Oops Forgot Something

On yesterday's blog post I forgot to mention that the Amazon link won't work if you are using a "pop-up" blocker.  I have to pause mine so I can even see the Amazon link.  So if you are having trouble clicking on the link that may be the problem.

Pause your Pop-up Blocker

Another thing.  Randi cooked us dinner in her itty bitty  kitchen and brought the food to our house where we sat and eat it.  Yummy pork chops, pasta with tomato sauce and cheese and grilled veggies, oh and wine.  I provided the store bought cupcakes.

It's hard to find the Elephant at Elephant Butte but

finding the Camel at Camel Rock is easy.

I hope this clears up some of the problem you all were having.  Be back next week.

Evie

Something New on the Blog

You may notice that there is something new on the blog.  I have become an Amazon affiliate.  That means that I have an Amazon link on my blog page and if you click on it, it will take you directly to Amazon where you can order things to your heart's delight, you won't pay more for those things, but I will get a small reward for you using my link.  That's Amazon's way of saying "thank you" to me for having a link on my page.  You can bookmark it by clicking on my link and then saving that page to your bookmarks and it will remember me(with any luck). Then next time you want to order from Amazon just click on the saved link and there you go.   We would be forever grateful to you for using our link. 

After spending last week in Albuquerque we have finally moved on to Santa Fe.  We met my friends Joy and David for lunch today and will meet them at the Farmers Market tomorrow. Joy is a friend from California who a few years ago moved to Ryderwood, WA, where she met David.  Joy has a son who lives here in Santa Fe and they are here for a visit. 

Joy on the floor in our rv.

David

When we first go to Santa Fe today we parked in a casino rv parking lot(free but no hook-ups) but as the day wore on it started to get hot so we moved down the street to an RV park so we could plug into electricity to run the air conditioner.   We will stay here one more night then move on towards Navajo Lake state park. 

Lets backtrack for a minute here.  After Memorial Day weekend we went back to ABQ and parked in the Sandia Casino parking lot for several days.  It was free with no hook-ups but it wasn't hot so it was ok.  Most casinos have places for rv's to park, sometimes that place is a full on RV park as in the case of the Isleta Pueblo Casino where you have to pay to park and get hook-ups too.  At Sandia, their idea is rv's can park in lot c anywhere you want for free.  That's what we did.  A friend had been there the week before and she asked my where we were going to be after Memorial day and I said Sandia, and that evening when mom and I were eating dinner I saw her driving up the road.  She came and parked near us and we fed her dinner.  The next day Randi and I went grocery shopping and did laundry while mom held down the fort.  That night Randi cooked dinner for mom and me. Wow what a treat. Randi is one of those people who loves to cook.  We love her.  Those of you that now me well know that cooking isn't something I go out of my way to do.  Randi is also from New Jersey so I got my fix of NJ accent which I have been missing lately.

Randi

Randi's little home on wheels.

A pretty sky picture for my friends who haven't seen the sky for few days.  It's beautiful here in New Mexico.

Until next time.

Evie

More Rainbows

We're at Cochiti Lake Army Corps of Engineers campground for the Memorial Day weekend.  We hadn't made reservations thinking that if we got here early enough it wouldn't be a problem.  Wrong, we got the second to the last spot here, all the others had been reserved, and there might be almost 100 spaces.  We are in the 'no hook-up' area which for us is no problem because we have our solar system to keep us powered up but most of the other people camped around us have to run their generators for power and so makes it noisy.  Ugg  But it's only $6 a night so we'll tough it out.

The orange line in the map is Interstate 25 which runs from

 El Paso, TX all the way to the Canadian border.

We drove around the lake today while the rain storm was blowing in.  

This picture of Ghost Girl was taken from the boat ramp across the lake.

If you look at the stop sign in the middle of this picture and up about 1 inch 

that road is the boat ramp across the lake.

If you noticed in the screenshot of the map in the first picture you can see that this location is one of those that make it necessary to have not only AT&T for internet but Verizon as well.

Saw this little guy on our drive today (slightly blurry).

See you later.

Evie

We're in Albuquerque, New Mexico

The first thing we did after arriving back in ABQ was go to Costco to have new tires put on the Honda.  New Michelin tires with the date of manufacture mounted to the outside so it is easy to find and read.  It's important for rvers to keep on top of their tires, not only condition but age.

After getting new tires we pick up moms sister Mary and go to Petroglyph National Monument.

A few days later we drive north to The Santo Domingo Pueblo to buy bread that the native women bake in these ovens.  We bought bread last year from the same woman.  

It was raining the day we went to buy bread.

On our way home to the Isleta Pueblo Casino RV park on the south side of Albuquerque we stop at a casino on the north end of town to meet up with another solo women RVer.  She and I and two others have been hop-scotching around NM meeting each other when we were able.  We missed Randi earlier this month but were able to touch base with her today in the rain and hail.  She travels in a small travel trailer.  It's always fun to meet other solo women. 

Notice Little Red Wagon.

Memorial Day is coming fast so we will be leaving here soon to find a pretty lake to camp near for the long weekend.  My friend Joy from Washington state is coming to NM to visit her son and we are hoping to get together with her.

