Kansas, Colorado & New Mexico

We had no tornadoes in Wichita on Monday night, but we had lightning, thunder, and torrential rains. When we woke up, it had stopped raining, but that was replaced by overcast skies and a strong, cold North wind. We woke a little early, and set out for Lamar, Colorado at 7:30 in the morning.

A little after 11:30 AM, we reached Dodge City, Kansas, which is almost exactly halfway between Wichita and Lamar. Dodge City is the town that Marshall Dillon ruled over in the television series Gunsmoke, which ran for two decades, from 1955 until 1975. Of course, Marshall Dillon was a fictional character, but that didn’t stop the city fathers from erecting his statue in front of the Visitor’s Center.

The “real” characters from that time also have their statues scattered around the historic center of the town. This is “Doc” Holiday, playing poker and drawing his gun under the table. In front of the statue is a sign warning that the bronze chairs can get very hot or very cold. Since there was no sun, and it was above freezing, I was able to take a seat for this picture.

Over the main street they hung a banner declaring that Dodge City was the “Queen of the Cow Towns”. And, at the entrance to the city, they placed a wrought-iron arch, declaring that it was the “Wickedest Little City in the West”. In front of that arch (which was being repaired), stood a statue of Wyatt Earp, and we had to get a picture.

The Visitor’s Center gave us a map of all of the interesting sights, along with some background. To the north we found one of the original locomotives from the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad, which arrived in Dodge City in 1872.

Using the map we drove through the rest of historic part of town and found this statue of Bat Masterson, along with the oldest house (still standing) in Dodge City. This limestone house was built in 1880 by boot maker John Mueller.

After driving around town, we stopped for some Thai food at Thai Garden, right behind the Visitor’s Center. There really weren’t a lot of tourists in town on Tuesday, so we were surprised to find the entire restaurant was full. They have a special lunch menu with an entree, rice, and soup for $11.00. Apparently it’s really popular in town. We waited for a table and found that it was worth waiting.

By the time we got to our hotel in Lamar, the sun had come out and the wind had died a little. We checked in, went out for Mexican food, and then turned in early. I was asleep by 7:00 PM.

On to Taos, New Mexico

On Wednesday, both of us found ourselves awake at 4:30 AM, because we had gone to sleep so early on Tuesday. We set out for Taos, New Mexico under sunny skies. In Lamar, we hadn’t really noticed the Rockies but as we drove West and South, they suddenly appeared, really majestic, covered in snow from yesterday’s cold front.

Because we had left so early, and because we only had a five hour drive, we stopped frequently to look at the historic markers on the side of the road. This sign was just outside of Fort Garland, which guarded the San Luis valley in the late 1800s. 

Because we were so high, nearly 8,000 feet, the air was cold and preternaturally clear. The trees changing colors along the river through the San Luis valley seemed to “pop”, like they were in 3D. As we went through the passes, the leaves were largely gone, but in the valleys they were still bright.

We got to Taos in early afternoon. After we checked into our hotel, we went for lunch. The two restaurants that were recommended in our old Moon guidebook, and that were currently recommended by AI, had both closed. I expected the AI to notice that, since Google Maps certainly knew. 

But, that’s not the way that AI works. It just scrapes the Web and then rearranges what it’s been told. If hundreds of Facebook posts say that you should eat at Michael’s Kitchen, then that’s what AI tells you. It seems more like artificial ignorance, not artificial intelligence.

Eventually, we just scrolled through the restaurants in Google Maps and settled on Orlando’s, a Mexican Restaurant just North of town. Kathy had a shredded chicken burrito, and she thought it was great. I had a burger topped with chili relleno which I found a little too hot.

After our late lunch we strolled around the central plaza and took a picture in front of the Hotel La Fonda, even though we aren’t staying there.

The streets in Taos had a lot of cars (since there’s one main throughway that goes through town), but most of the stores and restaurants didn’t seem very busy. After our stroll, we drove through some of the neighborhoods off of the main drag, and saw a lot of homes for sale. We also saw a few of the larger hotels had closed up, or were being renovated. The last time we were in Taos was after Covid, in 2021, and the city seemed much more vibrant then. Perhaps it was just a different time of year.

