Albuquerque

We've been in Albuquerque for about a week.  We come here to visit my moms sister who is 93 years old so we try to touch base with her several times a year.  We took her out to lunch twice while here, once to my favorite Thai restaurant and to Chinese the other time.  She is doing well and we had a nice visit.

Old building in Mountainair, NM

We spent two nights in Monzano State Park outside of Mountainair.  The day before we checked in,  a woman had gone missing from her campsite and they had spent the day and night before looking for her.  They found her body the next day because her dog, who was with her, was barking up a storm and one of the searchers heard him.  Sadly she had died from exposure as it was into the 30's at night.  The energy around that place was very 'heavy' so we decided to leave and go on towards Albuquerque.

While in ABQ we stayed south of town in the Isleta Casino RV Park.  It proved to be a great location, about 10 miles from town and far enough from the freeway that we didn't hear any traffic noise.  But it is right next to the railroad tracks which in most cases is a really bad place to be especially anywhere along interstate 40 but here it turned out to be a good thing.  Because we saw and learned about the RailRunner. 

We rode the train on Saturday, going from the Isleta Pueblo

station in the south up to Santa Fe and back again

 not getting off till we got home.  The whole trip was about 4 hours.

Good by Rail Runner, we had fun.

We're leaving ABQ in the morning headed south towards Elephant Butte and Caballo to meet up with some other Solo RVing Sisters.

See you down the road.

Evie and Joy

Someone asked if we had smoke alarms and such in the rv.  Yes we have 2 smoke alarms in addition to these other two. 

This is up near the ceiling, checking for Carbon Monoxide.  

This one sits sideways on the wall, the white carpet is on the ceiling. 

This one is near the floor sniffing for leaking propane and it is hard wired into the electric 12 volt system and if that system gets low it will start beeping to tell us that we don't have enough electricity for it to work.  It was this alarm that alerted us in February, to the fact that we were having electrical problems.  When it started beeping in Feb. I had to take those screws out and unplug it to get it to stop.  It was doing its job.  And by the way these alarms only last about 5 years and then they should be replaced.  This one is about 6 months old.

New Mexico at Last

While we were in Cottonwood we rode the Verde Canyon train.  The train goes along the Verde River for 20 miles up the canyon and 20 miles back, at a slow 15 mph.  I spent most of the ride outside in the open air car and mom was in the enclosed car. It's a nice relaxing trip.  We saw many wondrous things but didn't get pictures.

Indian ruins seen from train.

The next day we left Cottonwood and headed east to Clay Springs staying there only one night before moving on to Datil Wells campground outside Datil, NM.

Elk as seen from rv site in Clay Springs, AZ.

Horned Lizard

Beautiful New Mexico

Cow country

East of Datil, NM is this Very Large Array  Wikipedia says: The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array is a radio astronomy observatory located on the Plains of San Agustin, between the towns of Magdalena and Datil, some 50 miles west of Socorro, New Mexico.

These are looking for things in outer space.  Saturday these were all pointing southwest, sunday morning when we drove by them they were pointing west.  Here you can see 4.

We are at a NM State park outside of Mountainair NM. and will stay here for three nights.  Then we will go to my cousins home south of Albuquerque where we had our mail sent and many packages from Amazon.  One of the things that will be waiting for us is a new propane heater.  We had bought a Wave 3 heater from Camco but it has proven to be too small for our rv.  We ordered the Wave 8 and I will switch them while at my cousins home.  Our rv has a forced air heater in it but we don't use it because it is very inefficient and uses electricity to run.  The Wave heaters don't need electricity to run and also don't need to be vented.  Have I mentioned that it is getting down into the 30's at night. We are low on propane and didn't run the Wave 3 last night and it got down to 40 degrees in the rv.  Baby that's cold.  We got up and got on the road fast.  We only had a 2 hour drive ahead of us today but of course we can stretch that into 4 hours.  That's what it's all about.

