A Nice Week at Eagle Nest Lake

 

We’ve spent a very relaxing week at Eagle Nest Lake State Park, watching the prairie dogs scurry all around us and soaking in the views.

One day Debbie and I walked the main drag of Eagle Nest and looked around the few shops.

They have a nice thrift store, and we each bought something there. There’s no sense in spending much on clothes when you depend on laundromats. Just ask Debbie, who had the unfortunate experience in Taos of someone else leaving a tube of Blistex in the dryer.

Saw this old RV parked on the main street. The driver was busy smoking a cigarette and talking on his cell phone or we would have asked him about it.

We’ve done a couple hikes in nearby Cimarron Canyon State Park. Thought we might want to stay there but drove through all three campgrounds and were not impressed. They are in a pretty canyon but the sites are paved, fairly close together, and look more like parking lots. There are a few nice sites on a creek but they are reservation sites.

Some scenes from the trails.

Also hiked two trails at Angel Fire, a ski village 11 miles from Eagle Nest. It was a busy place since there was a downhill mountain bike race there last weekend.

It was tough hiking the Oeste Vista trail, which goes up, up, up, and we’re still not used to the elevation.

The Lady Slippers trail, which starts by the lake in the middle of Angel Fire, was mostly level, and we got to see a couple elk and deer in a residential area.on the way to the trail.

 

We spotted quite a few homes where we could imagine ourselves sitting by the fireplace watching the snow fall. Just for a couple days, maybe. And we found a great place to eat, Angel Fired Pizza, with tasty gourmet pizzas and good beer.

Just outside of Angel Fire on the Enchanted Circle is the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, an interesting building built by the family of David Westphall, who was killed in Vietnam in 1968. It is now a state park, free to the public.

 

The visitor center houses exhibits, videos and memorabilia about the war, a sad chapter in our country’s history.The chapel is open 24 hours a day.

Today we’re moving on around the Enchanted Circle near Red River. We haven’t dumped in 2 weeks, a record for us, and it’s time. The only place with a public dump here is the Golden Eagle RV Park, about a mile from the state park, for a fee of $16. They’re the only game in town, so we have no choice. The next 2 places we plan to stay don’t have dump stations, either, so that means more water conservation for us, but we’re getting pretty good at it.