Luna officially quadruples the States she's visited!

So before the trip, Luna had been to Pennsylvania and Maryland. Now she has gone through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas and into New Mexico. But in all those States she never saw a van like the one we saw in Effingham, Illinois.

Obviously hippies but are they pro Trump? Against Trump? Maybe they don't care as long as God's herb is set free. Mike and I laughed a long time over this van. Talk about guaranteeing that the cops will hassle you wherever you go.

The top photo is from Olney, Indiana as is this collage.

We visited the albino squirrels in 2018 and had to swing by for a second look. We did see 3 but they were playing hard to get with our camera, so sorry about the grainy shots.

The one thing we forgot was my Dad's good camera which allowed us to get great shots last time.

This next stop was an unexpected gem. I saw the sign on the highway and we went... no visitors center unfortunately, but there were lots of interpretive signs to help us. Welcome to Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site in Illinois.

This is one of the few pre-Columbian Native American mound sites. The active period of this site has been dated from ~1050–1350 CE. The structure in the middle of the photograph is the Monks Mound. It would have been the site of religious rituals, and the chief's residence was on the top level. The name of the mound may seem odd but it refers to French Monks who set up a religious center here in the 1730's. It's amazing that anything is left of this site, between the federal highway that went through in front and the farmers who use the mounds as fill on their land and ranches.

Once you climb up the 100 ft. mound you can see that the site is located directly across the Mississippi from St. Louis, Missouri which you can see on the distant left from the summit.

The current park contains about 80 mounds, but the ancient city was much larger. At its apex around 1100 CE, Cahokia covered about 6 square miles and included about 120 man-made mounds in a variety of sizes, shapes and functions, some of which are unknown.

It's hard to see them but there are more than 10 mounds in this photo that looks towards the visitors center. No one knows why the civilization collapsed but it did, leaving a few clay artifacts and an amazing wood Stonehenge about a mile down the road. The posts at this site are arranged to match the solstices and help the native peoples to know when to plant, reap and hunker down for winter.

Then we crossed the Mississippi; we skipped the Gateway Arch this time because all of the visitors centers are closed and we did do it last time.... but we'll be back as we love St. Louis, especially at Christmas.

Here is Luna perched at the high point of Missouri. The plaque is impossible to read so here are the stats: Location- Taum Sauk Mountain in the Saint Francois Mountains Height:1,772 feet.

Mount Magazine, cartagraphically Magazine Mountain, is the highest point of Arkansas, and is a lovely state park. There are two summits; Signal Hill, which reaches 2,753 feet, and Mossback Ridge, which reaches 2,700 ft. So sad to be 57 feet too short!

The mountain's name has a cool history. French explorers witnessed a huge landslide on the mountain. One soldier remarked that it was louder than an ammunition magazine exploding in war.

This is one of those random and unplanned events that happens when you live in a van. We were staying in a Loves truck stop and met a long haul trucker from Alberta Canada. He had two lovely dogs and we all played in a grassy area in the truck stop. Generally he hauls items for the oil and gas industry. This time he was moving empty propane tanks to be refurbished in the town next to where we were staying in Oklahoma. We had a long and wonderful conversation about North America's energy future. Then we parted ways and Mike and I had the best truck stop hot dogs ever for dinner.

Okay, I know there's been a lot of high points but here's Oklahoma's. This one's a more significant hike than the others. We saw such amazing plants and animals. You can see Luna in the bottom right photograph waiting to go as we packed.

This high point is in northwestern Cimarron County, in the panhandle of Oklahoma. The high point is 4,973 feet. Mike and I really wondered why anyone drives to the panhandle of Oklahoma, but once we got there it's kind of a different part of Oklahoma. It's not the Ozarks in the East or the plains in the middle; it's kind of a unique ecosystem. Of course there's a lot of desert but we did see a Badger; one more animal off our seen-in-the-wild list, and they have lots of wind energy. Amazingly the cell service was stellar so I drove and Mike worked all the way across the State.

We did get to the high point late, but I hope you can see that the entire hike was more than worth it. We watched the sun go down over the mesas and then slept in the van on the side of the road. Now on to Taos, New Mexico for that high point. It's a big one, 6,000 ft of elevation change, so Mike took a day off so we could summit together.

Here we are at the start of the trail. This will be Luna's (lunathevancorgi) most difficult hike ever. There are scree fields, boulder jumping and lots of switchbacks. But right now we are just walking the road through Taos Ski Valley ski resort which is nestled into the Carson National Forest.

