It has been a busy week. We left home a little over a week ago and for most of the time we have been camped in the mountains of Northern New Mexico near Taos. On the way we ran into a nasty hailstorm in the little town of Las Vegas, N.M. The hail was so large I was afraid the windshield would break so we pulled off the road and parked under a tree. Still the hail broke both of the roof vents on the trailer.

The campground is a New Mexico state park, Coyote Creek. What I did not realize was that the stream in back of the campground is stocked with rainbow trout from a hatchery nearby. Since I did not bring a pole on this trip all I could do was watch the other campers fillet their trout,,, and they were catching them! We did go over to the hatchery though and took the tour. Beautiful fish!

Taos itself is a neat little tourist type of town. Plenty of ski slopes and condos and stores. The main attraction for me was Kit Carson's home. It has been preserved pretty much in the same condition, with some of the original furnishings, including his 50 caliber Henry buffalo gun. Kit was one of the original Mountain Men. He was a trapper, a guide, a soldier, married three times; two of his three wives were Indian, one of which he won in an old fashioned shootout at the annual rendezvous held by the trappers. He was a true American frontiersman and he was there before Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill, and Custer.

We left Taos and at the moment are camped in Holbrook, AZ. We plan to visit the Petrified Forest and the cliff dwellings on the Navajo Reservation over the next few days and then to Las Vegas, NV. On the way down here we stopped at the bridge over the Rio Grande Gorge which has two distinctions; it is one of the highest bridges in the USA and it was built by Susan's uncle!