See you later.

Evie and Joy

Sedona Arizona

I don't know what kind of lizard this is but he's cuter that the snake.

The Verde River in Cottonwood, AZ

Tuzigoot National Monument indian ruins

The Red Rocks of Sedona, Arizona

This is called a Bird of Paradise 

Tomorrow we will ride an old train that runs from Clarkdale up the Verde River Canyon.  A friend of mine, from high school, grandfather help settle and tame this area and some of her family things are in the museum at the train station and we hope to see them. 

See you around the bend.

Evie and Joy

The Desert is in Bloom

Velvet Mesquite

Close up of velvet mesquite

Yes, the Ocotillo are in bloom.

Look at this riot of color.  Tall Saguaro, Ocotillo with orange flowers at their tips, 

and yellow all around.

All along the road, orange, blue and yellow.  And the grasses are in bloom too.

Cholla

Beavertail Prickly Pear

I took this picture to get the tree but look at all the other plants that are in the picture too.  

A Cholla left foreground, Prickly Pears under tree and one in bloom too.  

We are in Congress, AZ right now and monday will get the rv weighed.  If the rig is overweight(who isn't) then we will get rid of some stuff.  It is very important to know this information.  

There are two more pictures I have for you today but if you are at all squeamish about snakes you might want to skip it.  I will post it down at the bottom below my sign off.

See you soon.

Evie and Joy

I pulled off the side of the road and walked towards a blooming cactus to get a picture, after getting that picture I saw a small purple flower and bent down to take its picture............THAT'S WHEN I SAW THE  SNAKE..........  Now I've lived almost my whole life in the country so I know to keep my eyes open for snakes and to scan the area all around, I was within striking distance of this guy.  He never rattled or even flicked his tongue.  My guardian angels were hard at work today.  Thank you thank you thank you.

No Ordinary Love

1955   

(left to right)  Floyd, Thoms older brother, Evelyn and Thom

One of the reasons we we've been stalling and waiting for April 10th to come along was because of my friend Thom's funeral.  Thom was my Original Boyfriend, having loved each other from a very early age.  We dated in high school, and when we graduated in 1968 he was drafted into the army and was sent to Vietnam.  He did make it home in one piece but sadly his friend John Parker whom I knew, didn't make it home.  The Vietnam war was a sad sad time for both countries, 

Vietnam and the United States.

Buried April 10, 2015, one day shy of his 65th birthday.

RIP Thomas Coe

See you later.

Evie and Joy

Red Rock Canyon

Yucca in bloom

Even grasses bloom.

After five days staying at the Pair-a-Dice rv park, which is part of the Escapee family, where we were dry-camping(parked without hookups, using our own water and solar) we moved over to Lakeside RV park.  

This is Pair-A-Dice.  See the lone rv parked by the fence on the far right side?  

That is the dry-camp area.  Note the lack of trees in the park?  

I didn't take this picture, it's from their web site.  But it does look like this.  

It's easy to forget that we are in the desert.

Great Blue Heron.  I took this picture with my iPhone.  

What you don't see is the four young boys fishing about 10 feet in front of the bird.

Monday we will be leaving Nevada and heading towards San Bernardino, CA for several days.

See you in a few days.

Evie and Joy

Pahrump, Nevada

We have been in Pahrump, NV for almost a week.  Pahrump is the town closest to Area 51.  I've linked the Wikipedia page to this but it isn't my favorite site to learn about Area 51, if you want to google it there is lots more info out there.  Our government/military does some pretty secret things in this area.

We took a day trip to Red Rock Canyon, and with our Senior Pass we got in for FREE.

See our Senior Pass.  We bought it three years ago for $10, it is well worth it.

Wild Burros.

A popular climbing spot.

Asters

Beaver Tail Cactus in bloom

Some sort of lilly.  

Yucca

That's all for this post.  I will continue this in part 2.

See you around the bend in the road.

Evie and Joy