pottery pieces all around that were beautiful to look at and admire the work. Seeing all of the art made me wonder about the maker. Supposedly there were thousands of Native Americans who lived up on this mesa. It is crazy to imagine their lives and how they lived.

 

As we continued on our drive to head home we came across this beauty. To call it a "road" is a bit of a stretch. This picture hardly does justification to what the road really looked like. We would have needed one jacked up jeep to make it through.

For the first time in our adventure history, we turned the other way because the road looked too much for our ride. So Stan was the master "3"...or a few more-point turn man and we headed back the other way.

We have gotten a kick out of some of the mountain roads in New Mexico. You can tell that when it rains, the road becomes the river. There was some pretty ridiculous parts where the water had cut really deep ruts in the road and we barely made it through.

We left a little different way than we had entered, through this incredible canyon that had tall cliff walls and a neat creek/river running down it. The sunset was gorgeous and we were glad we had to turn around so we could see this particular scenery.

 

 

Stan and I are not ones who like to be conquered by nature. We had a score to settle with this road and so this past weekend we went to settle it. We drove to where we would have come out and our plan was to hike along the road to the same mesa, hike around a little to see what there was to see, and then come home. We are happy to announce that we settled our score and conquered the road.  We are SOOOO glad we turned around when we did. After seeing the rest of the road, we are fairly sure that the car would not have made it out...

This is just one portion of the road and again, it hardly does the "road" justice.

We hiked out to the edge of the mesa, it went out to a point that was beautiful. We enjoyed the day by sitting on the edge and taking in the sight in front of us. For the most part, we were just on top of a mesa walking, but turns out we walked/hiked 12 miles last Saturday. That's our farthest walk so far. We both were hobbling on Sunday pretty good. 

La Luz

Two weeks ago Wednesday, after work, we headed to try out the La Luz Trail on the Sandia Mountains. We didn't get the start we wanted to and so we weren't able to finish the hike, but it was sooooo beautiful. The sunset was gorgeous. The wildlife highlight of this hike was that we saw a baby owl a couple of times. It kept flying ahead of us and landing on the trail. Poor little guy was so scared. 

Here's looking out over Albuquerque

The vegetation changed so much throughout the hike. Here is Stan with his favorite Ponderosa's. They were beautiful! 

This picture doesn't even do justice to the incredible sunset.

We love Albuquerque's city lights.

We're excited to go back and finish another day.

Grand Canyon

The first weekend in June we headed to the Grand Canyon to meet up with two of Stan's friends from Utah. It was truly a grand adventure, especially for me being the only girl. I learned that camping with boys is WAY different than camping with my girl friends. At one point I asked Stan how guys live without girls. Without almost any hesitation he responded, "They live like men." I guess I should have asked how they survive without them...His friends were surprised at how many things I had thought to bring. I guess I should really attribute the fact that I remembered the things I thought to bring to Stan's effective use of lists and my attempts to adopt his habit of using them. 

Needless to say, it was a wonderful trip and we loved every moment of it. We could not get over the beauty of the North Rim and were wowed at every turn. We stayed at Jacob Lake campground about an hour's drive north of the Canyon and drove in every day. 

A meadow on the way into the Grand Canyon.

Our first stop on Thursday morning was to the visitor's center and what was close to it, Bright Angel lookout. Here are a few pictures from that spot:

Joe, Stan, and Adam

 

We then had a brilliant idea to go on a little hike but figured it wasn't too far from where we had parked the car, so we walked to the trail head. That turned out to be a two and a half mile "walk". And then the hike turned out to be a ten miler...I may or may not have had Stan come pick me up halfway back on the two and half mile part...This trail was called Widforss Trail and we LOVED the views.

We saw a few horned lizards throughout the trip, here is a little guy trying to hide from us.

We were super surprised with the forests on the North Rim. Wasn't quite the desert we had imagined. It was beautiful...and this is my favorite hiking sight.

Seconds before this picture took, the boys caught me before falling into the yucca plant right in front of us. We were laughing. The thing was so sharp, I'm pretty sure I could have died...okay maybe that's an exaggeration. This was at Widforss Point. It was such a beautiful lookout. 

On Friday we headed down the canyon with the destination point of Roaring Springs, about 5 miles down. Hiking down was really depressing because we were going down fast, and I knew that the deeper we climbed, the farther up I would have to climb. Thankfully, the company was distracting enough to keep my spirits up. We had lots of fun, and at times pointless, conversation. :) 

The sun was SUPER bright. This was at The Tunnel. 

If you look way down there, you can see the trail we went to...WAY WAY down.

And if you look WAY WAY up there, that's where we came from. This was almost to the springs. 

And then we met this guy. Not my most favorite part of the trip. He was close the the springs, Stan was in front of me on the trail heard a noise. The snake had moved, but hadn't rattled yet. Stan froze and looked around to see if it was a lizard or something...nope, just a RATTLESNAKE! Thankfully he was able to back up and we took another route. Yikes! It looks sooo mad. 

And here's at the end of the day looking back down the trail. There were moments at the end of the day I wasn't sure we...by "we" I mean "I"... were/was going to make it. Miracles happen still. 

On Saturday morning we drove back to the canyon one last time and drove out to some points on the eastern part of the canyon. Here are some pictures from those points:

It was cold

And there were buffalo!!!! They were there all morning eating. They were huge and I was glad they were eating grass and not looking at us. 

It was all so fun! We got back late Saturday night so exhausted but it was worth the trip!

6 Months!!

This past Friday was our six month mark of being married! We know that in the history of marriage, there are millions out there that have reached that mark, but we hadn't. :) We decided to not go on a crazy outing for once in many months and enjoy a weekend at home. Friday night Stan showed up with a beautiful bouquet and we went to Texas Roadhouse. Saturday we watched two movies, went for a run/walk, got errands done around town, and had a fun planning session for future adventures! It was a perfect weekend!

Being married to this man above has been such a wonderful joy. Some people say it's hard getting used to living with a man, but I haven't thought that once. We have so much fun together and he is so kind, thoughtful, patient, and funny! He is my best friend, my biggest advocate, and such a great support to everything I think and do. 

Every day with him rocks!!!

1st Backpacking adventure

 A couple weeks ago we took off mid Friday afternoon for a true adventure. Stan had done the research and we headed off the find the lost lake, and we found it! Even though it was just a mile and a half to the lake, it took us about three hours to hike up there! It was quite steep and there was no trail for the majority of it, which meant we were climbing over and under all kinds of trees. I really started to wonder if we were ever going to get there, and if there was really a lake, but we did and there was. It was dark by the time we got there, so the pictures are all from the morning. 

(Sadly, we had some camera issues, so we had to use my phone camera which meant the pictures were a little harder to take and not quite as good.)

We hoped there would be fish and in the morning, there was definitely some "rising" going on out in the lake. Turns out they were just newts. We were sad, but it was exciting for a minute.

I had to take a nap

Oh my goodness. There were beaver remnants EVERYWHERE. These beavers weren't messing around either. You could tell they had big plans because they chopped down huge trees, but then it looks like they gave up on a couple of them. Gotta know when you're beat...

My artistic pic...

The lake that made it worth it. We surely got quiet solitude up there. It was WONDERFUL!

A view as we hiked down

I can't wait for more!!!