Ooooh, the weather outside is frightful...

 And the fire inside is so delightful....or, in our world, the weather outside was freezing, and promised to be stormy (yes, AGAIN!) before the weekend was done, so we thought maybe it would be a good time to skedaddle.  Driving this beast down the highway, in the rain, is not very easy, nor is it our most fun thing to do.  So, we checked, and Alamo Rose, our next "final destination" could take us in a few days early, no problem.  We checked out a couple different routes, the weather forecasts and things to do and see in the different areas through which we would be passing.  We decided to skip the sightseeing options, take the southern route, and beat feet down, without a lot of stopping and looking.  We figured on taking 4 to 5 days to travel, depending on weather, and just go directly to jail.  I mean, the Valley.  Had a nice dinner with Charlie & Nina, up in Cave Creek, at an award-winning BBQ joint (Bryan's Black Mountain BBQ, for those of you that are interested), made some final decisions about what to do about Dad's house and financial instruments (word to the wise, SIGN YOUR DOCUMENTS!), and the next day, said all our goodbyes at Happy Trails.  Early morning Saturday, we headed out.  Boy, did it feel weird, going WEST, in order to avoid the city Phoenix, to the EAST.  But, just as in geocaching, sometimes the shortest route is not necessarily the most direct route.  

We will miss these tall, silent sentinels.  One can only imagine the history they have witnessed.

First stop, Saturday afternoon, was Kartchner Caverns State Park, down south of Tucson.  Click that link and scroll down on the page a bit.  You'll see a short video, explaining the history and showing a bit of the inside of the caverns.  Since they didn't allow cameras inside the cave, these are the only pictures you'll get to see, so it's worth a click!  The photo below shows the entrance to the Park campground.  That little hill center/left has absolutely nothing to do with the caverns; I just thought it was a cool piece of rock. 

We made great time getting down to the caverns, and we had about 30 minutes after we set up to grab a PBJ and walk the dog.  No doggies allowed in the caverns, so we figured she'd better take the opportunity as presented.

As we set out the next morning (Sunday), the landscape changed once more, becoming more striated and even a bit more barren.

There were PLENTY of Santa's helpers out on the road though.  Plenty of 'em! 

As we neared New Mexico, the landscape changed again.  I thought it looked a bit lunar, what do you think?  The boulders were absolutely HUGE.

See what I mean?  H.U.G.E!

The tractor-trailer below gives you a frame of reference.  HUGE, I tell ya, huge.  Biggest rocks I've ever seen.  Well, maybe except for the ones up at Pemaquid Point, Maine.

You decide - which are the bigger rocks?  (Picture courtesy LiveBeaches.com)

Not only were the rocks just plain BIG, there were lots and lots of 'em!

And, as we passed by Willcox (of course, there's the mandatory letter on the mountain...I dunno, don't even ask, it's just an Arizona thing..)...we were treated to a view of the very reason we decided to leave the state!  Check out those whitecaps, center left!  Those are NOT the whitecaps we are used to seeing!!  These ones promise a whole new experience for us; one which we really don't care to experience!

And then, a small duststorm appeared.  It's the smokey/dusty plume rising just to the right of that road sign.  Little did we know, it was just a precursor of things to come!

Yes, Welcome to New Mexico.  Again.  Did you see the Welcome Center?  No, we didn't either.  I'd say, Budget Cuts, but, heck, if that were the case, at least there would be abandoned buildings, no?  Nada.  Not a thing.

We DID see warning signs, though...

And they weren't lying!  The winds picked up and you could see other cars being blown right out of their lanes.  Thankfully, we're pretty heavy and we have that lovely Newmar feature, Comfort Steer, which helps Driver keep better control of the steering, with less wandering and lane departure.  And then we happened upon what appeared to be mud flats.  With more (and more dire) warning signs. 

Well, maybe in the DRY season, those warnings are appropriate, but as WE drove through, this was what we saw.....acres and acres and acres of water and mud!

