Wheels, Rio Grande, Dr. Detour, Tent Rocks!

 A few weeks ago we had a rear wheel seal repaired in Alpine, Texas.  Guess we should have had both done, because now we have the other seal leaking.  Found a truck/RV garage who took us right in, repaired the seal and found an oil leak from the pumpkin that they repaired.  Took most of the day with their break for lunch, and we were on our way north-finally out of the Albuquerque area.

The small, muddy Rio Grande in northern New Mexico

 We stopped for a campsite at Coronado Campground in Bernalillo, next door to the Coronado State Monument where they have some impressive kiva murals in their visitor center.  We got a great site right on the Rio Grande River with views of Sandia Peak in the distance.

Tuesday, we headed over to the Coronado State Monument, but it turns out they are closed on Tuesdays!  Huh?  Sundays, Mondays, yes, but I have never heard of Tuesday closing.  It turned out to be ok because I woke up with a recurrence of an UTI, so off to a local walk-in medical facility we went.  Nice folks took me in right away, wrote a prescription, headed to Walmart to have it filled (and do some grocery shopping while there) and on our way north to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument.  Too late to visit there, so got a campsite nearby in Cochiti Lake Recreational Area, administered by the Army Corps of Engineers.  They have the greatest campgrounds - particularly attractive to fishermen, but we got a site high on a hill, overlooking the dam and part of the lake.

Early (for us) this morning, we drove seven miles to the Tent Rocks where the wait to get in the park can be 90 minutes long on weekends.  We sailed right in, and Jack and I both hiked about 1/2 mile to the entrance of a slot canyon.

That was as far as Jack could get as the trail turned sandy in some parts and strewn with boulders in others.  He returned to the RV while I continued hiking through the canyon.  I finally had to stop because the boulders were getting too large for me to climb without risking a broken ankle, or worse.  Gorgeous canyon, so narrow in spots, you have to put one foot on one wall and the other on the other just to get through. 

Boulders started getting too big for me to climb safely, so returned through the canyon

I returned back to a junction and continued the cave loop trail up to a hand-dug cave and then back down through the tent rocks.  These are volcanic ash (Tuff) covered by a hard rock that erosion turns into pointy tent-like rocks.

 

Back to the RV and we drove up another 1,000 feet to an overlook of the whole area.  While cruising through the small town of Cochiti Lake on the way back to our campsite, Jack spotted a Kennedy Valve fire hydrant - guess where they are made?  A great day!