Photo Blog with Waterfalls, Hiking, Outdoors, and other Adventures
It’s the midpoint of October today and back home in the midwest I’d likely be seeing cooler temperatures and often gray cloudy skies. Happily I’m here in the far southwest high desert and it’s a near perfect mid 70’s day with partially clouded blue skies. I continued from Fort Wingate back west on I-40 through … Read more
After leaving Jemez Falls I continued south on NM-4 through the Jemez and Zia Pueblos just enjoying the scenery (though now that I’m back home I realized I missed so many things). Decided to head into Albuquerque and check out Petroglyph National Monument which has been on my list for quite some time and I’ve … Read more
![Bandelier National Monument - Visitor Center [Failed]](https://i0.wp.com/adammartin.space/wp-content/uploads/20241013-BandelierNM-01.jpg?fit=1600%2C900&ssl=1)
Attempt to explore Bandelier National Monument was a failure today because I lost track of time while enjoying the scenic drive coming from Rio Grande Gorge. The area through La Junta was especially beautiful as was the Santa Clara Pueblo. The huge miscalculation that I made was how long it takes to drive from downtown … Read more
The Rio Grande Gorge and bridge were more impressive than I imagined. I was almost completely unprepared for this leg of the journey, so next destination was the Rio Grande Gorge Visitor Center to get more information. The first large sign on the outer wall of the visitor center details how the Rio Grande starts … Read more
Four years later and I have returned to Capulin Volcano National Monument to rectify my past failures and – spoiler alert? – it was worth the wait. Considering my past blunder was just not paying attention to a clock this was an easy win. Anyways, welcome to Capulin and let’s explore! Visitor Center First stop … Read more
My first real adventure into the Rocky Mountains was to visit Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. The drive to get here from Colorado Springs is easy compared to some other mountain passes I have been through. Temperatures are definitely dropping compared to lower elevations but I have no complaints about that – finally, it feels … Read more
Doing a bit of free-styling now with my destinations. Left my stealth camp in Wyoming and decided to drive south on I-25 until something strikes my attention. Sadly the wildfire smoke or hazy clouds are blocking my views of the Rocky Mountains. Also sadly I am deciding to pass on by what I can only … Read more
I’m continuing to head south through the western part of Nebraska today as I creep slowly towards the final target of New Mexico. I’m now in the city of Scottsbluff to check out Scotts Bluff National Monument. I didn’t even have this on my original list of points of interest which frankly is an embarrassing … Read more
From the Nebraska welcome sign I continued following highway 71 all the way down to River Road and came in to Agate Fossil Beds National Monument from the east. If I had to do it again I’d pick another route as large parts of that are gravel and I had farm semi trucks blasting past … Read more
On recommendation from the Custer State Park Visitor Center staff, I headed down the Wildlife Loop Road to see if I could catch the activities from the annual “buffalo round-up”. I will share more on the Wildlife Loop in the next update, for now just imagine that we have already driven 1/3 of the loop … Read more