All of today's photos were taken with my iPhone, so quality might not be as good as other posts.

See you again soon.

Evie

Yesterdays Blog Post

Well I did a blog post yesterday but at least two of my readers emailed to say that they didn't get the email about it so I'm sending you this message to tell you that if you scroll down you should see a post titled Carlsbad, NM.

We have cattle right outside our door.  Can you see the little orange electric fence insulators?

That's all that's keeping them over there and not over here.

I think what happened was I wrote the blog on friday but didn't post it till saturday and I posted it from my phone.  So I think the email notifications got lost in the shuffle.

The Artesia public library.  Yes, there is oil money around here.  

All the big buildings in Artesia are oil company buildings.

 (sorry for the bugs on the windshield)

The breakfast club.

So scroll down and see yesterday's post if you haven't yet.

See you later.

Carlsbad, New Mexico

We've made our way down to Lakewood, NM where there's an Escapee RV park.  I'm an Escapee member and they have nice parks. Escapee's have a small system of rv parks where members can buy a lot in their parks.  We don't own any lots but just being a member entitles us to a big discount to stay in them. We planned to be here now so we could do laundry and some much needed house cleaning.

Lakewood isn't far from Carlsbad and we took a drive into town to give it a look-see.

Carlsbad is on the Pecos River which wanders around through 

town with pretty parks on both banks.

This part of NM is oil country.

Zoomed in on flames.

The best pictures of Road Runners I could get.

New Mexico is big Pistachio country.

It's official.  Escrow closed on my home on Friday.  This was the second escrow I was in on my property.  The first one fell through so back on the market it went.  Within a week I had another offer that was way low.  I didn't take that personal and countered with an amount not much lower that my asking price, much higher than they had offered and they accepted it.  The second escrow was for more money that the first one.  All things worked out for the best.  I'm a happy camper.  

See you later.

Roswell, New Mexico

We went back to White Sands National Park, New Mexico.  Most pictures of White Sands are of the middle of the park where nothing is growing but as you can see in this picture along the edge of the dunes all kinds of plants grow.

Here the root system of a long dead Yucca plant holds the sand in place.

Note the modern day carved graffiti.

We're now at Bottomless Lakes State Park.  

These lakes, a series of 8 lakes, are spring fed and of course do have bottoms.

"The lakes are actually sinkholes ranging in depth from 17' to 90' and were formed when circulating underground water dissolved salt and gypsum deposits to form subterranean caverns.  When the roofs of the caverns collapsed under their own weight, sinkholes resulted and soon filled with water".

Bottomless Lakes SP is outside of Roswell, NM, the home of the famous Roswell UFO incident.

On July 8, 1947 an Unidentified Flying Object crashed landed outside of town.

And it is said that there were Aliens abroad.

And the town has embraced the event.  There are aliens all over town.

We had new headlights bulbs installed on the Honda today.  I watched a youtube video about how to do it myself and decided to leave it to the professionals.  Only one was burned out but because it is an older car decided to have both replaced.  Another thing that has given me problems recently was the auxiliary braking system for the honda while it is in tow.  The braking system that I'm using is like a 'surge brake'.  Connected to the rv with a cable that runs from a "thing" on the rv to the car.  When it rains the control "thing" gets wet and it gets sticky, and then the first time I hit the brakes the arm stays in the "on" position.  Well it rained when we were in Ruidoso the other day and to make a long story short I had to unhook the braking system.  By the time we got to Roswell it had unstuck itself.  This is the second time this has happened.  I now put a plastic bag over it when the car is unhooked and it's going to rain.  

Speaking of rain: A storm blew through yeaterday.  Just watch the first 25 seconds of this video. We watched this from 12 miles away.  We could see this storm coming as we were on our way to the State Park and was prepared to pull over to the side of the road, and wait it out, if it caught up to us but we were able to get to the park and get parked as it started to pour and hail and blow. 

We'll head south tomorrow.

I want to say hi to one of my readers, Rose in Ukiah.  Rose is taking English as a Second Language classes and is in her third semester.  Good job Rose.

Day Tripin'

After leaving Albuquerque we headed south on I 25 to Caballo Dam where we only stayed for two nights.  We dook a day trip in our trusty Honda towards Silver City following along nm highway 152.  That highway goes up and over some high mountains.  We had been advised last year to NOT drive the motorhome over this road so we waited till we could do it in a car.

Old bridge 

Looking back from where we've come.  That bit of white ribbon in the valley is the road.

See those mountains in the far distance?  At the base of them is Caballo Dam.

We cruised through City of Rocks State Park.  

City of Rocks State Park.

Plant in front of the visitor center getting ready to bloom.  

This spike can grow to be about 10 - 15 feet tall. 

It looks like a giant asparagus stalk.. 

We've seen many solar arrays but this is the first one we've seen that had so many panels on one leg.

This facility covered about 10 acres.

The Rio Grande behind our campsite at Caballo Dam.

We're at Leesburg Dam for a few days and then we will head over towards White Sands.  On our way we will be meeting up with a cousin for lunch.

Seed pods.

Good Night.