NEW MEXICO, DAY 3: A MIRACULOUS VISIT TO THE RIO GRANDE GORGE AND A DRIVE TO THE WHEELER PEAK TRAILHEAD

 June 27, 2021  

From Taos we drove to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, about 12 miles. The scenery was spectacular, as usual. I never ceased to be surprised by the color palette of New Mexico.

Once we got to the bridge, we parked on the far side and walked back to the center where we could see the gorge on both sides. This gorge begins near the Colorado border and runs 50 miles through a volcanic basalt field. At this point it is 800 feet deep. This gorge and 242,500 acres around it form the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument.

Apollo 15, 16, and 17 astronauts trained here in 1971 because of its geologic similarities to the moon landing site.

THREE SUMMITS: #3, BLACK MESA IN OKLAHOMA, CAPULIN VOLCANO, AND SUGARITE CANYON

 October 18, 2020

We had one more highpoint to summit on this trip: Black Mesa, the highest point in Oklahoma. One of the interesting thing about this highpoint is that Black Mesa actually extends into Colorado and New Mexico, and the highpoint in both of those other states is higher than the highpoint in Oklahoma (but is not the highpoint in those states).

We left our hotel at about 7:00 AM and drove an hour to the trailhead. When we began our hike just after 8:00, it was only 36° F.  I wrote in my notes that I was wearing 2 pairs of pants, a long-sleeved shirt, a Columbia zip jacket, a down jacket, and Bob's gloves. (Thanks, dear.)

The round trip hike was 8.4 miles, and when we got back to the car at 11:30, it was 39°.  It was cold, but we kept up a quick pace and it wasn't too bad--until we got to the mesa itself.

Just before the gate is this granite bench honoring Jean Trousdale, "Highpointers Foundation Director, Founder of the Club Mercantile, Clinical Psychologist, Mother, Grandmother, Friend." The photo of her with her dog is captioned, "Enjoy the view and have a good hike!"  She looks like someone I would have liked to know.

THREE SUMMITS: GETTING THERE AND SUMMIT #1, PANORAMA POINT IN NEBRASKA

 October 16, 2020

Now that we have been to all 50 states, my husband is trying to "fill in the spaces" on the United States map--traveling to places within the states where we have not been. Since we have been to many of the major cities, that means that he is looking for, shall we say, "out-of-the-way" places to visit. He also is keeping a list of state high points that he has climbed (or driven to). That's how he got the idea to travel to a rather obscure area of the U.S.--the western regions of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. He could check three high points off his list and visit a little-known area of the U.S. Perfect.

Looks excitin', doesn't it?

And just to convince you of how exciting this trip was going to be, here is the location of those three high points. Note how close they are to major cities--heck, to any city. They are in Nowheresville.

This is what I was leaving behind. (The mural is in the Ontario Airport.)

We flew from Ontario, California, to Denver, Colorado. The best part of the flight was that we flew directly over the Grand Canyon. If we've done that before, I have not had a window seat on the correct side of the plane. This time, I had a spectacular view.

NORTH DAKOTA: STATE HIGH POINT

September 14, 2019

Besides capitol buildings, another thing we like to visit in each state is the state high point. Bob has checked off more than I have, but I'm proud to say that among the state high points I've conquered are California's (Mt. Whitney, 14,505 feet) and Colorado's (Mt. Elbert, 14,440 feet).

North Dakota's high point (White Butte, 3506 feet) isn't quite in the same league as those other two, but it certainly beat Florida's high point (Britton Hill, 345 feet), which I've also "climbed." Believe it or not, in the rankings of state high points, North Dakota's comes in at #30.

The turn-off from the main highway was well marked . . .

 . . . but once we hit the side roads, there were no more signs to get us to where we needed to go.  Still, we were in better shape than this poor porcupine who looks like he got run over. (I wonder if he left some quills in the tire?)

Bob actually stopped and asked for directions twice (a miracle), and eventually we did find this sign (next to what can loosely be described as a parking lot) that told us that if we followed the path next to the fence for a mile, we would arrive at the trailhead.

So that's what we did. We didn't get started until late afternoon, and I recall being much more concerned about being able to make it up and back before dark than Bob was. 

NEW JERSEY: STATE HIGH POINT

My husband's fetishes include visiting state high points.  In 2005 (prior to this blog) we climbed 14,498-foot-tall Mt. Whitney, the highest high point in the continental U.S., and in 2014 we drove to the lowest high point in the U.S.,  a 345 feet "summit" in Florida that was essentially a bump in the road. Altogether, we've been to the top of more than a dozen state high points.

The New Jersey state high point sits at 1,803 feet and ranks #40 in the State High Point List. We made a little detour on our way out of New York City and on our way to upstate New York so we could see it. Marked by a 220-foot-tall obelisk rising behind Lake Marcia, it is hard to miss:

In 1922 a wealthy man named Anthony R. Kuser donated 10,500 acres to New Jersey. It was and still is the largest land donation in the history of the state. The acreage included the high point and led to the creation of the High Point State Park. I had never heard of the Kuser family, but I've learned that they were incredibly well-connected. Anthony Kuser was the president of a gas and electric company, sat on almost a dozen corporate boards, served on the staffs of three New Jersey governors, and provided the seed money for a movie company that eventually became 20th Century Fox. He married the daughter a senator who was also the founder of Prudential Life. Kuser's son was a state senator and the first husband of a woman who later married an Astor. Just a little bit of money was bouncing around in this family.

