Where’s Nico?

I went with “The Big Country” of the Talking Heads’ classic album, “More Songs about Buildings and Food”, because this week, we saw a whole lot of this big country. This is not to be confused with the one hit wonder 80’s band, Big Country, but while we’re on the topic of them, check out that hair and that utter earnestness!

Our scenery has changed a LOT since you and I last chatted! When we last spoke, Nico had just arrived in Boise National Forest after spending a couple of months in Oregon. But now? Where’s Nico?

Santa Fe National Forest!

That’s right – we spent three days driving all the way down from Idaho to arrive here at Jemez Falls Campground in New Mexico. What was the hurry?

Well, contrary to what many of you may presume, we were not trying to stay ahead of Johnny Law.

No, the decision to head down to New Mexico was driven by five main factors:

1. We wanted to get south to be ready to get in position to meet up with Kristen’s mom and her boyfriend and with our friends Jay and Roberta in Colorado later this month.
2. Our friend Chad was going to be in the Santa Fe area this week, and we were excited to have a chance to see him.
3. The temperatures in Boise National Forest were a little hotter than Nico would prefer – heat is Nico’s kryptonite when it comes to hiking. He can do altitude, he can do steep climbs, he can do distance – but heat zaps him. I realize you may expect New Mexico to be hotter than Idaho, but we’re at a much higher elevation in Santa Fe National Forest, and the temps are in the upper 70’s and lower 80’s for highs.
4. In the last post, I mentioned the fires in Oregon. Well, they were in Idaho too. Not close enough to be of danger to us, but close enough that we had a thin layer of ash on our truck and trailer one morning.
5. Santa Fe National Forest has special meaning to us. Last year, we did a trial run before this big trip, where we rented an RV to see how our little pooch, who wasn’t even a year old at the time, would do with this lifestyle. We stayed at this very campground in fact! And as you probably guessed, Nico passed the test with flying colors! We drove through New Mexico earlier in this trip, but at the time – back in April – this campground was still snowed in. Now that we’re in August, it was the perfect time to come back out here!

Before I tell you about Santa Fe National Forest, let’s cover what we did in Boise National Forest and on the drive down here.

We got a couple of nice hikes in at BNF – the Crooked River Trail and Lady Face Falls. Nico often would lay down in the shade of a tree when he got an opportunity along the route, as the heat kind of got to him.

All the same, he smiled quite a bit on the trails.

Sometimes those smiles would go a bit goofy from the heat.

He was always pretty happy to get back to the trailer to cool off a bit.

If you look back to that last pic of Kristen holding Nico, you can tell that the mountains in the background appear a bit hazy due to the smoke. On one drive, we could see smoke pouring out from a nearby mountain. But it made for some nice sunsets and sunrises around the campground.

Anyway, after enjoying a few days in BNF, but also worrying a bit about Nico feeling overheated, we decided to start the trek south. We basically took three days to drive down to this area. The first day, we made it just southeast of Provo where we stayed on some BLM land, and the second day, we made it to Angel Peak overlook of a badland region in New Mexico. Our front yard view from our trailer was very nice that evening.

The next day, Saturday, we made it down to Santa Fe, where we stayed at a KOA for a night and took care of errands around town, and then on Sunday we hopped over to our current location at Jemez Falls Campground in Santa Fe National Forest, which was about an hour and a half away.

One of the highlights from our trip to this area last year was McCauley Hot Springs, which is little over two miles away from our campsite. No relation to McCauley Culkin.

As soon as we finished getting our campsite set up, we headed right back there and hopped in for a nice dip.

The next day we did another hike we had loved from last year – the East Fork Trail along the Jemez River. The hike involves not only a lot of shallow river crossings, but towards the turning point, you’re just hiking straight through the river until you get to a nice area for lunch with a pretty waterfall.

I mentioned earlier in this post, our friend Chad was visiting Santa Fe while we were in the area. Chad is a dear buddy who I’ve known for twenty five years, since we were both students at the University of Iowa in the late 80’s.

For as much fun as Kristen, Nico and I have had travelling, no one I’ve ever met travels like Chad. He’s been to seventy four countries and over eighty percent of the COUNTIES in the U.S. He absolutely loves to travel, and has amazing stories from his adventures. It was a treat when he cut away from his travel friends in Santa Fe to spend the day with us. We took him back to McCauley Hot Springs, and enjoyed some beers with him at the trailer, along with some great Thai basil chicken that Kristen made up for dinner (and some Mexican pastries Chad brought along with some coffee beans he had picked up in Guatemala earlier this year).

Of course, not all the fun on this trip happens on the trails. As I referenced in the last post, Nico is the greatest alarm clock you could ever hope for in the morning. I figured I’d end this post with a couple of cute pics Kristen took.

Anyway, my friend… I think that’s about it for us this week. I hope you’re having a great time out where you are too!

– Ken, 8/14/24