 Remember I told you we've seen more rain here in 3 months than through 3 hurricanes?  I wasn't lying either!  As we approached Los Cruces, NM, we came upon the Organ Mountains.  Driver had been telling me about them (for what seemed hours, but was probably only about 1 or 2), but I thought he was calling them Oregon (like the state) Mountains.  When they finally appeared, I asked him why they were named after Oregon?  Only to discover he'd been saying ORGAN, as in, the organ pipes they resembled, jutting straight up into the air.  Well, OK, if you say so, but you tell me - they look like organ pipes to YOU?  Yeah, I didn't think so either.

And then, as if on cue, this little guy appeared.  But, he wasn't little at all!  He probably stood about 3 stories tall.  Sorry I couldn't get the shot of him dead-on from the side...but we were cruising by pretty quick, and again, it's not like we can just stop that baby on a dime.

And, once again, goodbye New Mexico.  Our time was short, but enjoyable.  We might be back one day, but it won't be anytime soon.  We still want to go to Hatch (hello, Roger!) and maybe even back to Santa Fe and Albuquerque.  We enjoyed both those towns.  Plus, the dancing was good!

And, right after we said goodbye, we got to say Hello Texas!  

And right after, we said, no, oh HECK no, you won't be getting me up there.  Not even on a sunny, hot day.  Nope and NOPE.  Luckily for me, the water park appeared shut down for the winter, so we didn't even have to stop and check it out.

And just down the road, we got to decline the opportunity to plunge to our imminent death.  Good thing we were in a time crunch, eh??

There is a section of I-10 that follows the Rio Grande river, and juuuust on the other side is Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.  

Not exactly the white sands, azure water I'm accustomed to seeing in pictures of Mexico.  Heck, it's not even the cute little tourist-trap/dental haven of Nuevo Progreso that we are looking forward to visiting next week!

We are only about 10 miles from our stopping spot, Mission RV Park and RV Repair, just inside the southern border of El Paso, TX.  But first, we have to get through the gauntlet.  Reminds me of the low bridges on Hwy 59, going through Houston.  I don't like them, and I don't like these!  Well, I did enjoy the BRIDGES themselves, I just didn't like that they appeared to be so low.  They were 15 foot and a few inches, and we're only 13 foot, but still, they APPEARED to be too low.

But, we made it through all those bridges safely, only to come up to this interchange.  Driver called it the Spaghetti Bowl, and I can sure see why.  He had warned me it was coming, and I was prepared, but we breezed on through, only 1 story high.  Sure would suck to be on that tallest span, though, wouldn't it?  You'd be going nowhere fast!  Well, I guess gravity would eventually take over and you'd be taking the plunge, so to speak.

Eventually, traffic thinned (HA - became almost non-existent!) as we neared the very outer edge of town.  But, this was all part of the plan...we wanted to travel through El Paso on Sunday afternoon, mostly to dodge the traffic we knew would be there this time of year.  Our campground for the night was actually tucked up under that bridge on the left.  Yeah, we were that close.  Thankfully, we have really good insulation in our coach, and the noise inside was minimal.  But would we stay there again?  Not likely.  So, Monday dawns, bright and beautiful, and it's not too long before we lose all the traffic and have the road to ourselves.  Speed limit 80 mph....NOOOO, we kept it to about 62 mph, much safer for us.

And then we noticed the speed limit dropping.  And dropping.  And dropping again, till we were funneled off the road altogether, and only permitted 30 mph.  Hmmm...an inspection station maybe?  Wonder what they're looking for?  People?  Produce?  Drugs or guns??

Not really sure, but I reached for Bailey, 'cuz I surely didn't want her to get in a heated discussion with a working dog!

Well, now we know WHO is conducting this traffic inspection, but we still don't know why.  As we cruised through, we couldn't even get the guard to look at us!  Seriously!  He was looking the same way we were driving and continuously waving us right by him.  He never even glanced in our direction!  Mind you, I'm not complaining.  Well, maybe I am.  I mean, how in the world was he gonna find or stop ANYthing?  Your tax dollars at work, I suppose.  Or maybe, he had been threatened by the cartel (that doesn't exist, right?) and was literally, looking the other way.

