Unfortunately, some a-hole(s) always end up ruining a good thing. Perfect case in point was what happened at Squaw Valley. Their head of security told me they had to shut down camping in the back-lot because some campers were defecating in nearby Squaw Creek. WTF. Thanks a lot, a-holes... ↩
After a late morning, we left Ron and Patsy's beautiful home and made our way through the stormy weather to Taos, New Mexico. Visibility was poor and it was blowing, and just like they said last night, finding a place to camp for the night would have been a nightmare.
Just as we were approaching the very cute town of Rico, Beastie saw something and made us stop and take a picture. He also made us promise we would never put this in / on him: a chimney!
No need to worry, Beastie, we won't do this to you.
Now that's pretty funky, eh?
The journey to Taos would take us to our fourth state [1] on this trip. It's always fun to look for the welcome signs, and we always stop when we can. In this case, it was just a "drive-by shooting."
Welcome to New Mexico!
We planned our driving route with Shrekkie and figured it would take about six and half hours. He left a couple hours ahead of us and was making good time. Until he called to tell us one of the roads was closed. Ugh. The SNAFU was caused because every navigation app, the GPS and even Google maps - for us and Shrekkie - all showed the road was open. But the road has been closed since December! Arh.....).
The re-routing added another hour plus, so it ended up being a long drive. Moral of the story: don't rely on the apps, etc. Go to each state's traffic website and check the routes. If we had done that, we would've seen the road was closed from US 64 from mile marker 186 to mile marker 223 Tres Piedras.
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One of the great things about Taos is they allow "dry camping" in their parking lot. We really wish more resorts would allow this. Anybody listening??? But it's up to everyone to not ruin it for anyone else [2].
It was late and snowing pretty hard by the time we got up to Taos Valley Ski Village. A few inches were on the road, and we just made a guess on where we could park. Turns out we made a great guess, as one could not park any closer than our end spot next to a huge, long snow bank. We popped the top and hunkered down for the cold and snowy night.
One of the horrible things about dry camping in the parking lot of a ski resort is the noise. The propane heater of our next- door neighbor (translation: a camper parked two feet away) kept cycling on all night. That wasn't so bad, though it did require me to break out the earplugs. But then came the snow removal...
Imagine what it's like to be sound asleep, then be rudely awaken by numerous snow plows extremely loudly scraping the pavement with a snow plow just five feet from your bed / head. At four or five in the morning. Keep in mind the side of Beastie's poptop is canvas, so it's not like there's any insulation from the noise assault.
Snow plows were moving all the new snow and literally scraping the pavement all around us. In addition, every time they went in reverse, we were treated to the beeping sound just like a garbage truck. You know what I'm talking about. No ear plug or covering your head with a pillow can stop the torture.
After this was all finished, a stream of cars arrived, so there wasn't really a chance to go back to sleep (though somehow I was actually able to sleep through the back half of the snow plowing concert). Imagine our surprise when we woke up to find the plows removed that huge, long snow bank and created about 12 more parking spaces for the store merchants in the village. No wonder it was so freak'n loud!!!!
In spite of this, we were so happy with our spot and the ability to camp in the parking lot. A quick, short walk and we we're skiing on nearly eight inches of new snow!
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No need to worry, Beastie, we won't do this to you.
Now that's pretty funky, eh?
Welcome to New Mexico!
1der Girl
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