EDIT: Well this started out as a photo thread but I rambled on and turned it into a trip report :-P. Sorry for all the words before the photos.
Hey all. So this wasn't really an Overland trip, but it did involve a very long road trip, unexpected gravel roads and the some darkest skies in the United States. So here are some photos from the trip!
This trip went down because an old friend of mine was just finished his PHD in Astrophysics and to celebrate he rented a cabin in the mountains. He just said "The cabin's on me, I want to celebrate with my friends. If you can get here we can spend the weekend hiking, grilling and hanging out." He's a good dude...err... Doctor Dude now.
I didn't have my car yet so I flew from Florida to Houston and we took my friends Honda Fit and his Dog from Houston to Angel Fire, New Mexico. We did the drive in 1 day, it took about 14 and a half hours. I actually missed my chance to get a photo of one of the coolest parts of the trip. We were driving down a 2 lane road somewhere in eastern New Mexico and we saw Tarantulas! We were kinda terrified, but only later did we learn we were lucky to see them. They migrate and the males cross the road in search of females.
The last 5 hours of the trip were through 2 lane roads across New Mexico. We made it to 2 lane just as the sun was setting, but we had some great views as the sun was going down.
I made my friend pull over in the middle of nowhere so I could grab my camera and telephoto lens to snap this photo just as the sun was going down.
I also took this fun photo from through the sunroof as the car was going around a turn. The star trails are from the center of rotation of the car around the turn.
The sun went down and we kept driving. Our GPS showed only 40 miles left. And then our road got bumpy we saw a line up ahead, we both leaned forward and....bump bump....the road went away and we were on gravel. It was dark, we didn't have any cell signal and didn't know of any other road to get where we needed to go. The road started having rocks the size of softballs. We drove a few more miles and then cows showed up about 10 feet from the car. No fence, just cows.
We passed the cows and pulled over to figure what to do.
Oh, and our fuel range dropped from 120 miles to 45 miles thanks to revving the engine to go up the steep gravel hills. We had 25 miles to go and 45 miles of range. IT was a bit nerve-racking. Luckily about 2 miles ahead the road became paved again. We made it to the cabin with 15 miles of range left.
Anyway I'll skip to the good part. The skies here were some of the best in the country. Crystal clear, and almost as dark as the scale goes. We had 2 PHD Astrophysicists in the group so I took their word for it. It was amazing. It's hard to describe but it looked like someone had spraypainted the sky. I've seen it before, but it never gets old. I grew up in the city and then suburbia so getting a chance to see super dark skies is always amazing. Then to top it off we had elk just a few hundred yards away calling/singing all night.
My friends taught me a bit about Astrophotography. I had my Nikon D600 with me so I grabbed shots for a few hours each night. Here were the results. Most of these were taken on a cheap $100 Nikon 50mm f2.8. I stacked about 10 images and edited in Photoshop and Lightroom. It was great having them to coach me a bit on what settings to use.
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The rest of the weekend was pretty great too. We found where the Red River and the Rio Grande meet and hiked to the bottom of the Rio Grande Gorge. We also visited the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge outside of Taos, NM. My background is in engineering so it was fun to see one of the longest cantilever truss bridges in the United States (I'm a nerd).
The water was really this color. It was a dark blue/green and simply beautiful.
This is the part of the gorge we hiked down into. The Red River and the Rio Grande Meet and we hiked right to it. It was about 25 miles north of Taos, NM.
We were also lucky enough to catch the end of the summer/fall bloom. There were flowers open everywhere.
It was an amazing trip and really opened my eyes to New Mexico as a place to visit. It was so much more than I expected. Everywhere we went was beautiful. The places we visited are more ski towns than hiking towns but there was plenty to do and visit. Our cabin is a ski rental in the winter, so this was the offseason. We got the place for 1/5 of what it would cost during the winter.
Oh and the food. Don't get me started. New Mexico chili. Order "Enchiladas Christmas" (style), you won't regret it.
I can't wait to go back. There's so much more to explore.