We did make one rest stop before reaching our campground for the night, Fort Stockton RV Park, and Barbara S, I thought of you when we saw this sign.  Really, WATCH for snakes?  And then what if we see one?  Run?  Reach out and touch?  Seems like the directions were a tad incomplete or ambiguous.  I mean, I know what *I* would do....just sayin, snakes don't bother me.  Much.  Most especially if they are behind glass or are headless (sorry, didn't mean to gross you out there). 

 So Fort Stockton campground was easy to find and quick to register.  Didn't take us long to set up, either.  Roads were wide and the site was easy-in, easy out.  And on top of that, there was an on-site cafe, that came highly recommended (really, what else are they gonna say?)  Being as we were self-contained for the night, we both thought it might be wise not to have to do the dishes....and besides, Driver doesn't get good chicken fried steak often...and it WAS highly recommended.  And, you were welcome to bring your own bottle of beer or wine to enjoy with dinner.  PLUS, you get free Blue Bell ice cream with every meal purchase.  How could we say no to all that?  We didn't.  We partook..  :)  It's certainly not the level of EVOO, at Cannon Beach, but, hey, it was edible and pleasant!

Setting out Tuesday morning, we were soon seeing the wave of the future, wind turbines.  I can't, for the life of me, figure out why there aren't acres and acres of solar panels and wind turbines already in place.  I reckon it's 'cuz the oil companies want to keep us dependent on petroleum products until we destroy the planet totally.

As we got closer to Hill Country, the landscape changed again.  Lots of limestone was cut and removed to put the road through.  And there were trees again.  Real trees!  As we drove by Kerrville, I found myself wondering how we could get the camper over to Creations of Kerrville, a really wonderful little quilt shop we'd been to on a previous trip.  Ahhh...maybe next time.  We will be up this way again, around April/May, so maybe we'll have some time to stop in then.  We'll see.

We were treated to a lovely sunset tonight...This is the view out our front window.

And here we are, taking up the whole darned site!  Again!  We have been leaving one slide in; we found it stays warmer inside the coach.  And makes a little less work in the morning, when we got to pack up for early morning departure.  Surprisingly, there's still plenty of room inside...maybe not enough to fit 28 square dancers dancing, but certainly enough for the 3 of us.

Tomorrow is Christmas Day, and we'll start out by traveling through San Antonio.  We are hoping traffic will be minimal (non-existent is just too much to hope for, but our fingers will be crossed) and we can breeze on through.  We have about 330 miles to travel, and I've already checked, the Love's Travel Center down south is planning to be open when we pass through.  And, the gate at Alamo Rose is supposed to be open, and we have directions to get to our assigned site, even though the office will be closed and they have no place to leave us a map.  (??really??  nope, no late registration info area...sounds like a process issue or opportunity for improvement, if you ask me, which didn't happen, btw) Area restaurants will undoubtedly be closed, and we will get there too late to join the residents in a park-wide dinner, so good thing we stocked up and have a freezer full!  I think, keeping with our Italian theme of baked ziti on Thanksgiving day, maybe spaghetti & salad will be our dinner meal.

We'll sign off by wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, and a happy, healthy & safe New Year.  

Rio Grande River Like We've Never Seen It, Isleta Pueblo, Old Town Albuquerque and Dinner with Jen and Steve

So I saw on the map, "Isleta Pueblo," and it was just a bit down the road.  I've never been to a still-active Pueblo, and I thought maybe there would be something exciting to see.  Well, we rode and road and road some more!  Our good friend Google told us to turn left after all those miles, so we did.  Right onto a dirt road that was more ruts than road.  We didn't go far, just to the third little house, which was more shanty than house.  We dead-ended into his front yard, so we turned back and returned to the main road and went a bit farther south and turned onto the next road.  It was paved, but, but not for long!  The road turned to dirt, just after a locked gate.  Hmmmmm....Google is not often wrong, but this time, she was as wrong as possible!  

