Road Trip: Southwest

Day 14: Monday, May 05, 2025 - Sante Fe, NM, and Colorado City, CO

Day's statistics:
Weather: mid 70s to upper 40s, rainy and snowy
Steps: Steve 6,490; Linda 5,101
Travel: 299 miles

For breakfast, we enjoyed the burittos again.

After eating, we loaded up the car and headed to our first destination of the day.
This was probably the longest span on any capital visiting trip that we had between visiting capitals. It was one day short of two full weeks between the two capitals. Granted there were nine National Parks in between, but still...
The capital was right down the road at less than five miles.
We parked and headed inside.
This capital building is rather unique because it is round. Not the dome (it doesn't even have one), but the entire building iteself: round.


And we got our selfie too.

After passing through security, we got our stamp.


The capitol had artwork throughout, so we viewed as much of it as we could while we visited the Senate and House.
We started our self-guided tour on the second floor, at the elevators, and started our circular walk. Well, sort of. Thinking of the outer hall as a wheel, there were spokes - hallways - every so often to the center that we also traversed.




The Senate was the first chamber we visited.



And elsewhere.







The circular walk took us around to the House chamber (the House always has more seats than the senate, usually at a rate of about 2 : 1).


Off the main center of the capital was an art display.













Though the rotunda had no dome (can it even be called a rotunda without a dome?), there was a... let's call it a skylight.

At one point we found ourselves on the fourth floor. At the Governor's Office.
She was out, but we had a nice chat with her administrative assistant, who also gave us a couple of roadrunner pins to thank us for visiting.
While this seal is the same as those in the Senate and House, this one was made of wood.

Then we continued on.


In the rotunda, we not only saw the state seal in the floor below, we also saw a number of flags that hung around the perimeter.



And we continued on.








When we were done with our tour, something made me want to get back in the elevator and run up to the fourth floor to get a picture of the glassware that I didn't get when we were there the first time. I didn't even get off the elevator - the doors opened, I snapped the pics, and went back downstairs.
Since the Governor wasn't present when we visited, it would have been funnier if her office number was 404...

After returning to the lobby, we made our way out.


The artwork was interesting, and the capital was unique. But it was time to head to the next destination. And our next state too (though we would be back in Colorado).
As we walked back to the car... it started raining again.

We thought it was humerous that there was a Tesla Electric Vehicle dealership adjacent to a gas station. I guess when gas prices are high enough, it helps the salespeople do their job?!!?

Starbucks® was calling our name again, so we stopped in for a little while before leaving town for our nearly four hour drive to Colorado City - City, not Springs. We decided to pass through Taos. Taos is known as a famous art community. It was literally fifteen minutes out of the way, so we figured we'd take a look at the town. Bur first we had to get there.




We didn't intend on visiting anything in town, just passing through. Literally.
The town structures were the typical Southwest style. At least these were easier to photograph than the ones we saw from the highway while driving sixty or seventy miles per hour.



Part of this phrase translates to "Water Drinking Place Village". Since this was written on the wall of the saloon... makes sense.

Our journey north continued, passing a large solar array with mountains in the background, and eventually crossing into Colorado, and driving through "the oldest town in Colorado" (which is also "written" in white rocks on the hillside in a couple of the photos below).










Eventually we were in Blanca, Colorado.
The first restaurant we found was closed - it was Monday.
After driving down the road a piece, we found another restaurant. That was also closed.
And then we found another.
Greeeeeat...
It also started... to... snow... again.
We stopped at a gas station and spoke to the attendant about the town. He said that most places are closed on Monday, and the place across the street <pointing> opens whenever they want.
Then he told us about a diner a couple miles down the road. So that's where we headed.
A couple miles down the road we arrived at Lu's.

It was a little late for lunch, but there were still quite a few cars parked out front - maybe they didn't want to go anywhere because of the weather.
The parking lot wasn't paved, and there were some deep pits in the gravel, now filled with water.
We made our way inside.

We were seated at a table by the window, and given menus.


Linda had the Lu's Lite Combo, and I had the Red Chili Smothered Chico Burrito.


The food and the service were pretty good, and the prices reasonable.

It was still precipitating when we left, but only about a half hour up the road was our next stop.
We were going to - considering - visit Zapata Falls, on the way to our real destination.
Mostly due to the inclimate weather, but also the fact the road wasn't paved, we decided to just pass by.
And about ten miles further down was the Great Sand Dunes National Park.


This marks the tenth of eleven parks we were going to visit this trip, adding to our list of parks visited.

The VC had a museum, and, of course, a store.
We spoke to the ranger about the park a little, and even watched a movie about the dunes.
There was even an outdoor seating area that wasn't really covered too much.






Sadly, our visit was essentially snowed out. We still got our stamp, though. And frankly, based on the video, we probably wouldn't have done too much hiking in the dunes anyway.
On the way out, we spoke to a couple that was also touring some parks and recently visited Devil's Tower in Wyoming. They were camping in the park, and could just as easily visit the dunes in tomorrow. We, on the other hand, had to head to our next overnight city.
We walked briskly to the car - and got quite a bit of snow on our clothes from some really big snowflakes.

Colorado City was nearly two hours away, and considering the weather, it may be longer.
The snow was accumulating in spots too, with our route taking us back through Blanca before we headed north again.



Still in Blanca (according to the geotags on the pictures) or, more likely, in Fort Garland, was this monument, or camp, or USAF base marker.

While the roads remained only wet - likely from the warmth of the day's sun - there was quite a bit of snow about. The route we were on, also, seemed to drive across the narrow peak of a mountain range. This explains my lack of picture taking in this section. I also have to rely on Linda's shots for the scenery because I just would NOT take my eyes off the road in this section, nor release my white-knuckled grasp on the steering wheel.

After we found the hotel - Days Inn - but before we checked in, we quickly looked up where the nearest supermarket was. It was called Village Market and was just a couple miles down the road, so we headed there for a very light dinner nosh as we did have a decent and a little late lunch. I parked properly, as seen by the line behind the car - but the person that was behind us - they were there when we arrived - didn't fair so well (and they were NOT moving in this picture).

We settled on just a Southwest salad. As the supermarket didn't sell wine, after getting gas we had to go a few hundred yards away to a liquor store called "Gin And Bear It". We spoke to the proprietor for fifteen or so minutes, and he suggested a vintage - Liberty - that we had never tried before. While it was not expensive, it wasn't that bad either.

After arriving at the hotel, we checked in and made our way to the room.

We enjoyed our light dinner and even had a couple cookies (not pictured) too.
After eating, we relaxed a bit, washed up, and went to bed.

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