El Santuario de Chimayo,

El Santuario de Chimayo (The Shrine) was built between l8l4 and l8l6. This intense and deeply catholic community enthralled and scared us somewhat with its brutal iconography combined with lovely architecture. The faithful come to gather the "holy sand" which is reported to cure all sorts of ailments. They left an amazing assortment of offerings.

Leonie gathered some of the sand but it didn't stop us from being afflicted by the holy diarrhoea for the most part of our time in New Mexico. We also stayed in some of the driest, and dismal camping spots.

The Durango Kid

We spent time in Cortez, a lovely little town with lots of interesting Indian Cultural information and shops and we also took a steam train ride from Durango to Silverton. Al wore his cowboy hat and we dubbed him "The Durango Kid" but he thought he might be mistaken for someone from the set of Brokeback Mountain. The steam train took us through the most spectacular country to Silverton, an old silver mining town.










It seems Paris Hilton cant keep out of trouble, even in Silverton.

Mesa Verde, Colorado

People along the way had recommended that we go to Mesa Verde National Park and look at the cliff dwellings where the ancestral Pueblo people had lived centuries ago. We headed south to Colorado and into the hot dry desert country. This place is a must see we stayed at a campsite at the entrance of the National Park for about 4 days and visited the Mesa Verde National Monument, where I overcame my fear of heights and climbed a 30 foot ladder up the side of a cliff to get to the Balcony ruins. How people managed to live up there and not fall off the cliffs I dont know. They used hand and foot holds to get up and down the cliffs. Terrifying. So is the arse shot.

Adventure in the mud at Dove Creek, Colorado

The one night we decided to camp on the side of the road we nearly got bogged because it rained all night. We had gone up a dirt road and into a bit of bush to set up camp and the next morning we drove out onto the dirt road, now a quagmire. Al drove like a rally driver for about a half a mile to the highway. He steered and the car slid all over the place; I prayed and we made it with out getting stuck.

The Wild West

My apologies for taking so long to up date the blog. After travelling through the Mountains of Montana we found ourselves in the most amazing plains country. Apparently it was Blackfoot Indian land. It went on for miles with the Rocky Mountains in the background. It was stormy and raining and we took some fantastic pictures of the sky and hills with a magnificent rainbow over it. If you get out the map you will see we came over the mountains and then travelled south along the boarders of Montana, Wyoming and Utah and into New Mexico. We were heading into desert country and the scenery changed from these lovely rolling hills, through more magnificent Rocky Mountain vies to red canyons and sage bush. Wyoming and Utah are the "wild west".

We went to Yellowstone National Park and saw the famous Old Faithful that faithfully did its thing but unfortunately for us the camera ran out of battery at the last minute and we MISSED getting it on film.

Glacier National Park, Montana

From Tri-Cities, we took Dick's advice and headed for the magnificent Glacier National Park in Montana. It was everything that we were told and more. The scenery in this park is spectacular. Lakes, forests, snow capped mountains. Every turn was Aaaaw, will you look at that!!!!

Back to Seattle and off to Tri-Cities

After an excellent visit to Vancouver we headed back to our friends, Dan and Karlene in Seattle where we bought a car. Its very reliable (so far). A Honda Civic LX. We bought it through a broker ( the broker cost $300) and he took us to a number of dealers that he knew and we chose he car. All up with insurance paid, rego for 12 months, broker and the car it cost us just under $5,000. On the Memorial Weekend we headed off with Dan and Karlene to Karlene's family in Tri-Cities (Richland, Kennewick and Pascoe) in East Washington. We stayed with Dick and Lyn and caught up with Don and Terri and their families. They made us very welcome and Lyn's cooking was to die for. Dick bought a didgeridoo when he visited us in Australia and he plays it really well. We really enjoyed our stay there and appreciate the kindness and generosity of the Hodgeson family. They set us up and got us on our way for a big touring adventure of the states.