We're Back at our Happy Place off Ogilby Road, Winterhaven, California

After spending several days at the Paradise Casino rv parking lot, in Yuma, we moved out off Ogilby Road where we spent most of last winter.  We usually don't mind spending time at Paradise because that casino is right in town and it makes it easy to do shopping and laundry and such, but saturday they started burning trash or something in a pit near the rv parking area and it got pretty stinky so it was time to leave.  We left Paradise around 4:30pm and raced the sun to get out into the desert before it set.  Phew, made it in time to take a few pictures.

Our closest neighbor

Not quite a full moon.

Gone gone gone 

Be back soon.

Evie and Joy

What We Did on our Thanksgiving Vacation

We went home to Northern California for 2 weeks at Thanksgiving time.  While there we opened our storage unit to see what we had kept when we down sized out of our house.  The first picture is when we first opened it up.  The second picture is what was left with after two weeks and 5 trips to the senior center with donations.

We rented a small uhaul trailer and moved what you see here to an even smaller storage unit in the Yuma area.  I had rented a unit before leaving Yuma and we left the car there in storage so we could tow the trailer back south with us.  The northern california unit was 5' x 10', now our things are in Yuma in a 4' x 8' storage closet.

And to keep the spirit of downsizing going I downsized my laptop computer.  I went from a 5 pound MacBook Pro to an under 3 pound MacBook and I love it.

The smaller lighter laptop is much easier to carry and move around, which I do a lot.

We're back in the Yuma area for a few days then back to the San Diego area to take storage things to my daughter, then back to Yuma to have a few things done to the rv and go to the dentist in Mexico. 

We've run into a couple of friends, Bette in her Winnebago and Beverly in her red Lazy Daze,  we haven't seen them since last winter in Quartzsite. Always nice to see friends along the way.

By for now.

Evie and Joy

Many Miles Down the Road

I have no excuse for not blogging except I've been busy.  We've been on the road covering a lot of miles.  Right now we're in San Diego but more on that later.  Let me bring you up to date.

After we left Elephant Butte we headed south to Rockhound State Park just south of Deming, New Mexico.  While there DeDe and I drove south to a small border crossing where we crossed into Mexico and had lunch and did some shopping.

The only thing I bought was a pretty star, 

those dark spots are colored marbles.

Birdnest in cholla in Rockhound State Park. 

We left DeDe at Rockhound and we went on to Casa Grande working our way to San Diego.  But it was 103° the day we arrived so we only stayed one night and the next morning we did what we do best, went to higher ground, up to Payson, Arizona.  We stayed 5 cool days in Payson at a a National Forest campground only 1 mile from downtown.  The town of Payson is near the Mogollon Rim, a geologic feature that runs through the heart of Arizona. 

A bit of the Mogollon Rim.

From Payson we made our way to Yuma passing through Quartzsite, AZ.  Below is a photo of main street Quartzsite without any traffic.  In about a month Quartzsite will be flooded with its winter visitors numbering in the thousands.

While in Yuma DeDe caught up with us and we took her out to Mittry Lake to check it out.  Last year mom and I spent many days dry camping at this lake.  There has been a lot of work done out at the lake, lots of mowing and trimming.  Last year this area had reeds growing very tall, now you can see the water.

This year.

Last year.

We are now in San Diego cat sitting my daughter's cat, Willie, while she and boyfriend are on vacation in Cancun, Mexico.  Below is a picture of Willie taking a nap.  I took that picture using my new U-Snap Zoom lens, (click on the link to go to Amazon to see it)that clips onto my iPhone.

In about two weeks we will make our way to Northern California to cook Thanksgiving dinner for my cousin Bob and to see friends. 

Catch up with you later.

Evie and Joy

Day Trip to Monticello, New Mexico

You'll notice a new header picture.  That's the full moon rising over the rv with windows reflecting the setting sun.  Picture taken by DeDe.

We stayed four night at Elephant Butte Lake state park.  We met up with friend Christine and her cute dog Edna.  Here's a picture that DeDe took of the four of us.

l-r  Chris, Edna the dog, DeDe and me.

