Dad came to town and we visited Rosa's Cantina in El Paso on Friday, then got serious about science. We got up early to get to the Trinity Site where the first nuclear bomb was detonated, then went over to the Very Large Array radio telescope for their open house and hung out with some authentic scientists.
Really enjoying riding my bike and hiking all over Ruidoso. The biking has been stellar as well as the hiking. It's still a bit hot but 80's and blue skies are not so bad. As you can see John and Cider were a bit tired. Nap time in the sun!
We drove over to the white sands in the late afternoon to wander around and catch the sunset. That is an amazingly cool area. Cider loved it and ran around crazy and I was really wishing I could ride my fat bike there. The sunset was beautiful and the nearly full moon lit up the white landscape like snow.
We had a fun day hiking around with the dogs. We headed up to the ski area first and went a couple miles, then made our way to the old fire lookout on Monjeau peak. I wish I could have ridden my bike up both of the roads.
On our way to Ruidoso, we were excited to stop in Pie Town for some pie at the Pie-O-Neer made famous by racers riding the Tour Divide. When we got there they had a sign in the window that said "Out of Pie :( ". We were disappointed and drove on only to find that we were driving right through the Very Large Array radio telescope. I made Kara stop so we could take the tour and that relieved our disappointment from Pie Town. After that we made our way to Ruidoso with a stop by the Owl bar in San Antonio for a green chile burger. We got to Ruidoso just in time to take the Germans for a walk. Duke was super happy to see us!
We started the day by heading a few miles south to Sedona. It was well worth the detour, what a beautiful area! We want to come back with some more time for some hiking and biking. After that we grabbed lunch at a quirky Mexican food place in Flagstaff (MartAnnes), the food was excellent. Finally we made our way through the Petrified Forest (very cool) and camped near Eagar, AZ at a state pearl campsite that even had showers!
We spent half of the day checking out the north rim of the grand canyon, Kara agreed that it is indeed grand, then made our way through more amazing red rock country down to Flagstaff and camped a few miles south of town.
