Down (New) Mexico Way

All the earth colours of the painter's palette are out there in the many miles of badlands... (Georgia O'Keeffe)

March 20, 2014

The wind stopped blowing!  I spent the entire day inside the visitor center yesterday, but no regrets. I enjoy being docent even for such a short time.... I think. Today, an extended stay has arisen. Highway, one of the other volunteers (talked about him in a previous post) has taken a job in Deming as a RV campground host....free housing, and pay. However, I don't think we should stay any longer...maybe a few days to help out Gabe, the ranger here. We really do need to see more of New Mexico and the next two state parks promise warmer nights. I've covered all the trails here. Time to cover new ground.

March 23, 2014

Our last night at City of Rocks. It's been a grand time. Hard to believe it's been 2 weeks. We decided to move on. Tomorrow we will head to Truth or Consequences and to River's Bend Hot Springs. They have rv sites on a first come first serve basis. We heard they currently have 4 spots open. I am so looking forward to pampering ourselves. Our trajectory changes constantly. We don't expect to head north any time soon. Keep hearing about the cold nights and cool days up around Santa Fe. It's just starting to warm up in Southern New Mexico. Seems like we should spend most of April down here. 

Last night, a professor came out and had a star party. They have a major telescope in the park. We were able to see Jupiter and all 5 moons.  The camp sites here are named after constellations. The constellation is directly above each site. A volunteer put all that together once upon a time. Learning about the stars out under the milky way was absolutely fascinating!

Tonight we built a fire and Highway came over with 3 guitars and we just sang old songs and drank wine.... A wonderful way to close out our time here.

Angel From Montgomery

The forecast says there will be no wind tomorrow ...a great day to pull the trailer. We will do all back roads.

March 25, 2014

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah. What more can I say? Oh I guess I could say heaven.  On the shores of the Rio Grande, we found a slice of heaven. We afforded ourselves two nights at Riverbend Hot Springs. The RV spots are literally a parking lot; however, they have full hookups including wifi and cable.

hot springs on the Rio Grande

 a nice 108º

The public pools consist of five pools that cascade from one to another, creating a different temperature in each one. Temperatures usually range from around 100-108 degrees. They are situated around a shaded river deck and include a cold shower for cooling off, as well as our large shaded patio with chaise loungers, mist fans (in the summer), dining tables and chairs, and a barrel sauna. The river pier offers the most amazing vistas of the Turtleback Mountains.

even Sitka had his own spa bed

Tomorrow, we will pull up stakes and venture only 10 miles down the road to Elephant Butte State Park. We hope to settle in for a week or more. We will have electricity and water and wifi. We will have to hook up and move the trailer to dump at the dump station within the park. We have been spoiled as we have had full hookups the entire time we have been gone. We need to be situated in our new site by 2pm when some wicked winds are suppose to start up.
This week we will need to take the time to attend to some RV failures. The latch to our refrigerator door was broken. And just as we were leaving City of Rocks a (major) rivet busted out of the door latch for the bed.

bolted together latch

what the latch is suppose to look like

Thank Goddess for Highway, he gave us some bolts that got us at least this far. Otherwise we would have had a 60 mile round trip before we could even have started out yesterday. Everything is under warranty so we are good. You meet such great people, like Highway and Susan who we met at the Star party. She told us about Riverbend and is in fact, parked right next us here. She gave me the numbers of two RV repair guys in Elephant Butte. Hopefully, the manufacturer can get new parts shipped here instead of waiting to get to the Albuquerque area.

Not sure if Gerard will want to sell OZ when we get back. I don't think he likes towing it. He is convinced we need something bigger to tow... he's not liking how it feels behind the Saturn. It is something we need to get use to. I do think he likes the lifestyle or maybe he is just humoring me. We will see. He sure is enjoying the temps, especially as we hear the weather reports from home ... with the latest snowfalls and frigid temps.

March 27, 2014

Such a beautiful sunrise to wake up to on Elephant Butte Lake. This is the view from our bed this morning. This state park is only 5 miles from Truth or Consequences. This reservoir is the 84th largest man-made lake in the United States and the only place in New Mexico where one can find pelicans perched on or alongside the lake. We are set up in this campsite through Sunday night. Long beach walks, jewelry making and browsing in shops in T or C will fill these next days. Monday, we may move then to another site without hookups where we can leave the trailer and do an overnight to White Sands. We decided we can take the tent rather than take the trailer back over roads we have been down already. We are only getting 10 miles to the gallon! We have yet to pull the trailer more than 100 miles at a time. Soon enough we will have to make the long trek back, but today, as I understand, Duluth is in the middle of a blizzard. I am in no hurry to move north

Sitka and I walked the beach for 3 hours this morning