On Friday, August 9th, we had a very nice breakfast, then checked out and went to the nearby Harwood Museum of Art, an interesting collection of art by New Mexico artists, including the early-20th-century Taos School.
Then we headed north, making a side excursion at Questa to the Wild Rivers National Recreation Area, where we viewed the junction of the Rio Grande and Red River. There was some rain on and off, as we crossed the high plains into Colorado’s San Luis Valley, turning off onto U.S. 160 at Fort Garland. We decided that we didn’t have time to visit Great Sand Dunes National Park. After driving over the Sangre de Cristo range by the La Veta Pass, we closed the loop that we had begun on Monday when we had left 160 at La Veta for the Highway of Legends.
We got onto I-25 again at Walsenburg, stopping for a late lunch at Brues Alehouse in Pueblo, where I retrieved my Visa card. By the time we got to Colorado Springs, we had just enough time for an hour-and-a-half walk in the Garden of the Gods, the most unusual city park in the country, with its red rock formations.
We had dinner at Marigold, a French bakery-bistro (good), then went to our hotel, the Best Western Executive Inn and Suites (not great—Mary Joy hated it).
The next morning, we went to the nearby Colorado Springs Airport, turned in our car and flew out on United, with a layover in Denver, where we ate at Wolfgang Puck’s café (very good).
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