Norris - Penrose Equestrian Center - Colorado Springs, CO

 

Our current stop is the Norris-Penrose Equestrian Center. This is a view of the barns from the upper parking area.

There is an RV dump on site...which has no signage and no markings, so it is a bit tricky to find.

It is located in the parking area between the large community hall and the barns.

The horses are inside the barn in 10' x 10' stalls with no runs. These are cramped quarters, but the horses are out of the rain.

We have water and electric hook-up, but no sewer - hence, the stop at the RV dump on our way in.

Spots are pull-through and it is pretty nice. Good internet, good cell service. Not too noisy, although we can hear a train horn every so often.

With rain storms threatening, we decided to ride in the afternoon. There are trails off the property into a park and open space. The views at the top were pretty awesome.

You can see the storm clouds overhead.

No rain during the ride, but it started about 10 minutes after we got the horses back in their stalls.

Because of the rain, I booked us a drop-in yoga class at the SunWater Spa. This place also has hot tubs, massages, and facials, but unfortunately those services were booked.

The yoga studio is gorgeous. Ari and I were the only ones in the class - with a couple of people joining on Zoom. It was like getting a private class - and it was only $14 per person. It felt wonderful to be able to stretch out.

This is the view from the yoga studio balcony.

There is a food truck outside the SunWater Spa called Teva. I ordered beignets (3 for $5). They were burnt. We complained and the guy said that they were cooked properly. I am sorry, but they were NOT cooked properly. They were burnt. He refused to make the order correctly. I will be reporting him on Twitter later.

After the burnt beignets, we scoped out places to park if we want to ride at Garden of the Gods. I am hoping the weather is clear enough tomorrow morning we can get a ride in. Fingers crossed!

Greenhorn Horse Hotel - Pueblo, New Mexico

 

We fled the snow and mud in Northern New Mexico, crossed over the Colorado border and set up camp at the Greenhorn Horse Hotel.

The horses get to stay in a very nice barn with cover and run outs.

Plenty of trailer parking. We have water and electric hook-up, but no sewer. We will have to empty our tanks at the next stop.

This is a barebones layover. No laundry, no wifi, etc.

The campground is located right next to I-25.

This means there is quite a bit of traffic noise.

We let the horses stretch out in the arena and take their rolls. 

The morning after our arrival we took the horses out for a short ride. You can access a dirt frontage road on the other side of the freeway. We rode our horses to the highway overpass, dismounted, then walked them across the overpass. We then got back in the saddle rode down the frontage road.

After the ride, we went to the Pueblo Riverwalk. This is a beautiful park. Lots of art, lovely restaurants with outside seating next to the water. We walked all the way around the park.

We brought the mobility scooter with us and met a nice family who purchased the scooter from us. I don't need the scooter any more and it is just taking up space. We sold it for $50 less than what we paid, so we felt it was a pretty good deal.

Ari ringing some temple bells.

On Friday, we ran errands - bought more hay for the horses as well as other supplies. We searched for propane, but came up empty.

We leave tomorrow for Colorado Springs.

A big thunderstorm system is coming into the area and we are expecting it to rain over the next week. This means we won't be able to ride. I signed us up for a yoga class on Sunday morning. We will try to find indoor activities to keep us busy.

Sugarite Canyon State Park - Raton, New Mexico

 I had been looking forward to our stay there. We had done a day ride there several years ago and it is a beautiful park - plus one of the few places you can ride in two different states - New Mexico and Colorado - and still be in the same park.

Campground has two sets of corrals for the horses

Plenty of space for the trailer

This is the second set of corrals available

The horse camp is called Ponderosa Horse Camp and is reserved by calling the park. There are vault toilets, picnic tables, and fire rings. No water, electric or septic! This is a boondock/primitive campground. There are two sets of corrals available for horses, but they are not in great shape. You can set up your own corrals or high lines.

It is about half a mile of dirt road up a steep hill into the campground. Given the weather, the road was really muddy getting in and challenging.

No cell service and the internet was spotty - most likely due to the weather.

There is a small campground about a mile before the horse camp called Lake Alice campground. That campground has a dump site for your black and gray tanks. Those campsites have water and electric and a limited number have full hook-up.  We went in before and after our stay to dump our tanks. It was challenging to get lined up with the dump with our 35' LQ. I don't recommend larger trailers to attempt it.