Kuser hired an architect in 1928 to design a monument as a tribute to "Glory and Honor and Eternal Memory of New Jersey's Heroes by land, sea, and air in all wars of our country." Modeled on the Bunker Hill Monument, it was constructed between 1928 and 1930. Unfortunately, Kuser died in 1929 and didn't get to attend the dedication.

To our dismay, the obelisk was all locked up the day we were there, and so we were spared prevented from climbing the 291 steps to the top.

From the top there are supposed to be spectacular views of the Pocono Mountains in the west, the Catskill Mountains to the north, and the Wallkill River valley to the southeast:

The Appalachian Trail passes not too far from this summit. Someday I'd like to walk parts of that trail, so maybe I'll be back to climb the obelisk stairs.

DELAWARE: STATE HIGH POINT

In April 2016 we flew to New York City to visit our son, who is a student there. We went a day before he was available so that we could do a little traveling to neighboring states. Bob had several items on his bucket list that he wanted to cross off.

We flew into JFK and picked up a rental car, then got on our way.

It was fun to see one of the famous Brooklyn exit signs. Brooklyn has a very unique personality, that's for sure.

It was a beautiful day for a drive, and we had 135 miles to go to our first destination.

We were on our way to to Delaware high point, 6.5 miles north of downtown Wilmington in northern New Castle County and within a few feet of the Pennsylvania state line. We made several wrong turns on the final approach. It's not like we could see a mountain, a hill, or even a rise in front of us. Eventually we found this robin's egg blue sign:

"Ebright" is the name of the street that dead-ends into the sign. The word "azimuth" means "the angle of horizontal deviation, measured clockwise, of a bearing from a standard direction, as north or south."  A "bench mark," referred to on the sign, is "a marked point of assumed or known elevation from which other elevations may be established." Does this make sense to you? Yeah, me neither. However, this spot is listed as the state high point, even though we were only "in the vicinity of the highest natural elevation in the state." Maybe the exact high point changes from year to year based on roots pushing up sections of the ground, etc.

I wouldn't say the Delaware High Point was the high point of our trip, but it has its own kooky appeal.

It looks like hyacinths do well at high elevations like 447.85 feet above sea level. I was glad to have something to look at:

Only Florida's high point (345 feet above sea level) sits at a lower elevation that Delaware's.

ARKANSAS: A HIGH POINT, A MOUNTAIN LODGE, A DRIVE THROUGH PARIS, AND AN AFRICAN SAFARI

We ended our trip to Arkansas by visiting a series of very eclectic locations.

In addition to visiting the fifty states, my husband has a goal to summit the highest point in every state (except, perhaps, Alaska's). Prior to this trip, we had been to the highest points in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Florida, Alabama, Florida, West Virginia, New Hampshire, and South Dakota.

My husband has also been to the high points in Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and Washington.

We planned to check off the Arkansas high point before leaving the state.

We were in a rush to make it to the Mount Magazine State Park before dark. The trail to the highest point in Arkansas is at the top of this road constructed by the CCC in the 1930s. We needed to get to the trail while there was still light, but fog settling on the mountain was slowing us down.

Finally, near the top of the road, we broke through the fog, and shortly after that we entered the park.

SOUTH DAKOTA: NEEDLES HIGHWAY AND HARNEY PEAK

I have a son who likes to do this:

Temple Crag, Eastern Sierras, California

. . . so when I saw this:

 . . . all I could think of was how much fun he would have on this formation known as the Cathedral Spires. We didn't see any climbers, so after we got home I checked online to see if trad climbing is allowed here.  This site and this one say it's one of the best granite climbs in the entire United States.

Looking at my photos again, I did find some photos of climbers on one of the information signs:

Sam, some day you need to go to South Dakota.

FLORIDA: HIGHEST POINT AND STATE CAPITOL BUILDING

We left Mobile and drove due east through the Florida panhandle towards Tallahassee, the state capital, in a torrential rain storm.

Our first destination was Florida's highest point. At 345 feet, it happens to the lowest highest point in the nation. It's so unremarkable that we drove right past it and had to turn around and look for it again. Amazingly, we had a two or three minute break in the rain, just long enough to take a few photos:

Being the lowest high point is kind of like coming in last in the Miss America Pageant. You were good enough to get there, but that's about it. Of course, the advantage here is that we didn't even get winded walking up the .005% rise to the summit.

ALABAMA'S HIGHEST POINT: CHEAHA STATE PARK (With a side order of Gladys Knight's Chicken and Waffles)

Bob and I had plans to climb to the highest point in Alabama, and we knew we needed to fuel up before leaving Atlanta, so we stopped for lunch at Gladys Knight's Chicken and Waffles Restaurant: 

I like Gladys Knight a lot, and I like her even more now that I've seen the rules she has posted in the window of her restaurant:

I've never thought to combine chicken and waffles on the same plate, and I can't say that I plan on doing it for our next dinner party, but it was pretty fun to try it in Atlanta. In fact, it's a common combination all over the South.

Bob's Southern-fried chicken

My waffle--moist and soft with a slight sweetness

Our sides were the best part of the meal: corn, cheese and grits,
black-eyed peas, and collard greens