Halloween at the Lake

Yes, Max and I did manage to decorate for Halloween.... at least a little bit. The black twigs are decorated with purple lights and they are actually kinda cool. I guess you have to be here.....

Of course, our little bit of decorating is nothing like the cool stuff at Ron and Judy's or Robbie and Nancy's. Ah well!

Ron and Judy's grandkids came for a visit and overnight stay this evening. I really think that is supposed to be Kruz' bicycle. But Ron seems to be having a great time chasing Kruz with it!

Having a 2 1/2 year old and a 10 month old around the campfire sure does keep everyone on their toes!

Cheers,

Dr J

Morning at the Lake

Good morning from El Dorado Lake! The mists on the lake this morning are just beautiful.

Now many of you are wondering why the heck we are at the lake this time of year. Our friends, Ron and Judy O, and their families have a tradition of "doing" Halloween at the lake every year. As you saw yesterday, there is a fair amount of scary decorating going on. grin. I have some catching up to do!

The only downside to camping this time of year is the weather. Here in Kansas, it can either be warm and beautiful or COLD! This year, it is cold with an overnight low in the upper 20s. Fortunately, our trailer is warm and cozy. Unfortunately, it was too cold to even spend much time around the campfire last nite. Ah well, maybe tonite (it is chili nite!) will be a bit warmer.

Cheers,

Dr J

Halloween Madness

So what is the madness??? The madness is that we are out at the lake for the weekend to celebrate Halloween.... And it is freakin' cold! Not sure what we are thinking.

Of course, traveling with this group also means decorating for the holiday. Here's a sneak peek at one of Ron and Judy O's decorations.

More pics to follow -- once my hands and fingers thaw out!

Cheers,

Dr J

Home Again!

As I mentioned yesterday, we spent last night in Weatherford OK, so today was a (relatively) short drive. And we certainly didn't hurry around this morning. Since we are back on CDT, the girls actually slept in until about 7:30am. Yay! And yet, we didn't get away until about 11 this morning. It sure is nice not to have to hurry back. One of the many benes of retirement!

The drive was pretty uneventful until we got to Tonkawa. We decided to stop there for a late lunch and bio break. Now normally, we stop at a roadside park and I fix us lunch in the trailer. But today we decided to eat on the road 'cause we were all ready to get back to the house. So we stopped at the Love's in Tonkawa OK. It is a combination gas station, truck stop, and Subway. The way it is setup, you drive past the gas tanks and building to semi parking at the back of the lot. I gotta tell ya that Max is getting pretty darned good at backing up our rig into a semi slot!

We went in and got our sandwiches, thinking that we would eat them on the road. Again, the way that place is setup, the semis have to drive by the semi parking area to get to the diesel gas tanks. And there was a BIG line of trucks waiting to get to the pumps. So we were able to completely finish our lunch and still wait some more. It was so crowded and backed up that one of the truckers got out and started directing traffic. Who woulda thought there would be a traffic jam at the Love's in Tonkawa?!?! The traffic-directing trucker finally took pity on us and created a small slot for Max to pull through. I wonder how long we would've been there otherwise.....

So we are home again safely. Now all that's left is to unload and clean up. It is amazing how dirty the trailer can get, both inside and out. Yes, I clean the inside along the way, but it still is never enough!

Oh! And today is Miss Gabi's birthday! She is 3 years old today. And here is how she celebrates. Grin.

Actually she and I just finished a round of playing and roughhousing on the floor. That, combined with a day of travel has apparently wiped her out!

Cheers,

Dr J

Ruidoso then Moving On

Yesterday we spent most of the day puttering around Ruidoso. It was a good day for shopping. Grin. But then again, anyday is a good day for shopping! The town reminds me of many of the small ski towns in the mountains of Colorado. Lots of eclectic shops.

We also went part of the way up the mountain to the Inn of the Mountain Gods, a hotel and casino. Ron and Judy had stayed here a few years back. It is a beautiful place. Here is part of the sculpture that graces the front entrance.

And when you walk into the entrance, this is the view out of the back of the hotel. Awesome! (But I sure would hate to be the one to clean all those windows!)

Unfortunately, we only had 1 short day in Ruidoso, so we didn't get to play any golf on that beautiful course. But at $120 per person green fees, I don't feel too bad! We did, however, manage to leave a few dollars in the casino.

We packed up this morning to head back east. The girls are so used to the setup and teardown process that they have started sleeping through it!

Our route took us east out of Ruidoso. It was a beautiful drive until, oh, about Roswell. It was really just a coast down out of the mountains on a very curvy road. But the views were breathtaking.

Speaking of Roswell, we needed to stop for gas and I saw my first alien!!!

Okay, maybe not a live alien, but you can sure tell that this town plays up its heritage. This was on the fence just outside of the Sam's!

