Tuesday September 1 2009-Moving day, Espanola to Priest Gulch

The roads between New Mexico and Colorado all seem to lead right to the mountains. Below you will just a few of the photos Stella took of the beautiful rock formations that we saw along the way.

I'm sure that a geologist could tell us what these rocks are and what caused them to appear as they do but I just think they are very pretty and wanted to share.

Beauty is all around you on this drive.

More beauty seen in New Mexico. There is much more vegetation in Colorado.

This formation is in Colorado and is called Chimney Rock for obvious reasons. When you near the formation, it does resemble a chimney.

These aspen trees are near the park where we are. They will be changing colors soon and the pictures of them will be completely different.

We left Espanola about 8:45, earlier than we have been leaving the other locations. When I got into the truck, the "Service Engine Soon" light had come on. I checked all of the gauges and everything seemed to be okay, so we took off. I didn't want to start out with the SES light on, so I went and found an Auto Zone store where I knew they would check the light for me with their scan tool. The alarm was for the engine air heater, a device used to warm the engine when it is cold. The engine is warmed up now and seems to be preforming properly, so we took off. Then I realized that I had left some gear behind in the campground. I had gotten out the folding camp table, my wash bucket and brush and a long handle squeegee to dry the windows and sides of the trailer. I was not able to get them back in the front storage because of the way I had to jacknife the truck and trailer because of the tight site. I guess it was good that we hadn't traveled far from the park, so we went back and got them. They were still sitting on the table in our site.

We made good time, but we climbed all day, probably the most climbing we have done all trip. No warning lights came on but I did notice that the water temperature got much warmer than normal. It never got into the red zone of the gauge but the temp was elevated about 30 degrees over normal.

We stopped for coffee at a little cafe in Chama NM where we have stopped before on other trips. One time, while there, we saw a group of Pontiac prototype automobiles that had also stopped for a break.

We pulled into Priest Gulch about 3 o'clock, and as soon as we pulled in, the "Low Coolant" light came on. The truck was not running hot and had never gotten into the hot range, but it was still bothersome. We got escorted back to our site, which overlooks the river, and got all set up. After letting the truck cool down, I added a very small amount of water to the coolant and the alarm reset itself. When we go into town, I will probably have the coolant checked and possibly flushed with new fluids added.

This site is gorgeous! I will wait on tomorrow's post to go into more details, so for now,

So long.