We managed the water situation by putting our space 50 gallon water tank in the back of the truck, driving down to the Lake Alice Campground, and hauling it back to our campground.

You are about 10 minutes away from shopping at this campground.

It snowed the first night after we arrived. We hunkered down and basically hid in the trailer. With no internet or cell service, we read books and watched DVDs.

We ran our generator to heat up the trailer using our furnace and piled on blankets.

After two days of bad weather, Ari had had enough of slogging through mud to take care of the horses and hauling water. He wanted to leave as soon as the rain and snow had let up and the roads had dried up a little. It was too muddy to ride.

$14/nite...while our stay was a bust, I still recommend this place - just try for better weather than we had.

Taos, Earthships, and More

 

A view from the trails.

Erin continued to guide us the mountains so we could get the best vistas and they did not disappoint.

Along the trails, we would see the remains of elk which had been taken down by predators, most likely mountain lions.

Ari waiting for Erin to arrive.

We had the good fortune to have Erin guide us on the trails three days in a row. We would ride for about two hours - which is about as long as my foot could take it. The last 30 minutes of each ride I was thinking mostly how good it would feel lying in bed icing the foot. But, I am hoping to work up to longer rides so that by the time we hit the Dakotas I am in good shape.

Me and Erin - Erin's horse is named Ace

Ari and me

Check out the view behind us

Both horses are very relaxed here and enjoying their time in the forest

This is a wind turbine that provides electricity to the building.

For Mother's Day, we took a day off from riding and went to play tourist. We started the day with a stop at the Earthships Colony outside of Taos.

It costs $8 per person for a self-guided tour. Visitors can also rent an earthship for a couple of nights to get the full experience.

The visitors center has several displays as well as videos outlining the philosophy behind using upcycled materials to build the houses, using straw bales, glass bottles, aluminum cans, used tires, and other materials, relying on solar and water gathering techniques so each house is "off the grid".

The main architect of the colony has written several books outlining his concepts.

The door to the visitor center

Water and snow is gathered from the roof and then goes into a cistern.

Some of the Earthships are quite large.

These are actually the bottoms of glass bottles which have been placed into the wall.

Most of the Earthships have a SciFi quality about them

I asked the docent what CAD software was used to design the building and he said Mark Reynolds, the main architect, usually just sketched things out with paper and pencil. 

There are 75 homes in the colony outside of Taos, with plans for 55 more buildings. Most of the homes start at around $225,000.  

I did go on Zillow and I only found one place for sale for about $850K - a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom 2600 sq ft home.

There are currently about half a dozen Earthships for sale, according to the docent. The colony has been around for about 50 years.

I think you would have to have a certain personality to want to live in an Earthship - definitely have strong feelings about the environment and making the world a better place. It would be challenging as I expect the homes would be pretty cold in winter time, but probably fine during the summer.

This is me on the middle of the bridge, overlooking the gorge.

Our second stop was the Rio Grande Gorge. There is a rest stop right before the bridge. There were Native Americans with tables set up selling jewelry and other crafts. Ari bought some raw gem stones to add to his collection.

At this point, Ari was starving. It took several tries to find a restaurant that was open, but we finally found one - El Taoseno.

The ambience was early company lunchroom, but the food was really, really good.

I ordered a Navajo Taco. This plate did not look like a Navajo taco or at least not like previous Navajo tacos I have had. A Navajo taco is Indian fry bread with fillings. This was Indian fry bread smothered with beef, cheese, guacamole, sour cream, sauce, and cilantro.

I have no complaints.

We also got sopapillas with honey for dessert and they were perfection.

The rest of the afternoon was taken up with grocery shopping and then back to our campsite.

I got phone calls from all THREE sons - Benjamin, Daniel and Isaiah! We haven't heard from Isaiah since last July so it was wonderful to just hear his voice and know that he is OK.

Tomorrow we leave for Sugarite Canyon State Park.

We have visited this park before and we really liked it. It is cool because you can ride between two states - Colorado and New Mexico.

Ari really enjoyed this campground. It is on the top of his list of places we have stayed.