I wasn't sure what size images were allowed on the forum. There are higher res images in my Flickr if anyone would like to see them. https://flic.kr/s/aHsm5evzNV
Hey all. So this wasn't really an Overland trip, but it did involve a very long road trip, unexpected gravel roads and the some darkest skies in the United States. So here are some photos from the trip!
This trip went down because an old friend of mine was just finished his PHD in Astrophysics and to celebrate he rented a cabin in the mountains. He just said "The cabin's on me, I want to celebrate with my friends. If you can get here we can spend the weekend hiking, grilling and hanging out." He's a good dude...err... Doctor Dude now.
I didn't have my car yet so I flew from Florida to Houston and we took my friends Honda Fit and his Dog from Houston to Angel Fire, New Mexico. We did the drive in 1 day, it took about 14 and a half hours. I actually missed my chance to get a photo of one of the coolest parts of the trip. We were driving down a 2 lane road somewhere in eastern New Mexico and we saw Tarantulas! We were kinda terrified, but only later did we learn we were lucky to see them. They migrate and the males cross the road in search of females.
The last 5 hours of the trip were through 2 lane roads across New Mexico. We made it to 2 lane just as the sun was setting, but we had some great views as the sun was going down.
I made my friend pull over in the middle of nowhere so I could grab my camera and telephoto lens to snap this photo just as the sun was going down.
I also took this fun photo from through the sunroof as the car was going around a turn. The star trails are from the center of rotation of the car around the turn.
The sun went down and we kept driving. Our GPS showed only 40 miles left. And then our road got bumpy we saw a line up ahead, we both leaned forward and....bump bump....the road went away and we were on gravel. It was dark, we didn't have any cell signal and didn't know of any other road to get where we needed to go. The road started having rocks the size of softballs. We drove a few more miles and then cows showed up about 10 feet from the car. No fence, just cows.
We passed the cows and pulled over to figure what to do.
Oh, and our fuel range dropped from 120 miles to 45 miles thanks to revving the engine to go up the steep gravel hills. We had 25 miles to go and 45 miles of range. IT was a bit nerve-racking. Luckily about 2 miles ahead the road became paved again. We made it to the cabin with 15 miles of range left.
Anyway I'll skip to the good part. The skies here were some of the best in the country. Crystal clear, and almost as dark as the scale goes. We had 2 PHD Astrophysicists in the group so I took their word for it. It was amazing. It's hard to describe but it looked like someone had spraypainted the sky. I've seen it before, but it never gets old. I grew up in the city and then suburbia so getting a chance to see super dark skies is always amazing. Then to top it off we had elk just a few hundred yards away calling/singing all night.
My friends taught me a bit about Astrophotography. I had my Nikon D600 with me so I grabbed shots for a few hours each night. Here were the results. Most of these were taken on a cheap $100 Nikon 50mm f2.8. I stacked about 10 images and edited in Photoshop and Lightroom. It was great having them to coach me a bit on what settings to use.
The rest of the weekend was pretty great too. We found where the Red River and the Rio Grande meet and hiked to the bottom of the Rio Grande Gorge. We also visited the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge outside of Taos, NM. My background is in engineering so it was fun to see one of the longest cantilever truss bridges in the United States (I'm a nerd).
The water was really this color. It was a dark blue/green and simply beautiful.
This is the part of the gorge we hiked down into. The Red River and the Rio Grande Meet and we hiked right to it. It was about 25 miles north of Taos, NM.
We were also lucky enough to catch the end of the summer/fall bloom. There were flowers open everywhere.
It was an amazing trip and really opened my eyes to New Mexico as a place to visit. It was so much more than I expected. Everywhere we went was beautiful. The places we visited are more ski towns than hiking towns but there was plenty to do and visit. Our cabin is a ski rental in the winter, so this was the offseason. We got the place for 1/5 of what it would cost during the winter.
Oh and the food. Don't get me started. New Mexico chili. Order "Enchiladas Christmas" (style), you won't regret it.
I can't wait to go back. There's so much more to explore.
I wasn't sure what size images were allowed on the forum. There are higher res images in my Flickr if anyone would like to see them. https://flic.kr/s/aHsm5evzNV
