Tuesday, July 15, 2025 West Texas, Panhandle to Colorado

Tuesday, July 15

We leave Amarillo and head into the Texas Panhandle.  Home to lots of agriculture with irrigation systems, grain silos, cattle and horses. Sorghum is a big crop.

Railroads often parallel the Ports to Plains highway which will run down to the Gulf Coast ports.  Long trains with coal cars and others. Some train cars sitting on sidings waiting.... often with graffiti. 

 Toot 'n' Totum convenience stores.  Truck traffic from "Moo-ving Milk" tanker cars to Doritos trucks and everything in between.

 Small towns and wide open spaces. 

We enter New Mexico for about 100 miles, and pass Capulin Volcano, where you can drive up to the caldera, which we've done before.

 We begin to see antelope in the fields, but none close enough for a good picture.    Then over Raton Pass into Colorado.  

We decide to stop and stretch our legs at Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.  The Visitor's Center was closed last time we were here, so we go there first.  Some nice displays and information.

 They say they get 1.7 million visitors each year and the place is pretty busy today. You can take a shuttle into the park, which is a good thing. But we opt to drive through with a few stops and short walks, then continue north to South Meadows Campground, a spacious National Forest Campground near Manitou Springs.

This noisy mountain jay welcomes us.

Beautiful campsite among huge Ponderosa Pines.  Smells wonderful!  We take a short hike and see

chipmunks galore, a great blue heron and pretty scenery. Not bad for $14 with our senior pass.

Chicken salad sandwiches, guacamole and fresh peaches for a great dinner.  Then we break out the cribbage board.   We are at 8,000' elevation and we even need an extra blanket this cool evening.