September 1999 Vacation

Sept 1999 Photo Trip to Northern New Mexico & Southwestern Colorado (Day 1-4)
(These are thumbnails - click on the thumbnail for full-size photo)

Day 1: (above) Not much to photograph between Dallas and Amarillo - one of the most boring drives in the US. This is the best I could come up with. The Harley was shot through the windshield at 70 mph. The puffy cloud was shot out the side window at 70 mph. I stopped for the other two. Below is Day 2:


Outdoor Movie	6 Volt Wincharger	Windmill	Lookin' better

Eagle Nest Lake	Eagle Nest	Red River!	View from Lodge

Down Main Street	Closed :-(	Ice cream was good	Lone Harley

Alpine Lodge	Mini-waterfall?	Mini-rapids?	Cool!

Ran out of snow	Water Power	Lost Model A	My house :-)

Day 2: (above) Much better! After only about 600 miles of flat land, the scenery finally appears. The old, abandoned outdoor movie theater was just across the border into New Mexico. I was very surprised to see the Sioux City, Iowa Wincharger at an antique store in Clayton, NM. I have one like it (in pieces) and am missing the tower, so I asked him what he wanted for the old Wincharger, to which he replied, "I don't really want to sell it, but you can have it for $2000.00." Time to move on.

Another windmill, this one actually pumping water for the cattle in an area where there is no electricity. (Lot of that in this part of NM.) Now it starts getting pretty with high bluffs on one side and a fast flowing river on the other side. Eagle Nest begins the circle drive, north to Red River or south to Angel Fire and Taos.

As you can see, Red River is just one long street in a valley between the mountains. This is Picture Postcard country! The weather here today is absolutely perfect! In the 60s during the day and cool enough for a jacket in the evening. I was told this was the first day without rain for weeks. Perfect timing! If you look at the Alpine Lodge photo, that's where I am staying and where I am right now setting up this page. Right in back of the lodge is the running river with the super clean, cool water. There are quite a few nice homes up in the hills like this. It's just a small town, but very pretty and a nice place to enjoy the scenery and just relax. Below is Day 3:


Red River Ski Lift	How about a Postcard?	The Square at Taos	Taos

Gorge Bridge	Rio Grande Gorge	Looking down	Gorge Bridge

Another Postcard?	Flowers (what kind?)	Haying in the valley	View

Water and Coal	Cumbres & Toltec	Unloading at Chama	Doing some work!

Built in 1903	Gus by Number 463	Hey, this is cool!	Where am I going?

Day 3: (above) Well here is day three. I took a couple more in Red River with the morning sunshine. I think the street scene would make a nice postcard! The weather could not be better - just perfect! From Red River, I took the "Enchanted Circle" drive west to Questa, then on down to Taos. Taos is a neat little artist town with lots of galleries - fun to walk around the town square and check out the stores.

From Taos, I headed west on Hwy 64 which leads to the Rio Grande Gorge. The 2-D photos simply don't transmit the feeling of how deep this gorge is. It is quite an interesting site. Rambling along Hwy 64 toward Chama I had to stop and take a picture of this log cabin. Nice photo, if I say so myself! The next three are just a small part of the scenic view along this highway.

Then I arrive in Chama and I immediately headed for the famous Cumbres & Toltec Steam Railroad station. I am scheduled to ride this train tomorrow, but I wanted to get some photos today. The first photo with the caption, "Cumbres and Toltec", is the train pulling in to the Chama station from Osier, Colorado. This is exciting! The engine was pulling 7 passenger cars of people. While stopped at the station, the crew willingly allowed a few of us to climb up into the "cockpit". The engine was running at the time. What a thrill it would be to operate one of these! After the passengers had left, Engine 463 ran back and forth over the yard doing all kinds of "chores". I was told they never turn them off, they run 24 hours a day, ready to go again the next morning.

Well tomorrow I will find out what the ride is like and I'm sure there will be a lot of "photo ops" along the way. Check back!
Below is Day 4:

Day 4: (above) As you can see, there are no captions for these photos. What can I say? The scenery was spectacular! The photos speak for themselves. It was a wonderful trip but not very conducive to taking pictures. First of all you can't take many train pictures when you are riding on the train and second, there is so much constant movement that it is impossible to hold the camera steady. Digital cameras are not noted for fast shutter speeds so most of my photos were very blurred due to camera movement. But, I got a few ok ones and here they are. (I also had a 35mm camera along and I was shooting photos at 1/1000 second shutter speed so maybe those will be ok.)

I rode in the open box car most of the way. This gives the best overall open view in all directions. The only problem is that you are in the path of a lot of soot from the engine which gets in your eyes and all over your body. But it was still worth it for the best view. The weather, as you can see, was gorgeous again, cool and fresh. The sound of the steam engine puffing up the incline coupled with the view is just great!

The only animals we saw were cows and horses. We had to stop for cows on the track twice and I managed to capture one incident. Tomorrow I take a scenic drive to Durango, looking for "Kodak moments" along the way.


Crop Duster	Harley-Rider	Windmill	Puffy Cloud