The Blue Lady Travels in the Red lands: She Visits Some Places in New Mexico

Meanwhile back on the road, I stopped to visit two different friends in their new cities, and I stayed overnight in four other places. Two places each in Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.

I don't have much to say about Albuquerque. Of course, the people are lovely and the university excellent. But I was pretty much working all the time there and did not get out and about a whole lot. But I did make a couple of observations.

The Blue Lady Travels in the Red Lands. She Visits Places Where Nature is Awesome

So, Bears Ears is a GO. Thank you President Obama. I'l be writing you a personal note about this soon.

Meanwhile it's time to finish up this whole series. I drove right by Bears Ears this fall on the way to Natural Bridges. Next time I'm headed that way I hope I can visit both.

Natural Bridges is not terribly far from Hovenweep. You can easily see both places in one day unless you do a lot of hiking. It was a very early monument, the first one in Utah established by Theodore Roosevelt in 1908.

The Blue Lady Travels in the Red Lands. She Visits New Mexico and Utah Places where the Ancestors Hung Out

After 4 days in the big city, time to head home

After Albuquerque I stopped at two places in New Mexico the first day and one in Utah the second. I deliberately decided not to attempt Chaco Culture because I read on the website about how difficult it is to drive there. I knew my car was up to the task, and it had not rained for some time so the road would have been dry. But I thought about whether or not I really wanted to drive over 70 miles round trip on dirt washboard roads, and decided, nah, not this time. I'll see if sometime I can't find a guided tour group that takes you there in a bus or van.

The Blue Lady Travels in the Red Lands: She makes a Plan for a Road Trip

We had a long and glorious autumn this year.
This scene is driving up Cedar Canyon in southern Utah.
The colors were just shimmering which the photo can't show.

In early October I took my first big retirment trip. I took a road trip through northern Arizona, north western New Mexico and southern Utah that lasted 12 days. If I had just been moving the whole time, I probably would not have taken 12 days, but the kernal that began the trip was an accreditation site visit at the College of Nursing at University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.