Sky City Tour at Acoma Pueblo

This was one of the things I most looked forward to on the trip. However the reviews were very spotty. Depending on your tour guide you either got a great tour filled with information from a enthusiastic guide or you didn't. I got the latter. Monotone voice. Just the facts on the guide sheet delivered in the driest possible manner. Ignore the first question so that everyone is intimidated and won't ask more. Our guide could speak perfectly normal to the vendors, her friends on the staff, or you if you talked to her on the side. Then she had normal inflection, enthusiasm, and voice level so her excuse that she was soooo tired from doing tours the day before clearly only applied to delivering tour info., not to her other interactions.

But disappointment in tour content and delivery aside here are the pics. See the end of this post for the highlight.

Sky City

View out to Sky City from the sign location. It is the Pueblo on top of the mesa.

View out from top of mesa.

Traditional baking oven.

Street with view at the end.

Houses.

Three story houses where the kitchen switches around based on time of year and where heat is wanted or not wanted.

Another street.

The mission. No pictures allowed inside.

One guy yelled at the tour group to go another way. Clearly not everyone who lives there is for the tours.

Along the route were many people set up with pots and such. These folks were nice to talk to. I almost bought a pot with the intricate lines that are typical of the area.

However I didn't see anything that was a must get until I got back to the plaza at the end of the tour and exited the tour bus. There were two vendors set up. I decided to amble over and see what they had. I was the only one in our group who did and I found a great pot!

This pot showcases three styles of Pueblo walls found at Chaco Canyon showcased on the three doorways that you can see inside of each other.

This is an explanation of the different wall styles. Click on the image to enlarge it for reading.

 

This is the sides of the pot where you see the third style with the more decorative layers of stone.

This is the back of the pot with petroglyphs. I liked this just as much as the front doorways.

The artist - Keith Chino

I've seen Keith's work before at the Colorado Indian Market in Denver. It is a huge show with lots of original artists. He has a pot that is similar in style to this but has a cut out window where he paints a constellation inside the pot on a dark sky background. He had several like that at his booth but I just had to have the one with the doorways inside of doorways. He also had another vase and plate I really wanted to get, which were a different style but alas I had no more cash and due to the location no credit cards.

My piece is called "Ancient Portal". Kicking myself for not getting the others I liked.

One of the things I like about Keith's work is how original it is. You won't find anything else like it anywhere as he uses his own artistic talent to create his designs and pieces. Apparently I'm not the only one who likes it as he stuck this bio in my bag with my pot. I didn't know he had won so many awards, I just knew I loved the pot and a number of his other pieces.

Someone else is going to get the plate and the vase I wanted....

Sky City Casino RV Park

Next up was Sky City Casino RV Park, chosen because of it's proximity to the Sky City Cultural Center and tour of the mesa top Acoma Pueblo.

This wasn't bad at $20 per night for electric, water and dump. We chose a back corner spot so we could walk the dogs. Unfortunately it had the goat head stickers right at the site. It was OK once we got onto the roadway but we had trouble getting the dogs out of the RV. I have no pictures of the RV park. Think big gravel parking lot. Placed a bit back off the expressway so not as noisy as some but not quiet either. They will shuttle you to the casino if you want by calling the front desk.

They have a great package deal for two breakfasts, two lunches, two tours and one nights RV stay for $69. The tours were $23 per person so two of those plus a night's stay in the RV park meant if you took the package you got breakfast and lunch for 2 for free. We didn't do the package because the first tour was not at 8:30 as the internet claimed but at 9:30 which at an hour and a half long meant the dogs in the RV could be in deadly heat if left alone. So only one of us could go on the tour.

Bandolier National Monument

This is a great place to actually go inside of cliff dwellings in an easy access way.

Kiva.

Picture of cliff dwellings with access ladders.

View back down to Pueblo ruins.

Inside a cliff dwelling.

More cliff dwellings.

It appears there were exterior rooms attached to the interior rooms. You can see the old post holes.

Preserved wall art under plexiglass.

The path back offers shade.

Unfortunately we were initially caught behind a 40 person tour group. Once we got by I could get some good pictures. But I missed getting into the first cliff room because of their line. I think this site is a must see if you are in the area. Not nearly as crowded as Mesa Verde and very easy access to the sites.

Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs Spa and Resort

Given that the Wyoming and Colorado National Forests were closed due to snow we decided to head south for our big trip. The first stop is a place I have always wanted to visit. Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs Spa and Resort.
Ojo Caliente

The pretty grounds.

The entry grounds are very pretty.

It did not disappoint. For $40 you get a pretty nice RV spot with water and electric. As with all places some sites are better than others. If it is busy you take what you can get. Our 30 ftr had many choices but I don't think you would be happy trying to get something much bigger than that in. Both sites we had were perfectly level so no leveling required.

There were several nice sites like this one.

Our first site was in the more crowded area. Not great but not bad.

As an Rver you can access the spa pools at their day or evening rate. Both are more reasonable during the week than the weekend. For us we paid $16 per person to access pools at the after 6 weekday rate. It was a Thurs. night so probably not crowded but even so in some pools it was. Also as an RVer you get a bit of a second class treatment at the front desk. Try to listen to the spiel that the expensive room renters get to learn about the place. Once you get in no one knows who is who so you get treated very well. If you want to hike ask for a trail map. The trails were not well marked.

Amenities. For room guests only??? I have no idea. I got no spiel when I checked in.

My favorite pool was the cliffside pool due to the view. There was a lady there who shushed everyone who came in and talked, including us. I was glad she did because it was very peaceful when everyone was quiet.  No chance for pictures of the pool area as there would have always been people in view. However I did get one of the fire ring area out front just after a group left.