Well, we went back up the road, this time, turning left (which would have been right) at the intersection.  Well, whatdoya know??  We came upon the Rio Grande River.  We knew Albuquerque was in the RG Valley, but we didn't actually ever SEE the river for ourselves.  You'll recall we spent two winters in the "Rio Grande Valley" down in Texas, but the water there was only ever a trickle.  At the very most, it was only water about 20 feet wide (the channel was wider, but there was very little water in it) and it was probably only just over ankle deep.  In other words, just about dried up.  So when we saw the river here, and saw how much water was flowing, it was really quite the shock!

Ahhh, but then we crossed the bridge and looked at the other side - it was dammed up!!  Well, no wonder there was so much water upstream!

OK, OK, so a river's a river, right?  Let's move on, besides, it's pretty warm out, and doggie is in the car.  And it's running.  And it's parked illegally.  We really need to move on.  And so we did.  Eventually, off in the distance, we could see the towers of what appeared to be a mission or church.  We used our geosense (that's the "go left, go right, zig zag till you get where you want to be" method of driving) to wind our way through the little town and finally arrived in the side parking area.  Nooo, the front would have been too easy and made too much sense.  As we approached the front, we saw a small sign that warned "NO recording, NO cell phones, NO videos.  Any recording devices would be immediately and permanently confiscated."  Uh-oh....better put the cameras away!!  What a shame, right?  Oh, but wait...there is the parish office, let's just check.  They lovely young lady working there said, oh, yes, it's perfectly fine to take photos of the outside.  The sign was intended for visitors to Sunday mass and various other Native celebrations and dances.  So, lucky us, and lucky you, we have photos to share!

Yup, Bailey's furry butt!

As we wound our way back out through the town, I was able to get some photos of what was left of the adobe buildings.

Almost every house had a brick oven or two.  Some houses had three!

After driving back north for about a half hour, we found our way to Old Town Albuquerque.  We didn't know it was built around another mission.  Funny, in the South, and so far, everywhere we've been, the courthouse was the center of the town square.  Not here.  Here we have San Filipe de Neri Church, dating back to 1706.  And, even after all these years, still looking for donations.

The square reminded us a lot of Pueblo crossed with Mexican.

When you don't find ice cream, look for hot sauce!

When we got back to the campground, we took Bailey for a walk.  Lo and behold, what do we see, but another Ventana.  And this one is dark, with a white scooter, a maroon SUV, and some herbs on the table.  That could be none other than Steve, Jennifer and Bella.  We met them up in Colorado Springs, at Peregrine Pines, the family camp on the Air Force Academy grounds.  That HAD to be them!  We rang their bell and when Steve answered the door, we told him that Bailey wanted to know if Bella could come out and play.  She did, they did!  We chatted a bit about where we each had been and what our upcoming plans were, then we decided that the only day we both had together and free, was right then!  So we finished walking the dog, cleaned up a bit and went back downtown to Lindo's for dinner.  Oh my, it was tasty!  And the margarita we split, while it wasn't quite as good as Tomasita's up in Santa Fe, it was still pretty refreshing after a long hot day! 

So much for doing laundry before we head out in the morning!  That's OK, it'll be there tomorrow.  And it was really fun sharing chips and salsa with Jen and Steve.  They are off to San Diego in the morning, for the weekend, to watch a nephew play football for Harvard.  When they come back, they'll spend a few days in town, then head up to the Balloon Fiesta.  We will be long gone by the time that comes to town.  Funny thing, we are heading to Winslow, to Meteor Crater RV Park.  And that's the same park they stayed in a couple months back.  I hope we meet up with them again, somewhere down the road!  Tomorrow is a travel day, and as I mentioned, we're heading to Winslow, AZ.  Why??  Well, so we can stand on the corner, of course!!!  Till next time, y'all stay well and safe!