18 Jan Karma Trip #2, Finale – Back to Denver!
Thursday Dec 23
We woke up early on the upper rim of the Rio Grande Gorge outside Taos. The morning was quite frosty as low horizon cloud cover blocked the first light of the sun, but we still woke to a pleasant scene with a hot air balloon in the distance against a mountain back drop — and a herd of 5-6 bighorns grazing a few hundred feet away. The views of the gorge were also jaw-dropping — we couldn’t tell how close we were to it in the dark the night before!
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- Rio Grande Gorge!
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- Herd of big horns watching us
We drove into Taos, grabbing coffee and a local green chile burrito before we headed east and north, Denver bound by that evening. This would end up being our longest driving day since picking up the van in Utah. We took the scenic highway 64 up out of Taos, driving over the Sangre de Cristos, through the towns of Angel Fire, Eagle Nest and Cimmaron. Before we knew it, we were at the Colorado border!
The day flew by quickly on the interstate, and we made it to Denver by about 4p. All in all, this road trip was 1,654 miles over 13 days. We felt the flow of stopping for a few days in a singular place was definitely the key to a pleasant two weeks on the road!
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- Day 1: San Diego to Joshua Tree NP
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- Day 3: Joshua Tree NP to the CA/AZ border
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- Day 4: CA Border to Superstition Wilderness, AZ
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- Day 6: AZ to Gila Hot Springs Campground, NM
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- Day 9: Gila Wilderness to Socorro, NM
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- Day 10: Socorro, NM to Santa Fe, NM
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- Day 12: Santa Fe, NM to Bandelier NP, to Rio Grande Gorge, NM
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- Day 13: Rio Grande Gorge, NM to Denver, CO
All in all — the van did great! We put just over 3,000 miles on the van since purchase – with ZERO issues! Aside from an oil change, and filling the air in the tires — we haven’t had a single thing go wrong or even present an issue, which is the greatest feeling — no buyer’s remorse here! We love Karma!
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