July 7-14, 2005; Glorieta, NM
We enjoyed staying at Glorious Glorieta near Santa Fe, New Mexico for one week. Our dear friends, Gayle and Walt Fenoglio live there. Walt is the Business Manager for the Glorieta Conference Center.
Walt and Gayle recently purchased a Jeep Wrangler. So jeeping was on the agenda. Our first trip was to the top of the Glorieta Baldy Peak. At a little over 10,000 feet it overlooks the Glorieta Conference Center.
Pictured are Gayle and Joni with the center in the background.
The highlight of our visit with them was jeeping up to Hamilton Plateau and then hiking about 5 miles.
We started with the jeep ride, which Joni thought would be a pleasant ride up the Pecos mountain range. Everyone was laughing and having a good time as Joni white knuckled her way to the top – holding on for dear life. The ride was full of rocks and more rocks and even bigger rocks. Mountain roads are not Joni’s forte! But we lived to make it to the hiking trail which started our 5 mile hike to the top of the mountain.
We had lunch at the meadow on the top of the mountain. Pictured is Walt surveying the panoramic view from the plateau.
Walt and Delton decided that we should take a different trail back to the jeep. To get to that trail, we hiked OFF TRAIL to find an alternative trail back. Well, Gayle and Joni were not happy hikers when the off trail turned into NO TRAIL and we were hiking through brush and tall grass. Maybe snakes were in there and bears too!!!!!! Walt and Delton continued to hike as Joni and Gayle grew more and more nervous and apprehensive. Finally, Gayle and Joni had had enough of this and yelled to the boys that we were not happy and were turning around to go back the way we came in.
Walt turned around to help the girls as Delton continued on his way. To say the least, Walt was no help at all. We seemed to hike into thicker and thicker brush as Walt kept saying that the trail was very close. It wasn’t!!!
Finally we reached the trail and met Delton on the way. Delton claimed that we had stopped less than a hundred yards from the trail. As the boys thought nothing of our ordeal, Gayle and Joni complained the rest of the day. BUT, all in all it was an experience to remember and laugh about.
Hiking, biking, jeeping, playing guitars and singing made our stay with Walt and Gayle wonderful. Delton and Walt also got in a number of games of pool.
On the last day of our week, more dear friends, Gary and Becky Sublette flew in for a visit. We all left for Fun Valley, Colorado the next day. So, Joni was happy, traveling with goods friends and having fun times.