They had an evening fire in the courtyard.

I also really like the Arsenic pool as it was the hottest. I went in this one last and was very comfortable walking back to the changing room. Most pools you froze when moving between them because the night temperatures when we were there were on the cool side. Although with the more comfortable temperature you could stay in longer.

The mud area closes at 6 so not available for the reduced evening rate.

The only wildlife I saw was a cow.

A cow got through the barbed wire separating  the river and the campground.

We took off on a hike mapless. Not a good idea. Luckily we ran into another RVer who thought to ask for a map at the front desk and he let us look at it.

Off on a not very well marked hike.

After going up hill it goes along a drainage ditch.

Pot sherd piles were everywhere along the trail. At first we didn't see them because we were looking at the scenery.

I didn't notice these until late in the hike.

On the map the trail goes back down through a wash. However it isn't marked or signed.

We never figured out the end of the trail as it seemed to end in their storage yard so we cut across that to get back to the resort. Signs would have been helpful here.

Some of the room exteriors. They had several types.

If you visit Ojo Caliente I highly recommend you also visit the nearby Bandolier National Monument which is where we headed next.

Getting rid of RV stink

On our one day outing I noticed that the leak over the windshield had left a noticeable mildew odor up front. I had bought a product called RV shocker from Biocide which is supposed to kill odor with chlorine dioxide. We did all the prep and set it off over night. The reaction failed. We were within a couple of days of our big trip and there was no way I could RV in a mildewy RV.

Then I remembered that I used Lysol spray to kill a bad odor in my car air conditioning system. So I decided to try the same. I got the unscented one (which still smells like toxic chemicals) used a heavy duty chemical filtration mask for Chlorine Dioxide from the hardware store and set to saturating the front area, in all the cabinets and all over the dash. Lysol says to let it sit for 10 min. I probably left it closed up for a half  hour before opening all the windows and running big box fans.

But it worked! The odor was completely gone. I made sure to spray thoroughly the area of the dash and ceiling where the drip came in and went down the windshield posts.

I do not recommend doing this without a gas mask. And you may want to consider goggles for eye protection.

After about a day of airing it out the Lysol smell disappeared and the RV was back to neutral smelling.

There is a warning about applying Lysol to plastics and some other materials. Our dash, walls, ceilings, fabrics etc did fine. The only thing that seemed to discolor was the plastic electrical outlet above the dash. Not sure if it was like that before due to sun damage or if it was from the Lysol. I think it was the Lysol.

Lory State Park

On the way home we decided to stop at Lory State Park for a quick walk with the dogs. It is a day use park bordering Horsetooth Reservoir in Fort Collins.

 We started from the parking lot on the self guided nature trail.

 

The trails had good signage that told you whether you were doing the hard version or the easy version. We picked the easy version

Blossom pointing toward the hard version.

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 The sun was setting but there was just enough light to get some pictures.

 Blossom is very happy to be out of the RV and on a hike.

 View back toward the reservoir.

 Sunshine is also happy to be out and about.

It was a pretty hike.

We were there close to closing time so we had to make it quick. Very pretty area from what we saw and we would definitely go back. However at peak time it might be too crowded to enjoy. So maybe a weekday?

We get to see the reservoir as we drove out.

Deer were all along the road out.

The sun has set.

This ended our first trip of the season which ended with no place to stay so we came home. This is the first time this has happened to us. Normally we can always find something in the national forest. And I think one of the handicap sites at Curt Gowdy was open but it was down a spur with no turn around so we didn't investigate it. Perhaps if we had we would have camped there.

But we accomplished our mission of testing out the RV. All mechanicals (both house and chassis) were good. However two of the tire pressure system batteries appear to be dead so we will replace all 6. And there was a mildewy smell in the RV when we got it from the storage lot. It was toward the front. But an inspection in all cabinets and along the ceiling yielded no sign of leaks. But while driving we notices stains down both sides of the windshield pillars and the center pillar. Drat! Another leak. It is being fixed as I type this. Unfortunately we were only checking ceilings and cabinets throughout the winter so this got by us. We think the culprit is the front top lights along the cap of the RV.

1st day out - Happy Jack Trailhead

We decided to pull the RV out of storage this weekend. With all the work going into putting everything back that was removed for the winter we got a late start. Wyoming was painting the lines on the road. Unfortunately a cone jumped in front of us and damaged our right front bumper and slightly bent a body corner. Thankfully we had some eternabond to patch it all up and continued on. To do this we stopped at the Wyoming visitor center on the CO/I25 border. Very nice visitor center! Well worth a stop for anyone headed that way.

Eventually we got to Curt Gowdy State Park. They  had a campground full sign out. So during a quick breeze around to see what was what, we were shocked to see how very crowded it was. The day use areas were pretty full, lots of people everywhere. Very different from when we had been here before. I looked on-line and it still showed they had lots of first come first serve but the lady at the booth seemed to indicate it had all gone reservation except 5 sites. So we will have to do a bit of investigation if we decide to come again.

We continued on to the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest, thinking we could boondock. But alas it was closed.

We continued on to Happy Jack Trailhead. 

Happy Jack Trailhead

Signs indicated there were two campgrounds down this road. But alas they were closed. I think we understand why when looking at the trailhead area. Very muddy with patches of snow. I think we have come out too early in the season.

After a brief dinner for us and the dogs we continued on.

The question was, should we go back east on 80 to try Vedauwoo Campground or take 287 home from Laramie Wyoming. We decided to take 287. Good thing we didn't try Vedauwoo because in checking this morning it was also closed.

287 toward home