One of my favorite things about hiking in the taiga regions of mountains is that their Spring is our early summer. So as we hike up, the views are made even more beautiful with wildflowers.

Mike and I were both surprised at the bio diversity at such altitudes. If you look at the top left photograph, sitting on top of the Mountain Phlox is a Euphydryas editha, Edith's Checkerspot butterfly. We actually saw 5 species of butterfly, countless wildflowers, 2 species of ground squirrel, marmots and of course our favorite, the pica.

You can see him sitting on top of the rock. Unfortunately he was not willing to let me get very close. Unlike the ones on Longs Peak from our last trip, these ones are good at hiding.

Luna hasn't seen any significant amounts of snow since she was a baby. So this was a rare opportunity for her to get to play, roll, eat the snow. There was one small section of the trail that we could have glissaded down and I think she would have come right along with us sliding down the hill. Both Mike and I wondered if she was going to be able to do the elevation, the distance, and the varied terrain. We got our answer; she's awesome at it! Don't see very many high altitude hiking corgis, which makes her very popular with other hikers.

We did take more breaks than usual on the way up but that was fine with us because the scenery everywhere was so beautiful. This is Luna looking at Lake Fork Peak which is on the next ridge over from Wheeler.

Formerly named Taos Peak, after the nearby town, it was renamed Wheeler Peak in 1950 and it lies in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. This is the southernmost sub-range of the much more famous Rocky Mountains. At the summit there is a plaque that reads:

Wheeler Peak

13,161 feet above sea level

Highest point in New Mexico

Named in honor of Major George Montage Wheeler (1832 - 1909) Who for 10 years led a party of surveyors and naturalists collecting geologic, biologic, planimetric and topographic data in New Mexico and six other states.

Wheeler Peak Wilderness

Carson National Forest

So this is what Luna looks like after she's hiked more than 3000 vertical feet over 4 miles. She found the only "shady" spot and took a rest.

While Luna and I rested, Mike signed the log at the top. Amazingly pretty much everyone on the mountain that day was from Texas. Mike and I had no idea that this part of New Mexico is where Texans go to get away. I had a fun conversation with one of them about why we all have the need to sign a log at the top of a mountain. On-trail logs are really important so people know where to start looking for you, but when you sign a log at the top of the mountain someone has to climb up to see if you've been there. Humans are funny creatures...

Here is a panorama from the top. Even on a low snow year there are still a lot of leftover snow packs.

And now we are down in Taos Village Ski Resort. I loved the large waterfall right next to the ski lift. When we got to the bottom of this ski lift we actually saw men working on the cables. I always wondered how they did it and the short answer is they strap a working surface on to the ski lift, belt in a guy who does the work, and run him up the lift so that he can change wheels, identify instabilities and other things.

We are off to Albuquerque for the night. Last time we were here Mike was so sick, ecoli we think, that we had to get a hotel for 2 days. Big luxury then, but on the way to the hotel we stopped at an Asian grocery...

They had the best homemade Kimchee I've ever had in my life. And they make these super cheap futomaki rolls that they sell at the counter. When I went in I couldn't believe that everything was exactly the same and I was even waited on by the same woman. When I told her that we were from Pennsylvania and had come back just for her kimchee, she was tickled.

Then we stayed at the same hotel because they had this amazing green chicken chili for breakfast. Don't judge, it's a New Mexico thing. Sadly because of COVID-19, no breakfast! I guess we're just gonna have to come back another year so that Mike can taste it.

Amazingly Mike's "working on the road" plan has been going quite well. Often he works off one phone's data plan or the other but today he and puppy are working together in comfort and style! After the hike yesterday even puppy got a bath.

Tomorrow I'll get back on the CDT in Grant, New Mexico. If you didn't follow along on our last adventure, this is where Mike and I got off the CDT because it was so cold and we had packed for 40ﾟ F, not 30ﾟ. Wish me luck. I'll try to get another post up when I meet Mike in Cuba, New Mexico.

Okay, so there are huge fires in Gila National Monument that are blowing particulate matter towards Grant, NM. So my last paragraph, only written this morning, is wrong :( Out of an abundance of caution I am going to hold until Sunday when the New Mexico fire app puts the AQI back in green. So tune in to the next blog to see wonderful petroglyph photos from Petroglyph National Monument.

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