We left Walsenburg after eating a stale pastry and the rest of the pie from yesterday that John didn't eat. We had determined beforehand that we would take Highway 12 from Walsenburg to Trinidad, it was listed as a scenic route. It was longer than going straight down Interstate 25 but we wanted to see a bit more of the scenery before getting into the desert and familiar roads to home.

It turned out this was a very scenic drive, we hadn't traveled too far when we came to an area which had interesting geological formations, huge, towering walls of rock, as though giants had built stone walls. They jutted from the hillsides and on across valleys, we took several pictures of them. We crossed Cucharas Pass at 9941 altitude, then dropped in a valley. The highway led three quarters of the way around Monument Lake, it is a beautiful setting; we took pictures.

After Stonewall there was much coal visible in the strata, small towns with names of Cokedale and Bon Carbon told us it was indeed coal mining country.

We arrived in Trinidad and found it to be much more of a stop for tourists, there were several chain motels and restaurants. We joined Interstate 25 here in Trinidad, we would be on this road for the remainder of the day.

We stopped at the Welcome Center in Raton, just across the border in New Mexico. Interesting history of the area in the building, and we parked next to rugged motorcycle with the name "BMW Dog". John took pictures of it and later looked up the web site.

Continuing south on the freeway we were looking for a place to have lunch, we finally left the freeway at Springer, even though it was a mile or so off the freeway, there are few towns with restaurants on this stretch of I-25. We found an old hotel, Brown's, which had a restaurant and we ate a good lunch. John took pictures of the lobby, it is an historic hotel with rooms for rent upstairs.

Driving south again, I was insistent we stop at Wagon Mound to take a picture of the rocky outcropping on the hill that supposedly resembled a Conestoga Wagon, hence the name Wagon Mound. We did, and John took some pictures of it.

A few miles from there was the turnoff for Fort Union, which is 11 miles off the freeway, I had been here before but thought John would be interested in seeing it. We drove to the Fort, it was threatening rain; the clouds had been ominous since leaving Raton. John did walk through most of the historic Fort, which is mostly crumbled adobe walls and fireplaces. This was the largest supply fort in the west. We left there without getting wet, fortunately the rains had not caught up with us.

I was disappointed in our next stop, Las Vegas, NM. I recalled that when Laura and I visited here it was a delightful place, the old town square was ringed by old stores, we had lunch in the old hotel there. But, the area is now mostly vacant, the stores closed and the town square rather desolate.

Back to the freeway and a long drive to Albuquerque. We decided to find a motel on Interstate 40, since we would be leaving on that freeway in the morning. We did find a Holiday Express and since it had started raining, we got a room and then walked in drizzling rain to the Furr's cafeteria for supper.

It rained quite a bit during the night. Next morning we had breakfast that was furnished in the hotel, and decided to take another route south that would take us to Tucson and on home from there.