From Yellowstone to Grand Teton to the Whiskey Basin of Dubois, western Wyoming is a place we could disappear for awhile. Like Washington state. We pulled off the quick get- to-Taos trip with loose plans versus reservations. If we were left wanting a deeper dive, the silver lining is that we are now familiar In-Real-Life (IRL) with the landscape for when we return. Internet searching only gets you so far.
Pic of Cheyenne sunset or missile base photo from last year
It was close to 400 miles from Dubois in the west to Cheyenne in the east where we would revisit Warren Air Force Base, land of missiles, antelope and strong wifi in the Crow Creek Campground. The antelope grazed freely and the missiles were hidden somewhere out of sight. That left us with the strong WIFI as the base’s best attribute. We hunkered down with the website to tackle organization of the 200+ blogs, creating new map-based formats to view the past 2 1/2 years on the road. There are bonus recaps, maps, and easy access to the corresponding musing. We call those sections Journeys. We also made the blog page more searchable, so that instead of seeing months of the year, visitors can search by category, like National Parks or State or Harvest Host.
After three days of website redux, we traveled the final 400 miles on our Ten Days to Taos journey, driving through Denver freeways. When the bar for a tough day on the road has become crossing the Togwotee Pass out of Grand Teton into Dubois, WY, you have lost your big city combat driving qualifications. Card carrying beltway bandits nonchalantly whipped in and around our 50 foot, 20,000 lb. rig. An SUV road-rage break checked a big rig right in front of us. The two tap bumpers and pull onto the shoulder, tempers flaring. A moment later, a wind turbine blade big as a Boeing 747 comes rolling by.
Blissfully, we crossed into Taos from the north through the beautiful Sangre de Cristo Mountain range. This is our favorite part of New Mexico and the southwest, the high desert region. More than a mile high on a great wide plain, our visibility in every direction is unobstructed from the Rio Grande cutting through its gorge in the west to the 13,000+ feet peaks to the east.
Camped among endless fields of juniper, we have a front row seat for Mother Nature’s spectacular weather performances each afternoon. With little humidity, the late summer days are warm and nights are cold. Coyotes howl under a bright night sky.
Taos, the soul of the southwest, is far from undiscovered, but still retains its art colony charm. Santa Fe may have gone trendy coastal, but here in Taos the quest for a society as perfect as its natural surroundings is still alive.
