Pueblo to Santa Fe

I've never used Google Maps to keep track of anything, but it's pretty handy! I'm higlighting my route as I go on my map. From Pueblo we drove to San Isabel national forest, and spent the night at the Great Sand Dunes. Then drove down to Santa Fe to spend the night there.


San Isabel was gorgeous. It was at elevation, so snow covered pines. We didn't know this was here, but there was this wacky castle right off the road! Interesting story behind it.


The idea was to continue North and West through through San Isabel, then South into the Dunes, but when we stopped to take pictures of the castle, we realized that my windbreaker must have fallen out of the car at the last Starbucks!! =( This was an amazing windbreaker, and was my only jacket for the trip. So we turn around, get into cell phone range, and call the Starbucks... no luck. Oh well. I bought a used jacket, heavier than my old one, at a thrift store in Walsenburg.

Here are the dunes... snow capped peaks behind it are nice contrast to the sand.


Here's my hammock! You can see the bug netting across the top, and wind/rain tarp.
I managed to just get this setup before sundown. There's no indication in these pics, but it's blowing like crazy. And cold. About 5 min after I took these pics, I tore the tarp down, and re-pitched it like a tent directly over my hammock, sheltering both sides from the wind.

This was a great test. The car was parked a few feet from me, so if I couldn't handle sleeping in the hammock, I knew I could sleep in the car. It got down to the low teens that night, and the wind was gusting up to 20mph. 20mph winds at that temp really sucks. Really really sucks.

I was quite impressed though. I listened to the wind howl like mad all around me, but wasn't really touched because of the tarp. Instead I was gently rocked, which was quite pleasant. I had my sleeping bag, and a sleeping pad. The Thermarest ProLite3 is great. However, I bought the small size. The small size is big enough for shoulder to hips. Your head and legs aren't protected.

This turned out to be a huge mistake. The sleeping bag is compressed to nothing when lying on it in a hammock. Your top is warm, but backside is unprotected. The sleeping pad works great, but my head and legs were freezing.

After that night, we headed South to Santa Fe. New Mexico is really pretty right outside the Colorado border.

Bev and I snacking on something Igor sent with us... which is basically a giant Kit-Kat like wafer, about an inch thick.


A quick stop at Ojo Caliente, Bev's mother told us about their mud baths... which sounded really cool. But they weren't doing it that day, and wanted $22 a person for their mineral pools. So we moved on.

The road to Santa Fe. Had dinner at Maria's. This is a great place, amazing green chili and great rellanos. Decided to camp at the Marriot for showers and a warm bed.