I hated leaving Santa Fe. There is still so much to see and do in the area. But with my truck, lingering around any longer and having a dental appointment next week, I need to start thinking of heading home. The tall mountains are now behind me. I have hot desert terrain to look forward to. This is how my trip began July 3rd: driving through the Southwestern desert, sweating in an old truck with no AC. It's anyone's dream road trip.
Taking a hotel room was a wise decision. Both dogs slept soundly through the night. Sadie especially slept as soon as we got into the two-bed room. I hated waking her for her morning pee this morning, but pee she did and so did Zeke, with enough urine to saturate the patch of grass by the stairwell. She still acts out of it. It's going to be a rest day, with any hiking done late in the evening. The Petroglyph National Monument is to the west of town. Going there is tempting, as I missed all the other petroglyphs on previous hikes.
Temperatures in Albuquerque are expected to reach 90F today.
The hotel was near the Petroglyphs. I stopped at the Riconado trail (2.2 m) on the south side, but soon as I stepped outside the truck, the heat radiating off the soft sand hit me. I kept the dogs in the truck with the windows open half-way, then powerwalked the trail on my own. The petroglyphs are etched in black lava rock and the trail goes around the rocks. The petroglyphs are hard to see, but the park has important ones noted by signs that make one look up to find them. I needed more time than the 38 minutes I had, so this would be a better trip in the winter without the heat pounding down. The ranger at the visitor's center was very helpful and cordial with my questions.
Starting the hikes today much later than normal messed with my sense of time. It was 3pm when I decided to go on a short water hike and picked the Piedras Lisa-Waterfall trail in the Sandia wilderness. That was another 22 miles northwest, retracing part of the drive I did last night.
The Sandias are craggy mountains so unlike the Carson National Forest. Studded with pinon pines and juniper, the fragrance is strong here. The trailhead is outside a fee area and I was the only car in the lot. Both dogs were anxious to get hiking finally, even Sadie, but both dogs were slow and that's fine as I went at their pace and stopped four times in 2.5miles for them to get shade breaks. There was no water anywhere but the shade was nice the higher we got. Dark clouds loomed overhead but no rain ever fell.
The Sandias are pretty mountains. The trail is wide and the surface made of decomposed granite. The first half-mile goes around an upscale neighborhood in a box canyon, many homes which have large solar panels on the roofs. Luckily the trail gets away from civilization and tops off at the rocky ridge, where we stopped, took a break, and then went back down.
We manged 4.9 miles in two hours. That was enough for today. I went back into the western part of Albuquerque where we were earlier in the morning and stopped in at the Lava Rock Brewing Company just south of the first trail I was at. The parking lot was packed even at 6pm.
More later
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