Eastbound from Meteor Crater

The wind finally died down at Meteor Crater, and we went up to the crater and see all of our friends there.  Jim and Bunny had a barbecue for us, and we had drinks and dinner with them and with Eduardo, our good friend and the famous Head Tour Guide at the Crater.  As you can see, we had a great time.
 

We left Meteor Crater and traveled leisurely into New Mexico on Interstate 40.  The winds stated to pick up again, so we stopped for a night at Sky City Casino, before driving the additional 100 miles to Santa Fe the next day.  We spent three days there at a wonderful campground (Trailer Village on Cerillos Road - highly recommended!), and relaxed and visited with a number of friends.









Greg's brother John has lived in Santa Fe for a number of years so he gave us some tips on biking routes to take -- we were able to do only about 18 miles before the 7000 foot altitude did us in. 








Greg celebrated his 62nd birthday in a special way -- we met up with Brad, a fellow schoolmate of his from Wyoming, who he'd not seen for over 45 years.  We had a wonderful dinner with Brad, his wife Kathy, and John, and even had a birthday cake for Greg.


We also visited the Pecos National Historical Site about 25 miles east of Santa Fe.  In addition to seeing the very interesting ruins of the pueblo and the church that was once there, Greg exercised his new option as a 62 year old to get his National Park Service Senior Pass (aka Golden Eagle pass).


We also had a great visit with Tom and his wife Patty -- Tom is Greg's cousin and we had not seen them since we celebrated Greg's mother's 80th birthday in Santa Fe 9 years ago. 












We'd planned on taking a couple of days to get from Santa Fe to Denver, but the weather report started to predict snow for the Front Range, so we put the pedal to the metal and drove 390 miles on Wednesday to beat the anticipated snowstorm. With the storm front moving in, we also encountered wind again, and had to cope with 35-40 mph easterly gusts as we drove north on I-25, but the Phaeton handled it well.  By the time we got to Denver, and headed to Cherry Creek State Park, the weather was looking much better, but we only had to wait until the next morning for the snow to hit.  

The weather is promising to clear and warm up by the weekend, but remember -- this is Colorado in the spring, so anything can happen.

Mandy's sister Penny, and her husband Rex, volunteer at the campground at Cherry Creek, and we plan on spending a full week here visiting with them and their family, as well as seeing Greg's brother Tom, and his significant other Trish.  We also hope to get in some cycling around the Denver area with Mark and Sandy, our friends from Yuma, who are here this summer.

On a technical note, we've managed to average over 8 mpg for the 1100 miles since we left Yuma (despite the winds and altitude gain) which makes the higher prices on diesel fuel a little easier to cope with. Since its mostly downhill from here to Des Moines (and with prevailing winds generally from west to east) we hope to do even better -- we'll see . . . . .