We drove out to the small town of Monticello, passing by the Elephant Butte airport.

Plane on display

Monticello has a little bit of everything, here's a building with ample parking.

And then there are the doors and gates.

We've left the lake and are at Rockhound State Park in southern New Mexico.  Tomorrow DeDe and I will drive south to have lunch at The Pink Store in Puerto Palomas, Mexico.

The view from my bedroom window.

See you around the bend.

Evie and Joy

One last picture.  When we bought our class C, in November 2013, it had about 28,000 miles.  Now look.

Balloons and Rainbows near Albuquerque, New Mexico

This morning DeDe and I got up early and headed into town to watch the balloons.  Because of weather conditions they didn't lift off as early as they were scheduled to but they were only delayed by about 45 minutes.

We were watching from Sandia Casino gas station just up the hill.

Early morning fog along the Rio Grande river, drifting south.  Balloons on the ground.

Balloons above and below the fog.

Before long the fog was gone and the clouds had lifted a bit.

After our balloon watching we headed back home.  That brings up the subject of where we're parked.  In years past the Sandia Casino, which is up the hill from the balloon field, has allowed rv's to park in their rv parking lot for free, and that's where we were last year, along with about 100 other rv's.  But not this year.  They were only letting rv's park in their employee parking lot and were charging anywhere from $75 - $55 a night.  When we first got to ABQ we parked way south of town at another casino that has an rv park and stayed there a week.  Then we started hearing about the Sandia Casino charging so we went 15 miles north of town to the San Felipe Casino which has an rv park but also allows you to dry camp for free.  We have spent almost 10 days here, most of that dry camping and 3 days with electricity. We moved into an electric site so I could run the vacuum and clean house.  This casino is next to an abandoned race track.  It's not in use now because the contractor who built it didn't do a great job and it is now "red tagged".  

During a rainstorm.

After the storm.

We'll be leaving this week heading south to Elephant Butte Lake.  I'll catch up with you soon.

Evie and Joy

There's still lots of fall flowers around, and butterflies too, can you see two of them.

The Night We Saw The Sun Crash into the Earth and other Interesting Things

After leaving Colorado we landed in northern New Mexico at Cochiti Lake for several days.  It was the time of the full moon in Sept.  This is the full moon taken with my iPhone.

After taking the moon picture I turned around just in time to see the sun crash into the earth.  Well not really.  The night before we had a thunder and lightning storm that started a small forest fire.  The fire eventually burned for about 4 days but on the second day at sunset this is what we say from our campsite.

Another night DeDe and I saw this balloon in the evening sky.  We looked at it through her binoculars but didn't get a picture of it.  It was way high in the sky.  We were already in the evening shadows but the balloon was so high it was lit up by the sun.  It was glowing red as we watched it drift away.  The next day the newspaper said that as people in Albuquerque were looking at it, at sunset, it was over Farmington, NM about 185 miles away.  Don't know how that could be but that's what they said. 

The next day we saw an elusive roadrunner running across the road.  Not the best pictures, camera was focussing off in the distance, as he was in a hurry.  I'm lucky I got him at all.

Beep beep.

We now are in Albuquerque for a few weeks.  When we got here our intention was to stay in the Sandia Casino parking lot, but the first day it was 91º, way too hot for me so we checked into an rv park so we could have electricity to run our air conditioner.  

We'll be staying in the ABQ area for several more days.  Long enough for DeDe to have some work done to her Honda and her RV as well. And let's not forget about the Balloon Fiesta.  If you click on the blue link you can read all about it.

Picture from last years Fiesta.

Be back soon.

Evie and Joy

One more thing.  Did I mention that our friend DeDe who we met last Christmas in Yuma is caravanning along with us.  She camp hosted this summer in Colorado and that is one reason we hung out up there in the Rockies (besides it being so nice up there).  Now she's tagging along behind us as we zigzag our way towards Yuma for the winter.  Here's a picture of her rv.  It's fun having her along with us.

Here we are at Cochiti Lake.

See you later.