We got up, ate breakfast and packed the truck for our trip up north to Farmington and the Bisti Wilderness Area. We couldn’t check into our B&B until 3 pm so decided to go hiking first. Originally, we had planned to explore Chaco Canyon, but due to the government shutdown, it was closed. As a result, we made our way to the Bisti trailhead, which was just a short drive off the highway.
There is not much there. There is a picnic area and a toilet but no running water. It was about lunchtime so we ate first and then headed out on the trail. As near as we could tell, the most striking features of the Bisti, including the famous hoodoos, were about a 7 mile round trip, way more than we were capable of doing. So we decided to walk to the first highlighted feature and then see how we felt before we went further. Walking in the
Bisti can be tricky. There are no marked trails. You need a good reliable map and hopefully footprints from fellow hikers to guide you. We saw some hoodoos and a lot of interesting formations and ended up walking a total of almost four miles. Took a lot of photos. The weather was moderate and extremely bright and sunny. Towards the end there developed some spectacular clouds. We understand that there is a chance of rain later in the evening and over night.
After our walk, we headed back to Farmington and our B & B called Casa Blanca which is a really cool setup. A series of units including houses across the street that make up the property. There is a brick driveway, a large, main courtyard and very nice landscaping. There is a dining room for our breakfast.
All in all, the B & B can accommodate up to 40 people. Our unit had two bedrooms complete with two bathrooms, a large living room, a full kitchen and a nice outdoor patio area. As we sat on our patio in the shade, we contemplated how we could afford to live here. Farmington is a very clean, well kept town of about 45,000 people. It is the commercial hub for this part of the state. The main industry is oil. We spent a large portion of our day driving highways on the Navajo Nation land. There were oil pumps everywhere.
There are the single pumps and then the occasional pumping stations which are far more involved and technically complicated. John explained that a lot of these stations are for air compressing. They pump their compressed air into the oil pipeline to keep the oil flowing. There is a lot of money invested in the oil infrastructure. Driving through town, all you see along the highway are trucks, oil pumping machinery manufacturers and maintenance companies. There is a lot of oil money in this town. There are also a lot of hotels and restaurants. Clearly there are a lot of tourists that come through here too. It’s a thriving community.
We went to dinner at the Chile Pod, a short drive in the center of downtown. The food was good- large portions of Mexican fare with really good fresh chips and salsa. I had a pretty diluted margarita and Christine had a nice looking but watery mojito. It was a quiet meal however. We were all exhausted from our hike and being out in the sun and wind all day. When we got home, it was time for bed.