bjregan

We finally made a trip to northwestern New Mexico to explore the De-Na-Zin and Bisti Wilderness Areas. It’s an area of badlands that I’d been wanting to see, but it’s a bit too far from Albuquerque for a day hike. By spending the night in Farmington, we had plenty of time to hike through De-Na-Zin the first day and then Bisti the second day.

Saying that we hiked through the 2 areas is probably not the most accurate description. There are more than 40,000 acres of remote badlands with no marked trails and no way to see all of it in one visit. We were fortunate to have Ken and Sue, our hike leader friends, join us on the trip. Sue had GPS tracks along for both days to keep us from getting lost and to guide us to some of the most interesting formations. Of course, if you get excited about eroded rock hoodoos and exposed geologic formations like we do then it would be hard to find formations that weren’t interesting.

Here are a few of the photos we took:

Besides rocks eroded into weird shapes, both areas have amazing examples of petrified wood logs and splinters scattered everywhere. Here are photos of some of the petrified logs. Trying to photograph the piles of petrified wood chips and splinters didn’t give a sense of the detail, but the logs are quite impressive, some of them over 50 feet long.

As residents of Albuquerque’s West Side, December 15, 2014, was a big day for us. After more than a year of living with the inconveniences of a major road construction project on one of our most frequently traveled routes across town, the project was finally finished. Despite the inconvenience, we were very much in favor of the project because we knew that the end result would provide a much-needed improvement to traffic conditions. Not that traffic in Albuquerque is anything compared to what we used to live with in Northern Virginia, but, nevertheless, we like our automobile conveniences as much as the next person.

Thank you to our city for a job well done from the viewpoint of commuters. In December we couldn’t wait to try the new “flyover” on the interchange project and thrilled to the ease of our drive through that area. But another aspect of our city that we appreciate is the consideration that is given to bicyclists.

Thank you, Albuquerque, for the many good trails.

Today was a break in winter weather and we took the opportunity to ride our bikes over the section of the rebuilt interchange that was specifically constructed to allow bicyclists a safe way to cross Interstate 25. There had been no way to do this before in that part of town and, for us, it provides a new connection to some of the bike trails we like to ride on the east side of town.

The bridge across I-25 on the bike path.

Love the flyover convenience when we are driving.

One of the trails that we can now connect to on the east side.

There’s more winter weather ahead and it has to be quite warm before I’m brave enough to ride my bike. But I did catch the excitement today after seeing this new possibility that will be there when it’s once again bike riding weather. Thank you, Albuquerque.

Author: bjregan

Rock Weirdness

Thank you from the West Side