Mesa Verde National Park

On Thursday morning we had breakfast at the hotel, and got an early start on our way to Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. We felt pretty good because Google Maps showed us that we could get from Taos to Mesa Verde in a little more than four hours. Our route took us through Pagosa Springs, then Durango, and finally to Cortez, all in Colorado. We crossed the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge at 8:30 AM under sunny skies.

Three times we had to wait for a flagman where a portion of the road was washed away and traffic went down to a single lane. In Pagosa Springs we saw several houses that were moved off of their foundations by the flooding. We were heading for Durango about noon when we found Highway 160 completely closed. We spent a fruitless hour trying to route around the closures, using Highway 151 through Chimney Rock and found it closed as well.

Back in Pagosa Springs we stopped for lunch at Subway, saving half of our sandwiches for dinner, and then proceeded to back-track south, the long way around, through the towns of Dulce, Farmington, and Shiprock in New Mexico, and then up to Cortez, Colorado. We got to our room at the Retro Inn a little after sunset, six hours later than we had planned. The Retro Inn is a quirky, family run motel. Both of us thought that it was great.

Since we missed visiting Mesa Verde the day before, we allotted three hours on Friday, before we drove down to the Grand Canyon. We downloaded the National Parks Service 90-minute audio guide to the Mesa Top Loop Road, and listened to it when we got up there.

The day was overcast, but not rainy. The road was pretty twisty; you could go 45 mph on the rare flat spots, but much of it required us to slow to 25-30 mph. I’m not the most fearless of drivers. Fortunately we had the park almost entirely to ourselves. It took us about an hour to get to the top of the mesa.

Once on the Mesa Top Loop Road we started playing the audio tour, but soon found it kind of tedious and dropped back to the guide book we had picked up. According to the guidebook, the first permanent settlers on Mesa Verde arrived about 600 AD. The first houses they built were called pithouses, semi-subterranean homes, which were accessed by a ladder through the roof. Kathy thought that these looked a little like the New Mexico “Earthship” houses, just outside of Taos.

Three of the stops on the tour are excavated pithouses and early pueblos, with some above-ground rooms. Originally these were built with mud-daubed lattice work (similar to adobe). Later they were built with masonry. Around 900 AD they started adding towers and multi-story room blocks. Even though the houses were now built on top of the mesa, they continued to build larger pithouses, called “kivas”, which were used for ceremonial purposes. 

In the 1200-1300 AD, the inhabitants of the mesa started building the cliff dwellings that Mesa Verde is famous for. Behind us, across the canyon, you can see Square Tower House. This is the tallest building in the park, four stories or 27 feet. While it has been stabilized by archeologists, 90% of the site is original.

Further along the road is Oak Tree House, part of a neighborhood of many other cliff-dwelling communities. 

Finally, at the last stop is Cliff Palace, the largest North American cliff dwelling. It has 150 rooms and 21 kivas. In the 1200s many of the residents of Mesa Verde moved from the mesa tops into cliff dwellings, possibly for protection. During that century, there was also a large migration to the south, into what is now Arizona (the Hopi) and New Mexico (the Zuni, Laguna, and the Rio Grande Pueblos).

According to the guidebook we were given, “a series of prolonged droughts, diminishing resources, and social upheaval are factors that may have contributed to this migration.” By the end of the 13th century, Mesa Verde was almost entirely depopulated.

Kathy and I spent about three hours in the park and were both glad we finally got to go. We’ve planned to visit on two other occasions, only to have our intentions hindered by the weather.

Once down the mountain, we started our trip to Williams, Arizona. It took us most of the day to get to another retro motel, the El Rancho. We checked in, walked across the street for dinner, and turned in. Tomorrow (Saturday), we’ll visit the Grand Canyon. We’ve been there once before on my Spring Break. That time we took the Grand Canyon train, but when we reached the park, the entire canyon was covered with fog. We’re hoping for better weather tomorrow.