Scenic Steam

Having seen many stationery steam trains it had been promised to Liam that we would ride on one. Friday night we packed up again, after what seemed like no time at all in Santa Fe, and headed back to the northern part of New Mexico. After Espaniola we took a different route than previous trip and headed past Ghost Ranch through some fantasticly sculptural landscape. The colours in the rock are hard to describe. I think they range was possibly greater with the rain wetting the rock in places. We camped at Heron lake which was giving a good demonstration of how severe the drought had been here. The water level must have been 10 -12 metres below normal. There's a marina and boat ramps which all looked very strange. The ramps go off a cliff to nowhere and you look down a long way onto the floating marina pontoons. The lake must be very deep as there are still some large boats there. I imagine the fishing might be easier - less places to hide /try with less water.
Still while we were there the rain decided to fall so we set up camp in the rain, one of my least favourite ways to set up a tent. It rained almost all night, enough for the water to run down the road, the ground was very soft and as we left the next morning our car was sliding with so much mud on the tyres.
The train station was in Chama and the train we were catching the Cumbres and Toltec scenic railroad which runs from Chama to Antonito in Colorado. It's a narrow gauge railroad and the remains of a much larger system dating from mining, farming and forestry activites in the area.
The train left in the rain but the weather cleared as we chugged along. Richard and Liam spent lots of time outside on the open carriage. I wasn't so keen to take Madeline out there so we enjoyed the view from the carriage windows. The motion soon had Madeline asleep. The advantage of all the rain we've had is that there are alot of wildflowers in bloom , they have lovely names like Indian paint brush and fairy trumpet . The train winds up through rocky country to Osier for a lunch stop. We had a look around the engine here to while the engineers oiled bits and refilled water and things. After lunch you either return to Chama or head on to Antonito, we did the later a longer trip but very worthwhile. There were two tunnels in this section and some amasing rock formations. the track winds down off the mesa again one corner is named whiplash curve because of the corners. The trip takes about six hours with a bus ride back to Chama. The road follows the rail track for alot of the way so you see where you've been. What takes 5 hours by train takes 1 by bus. We had dinner in a cafe called cookin' books the food was excellent as was their selection of books, they had so many I wanted to read I couldn't choose. We'd decided we'd drive back to Santa Fe that evening it was only a couple of hours and then we'd have sunday at home.