As we came across the Texas panhandle, we stopped at an awesome rest stop along the Interstate. Really. They even had bbq grills. In the shape of Texas, no less. Have never seen anything like it!

We had originally planned to stop for the night in Shamrock, TX as it is a little over halfway between Ruidoso and home. However, we weren't too numb in the butt so we decided to continue on to Elk City, OK. Unfortunately, neither of the two RV parks there had any space. Crap. So we went on to Clinton, OK. Again, 2 RV parks and no spaces. By then we are getting some serious numb butt and the girls were really ready to be out of the truck. We went onto Weatherford, OK. Fortunately we found a place.....

We are staying at the Tinsley's Old Route 66 RV park. It sure isn't fancy, but by about 8pm this evening, it looked really good to all 4 of us!

And even better, Lucille's Roadhouse is close by!

All that's left of my yummy chicken dinner is a grease spot. Grin. Okay, you know me too well..... there are a couple of chicken tenders along with fried okra stowed in the fridge right now. It'll make an awesome lunch tomorrow.

So tomorrow we head on home. It will be a pretty short drive as we are only about 235 miles from home right now. Maybe that means we can sleep in tomorrow morning for a change. Yeah right, somebody needs to tell Gabi that!

Cheers,

Dr J

Beans, Border Patrol, Nuts, Mountains, and Mud

As I mentioned in a previous post, there is a lot of agriculture around Willcox. In addition to vineyards and orchards, they grow ALOT of beans.

And really. Who doesn't need a 20 pound bag of pinto beans?!?! Grin.

Bonita Pinto Beans are grown right around Willcox. And actually, we were there during harvest time. Fortunately, Ron and Judy O agreed to split the bean haul with us. So now we are down to 10 pounds of beans. So, Mom? If you are reading this, I'm thinking you will need about 5 pounds of what we have left, right?? :)

Yesterday we headed east out of Willcox, bound for Ruidoso, New Mexico. Once we hit Las Cruces and headed north, we drove through some beautiful terrain -- from mountains to desert. It was great to learn about it. Judy grew up in this area and Ron is really familiar with it, so they provided a great commentary on the walkie talkies.

One of the many interesting places we encountered (at least for this flatlander) was the border patrol station... All traffic headed northeast was diverted through it. And yes, it looked like a permanent fixture.

As we drove up, there was an amazing array of cameras aimed at each vehicle. We finally decided later that it was probably an array of infrared cameras, checking for body heat in our trailers, semis, trunks, etc. All they asked as we stopped was if we are both US citizens. When Max said yes, he just waved us through. I suspect that if they had detected any heat signatures in our trailers, we would have been thoroughly inspected. As I said, pretty strange for a flatlander!

Then somewhere between Alamagordo and Tularosa, we found the pistachio orchards. And I decided that I was in heaven! I sincerely love those nuts!

So nothing would do but that we had to stop and browse the shop attached to one of the orchards. Yep, we have a bag of nuts and a few other goodies from there. Yummy.

As I said, we were headed to Ruidoso, a little mountain town. After a lot of climbing (on pretty darned good highways, thank goodness), we finally arrived in town. We found the turnoff for our rv park and as soon as we started up the road, I thought "Dear God, what have I gotten us into?!?" It was a VERY narrow road to the park and VERY, VERY narrow roads within the park. ACK! Fortunately, Max is getting pretty darned good at hauling that trailer around and with the directions from the park host, we were in and setup in no time.

This picture really doesn't do the park justice......

We are perched on the side of the mountain. Btw, the tallest peak around here is Sierra Blanco at around 12,000 feet, so these definitely aren't small mountains. To give you an idea of how steep the area is where they carved out this park..... the park office is at about 6500 feet elevation and the top of the park is at about 7000 feet elevation.

But it is beautiful!. Pine trees all around us. And they have a beautiful mountain pine whisper when the wind blows. Just can't get something like that in Kansas.

However, we did have a helluva thunderstorm during the middle of the night.... from about 12:30 this morning until about 2:30am. The thunder kept all of us awake and edgy. And mud..... oh lord, it is bad!

We always have a couple of throw rugs down in the girls pen, because most of the rv parks around here are rock. We didn't think to pick up the rugs before we went to bed last night. What you are seeing above is a very colorful striped rug, with about half of it covered in mud! On one side of our site is a railroad tie retaining wall that is about 4 feet high. When Max took Ginger out during the middle of the night, he said the water was just pouring from between the ties. And of course, it ran across our site carrying all that wonderful mud with it. Things were pretty darned squishy here today!

On the road again tomorrow.

Cheers,

Dr J

Golf!

Nothing like a little golf to make a great day! There is a 9 hole city course here in Willcox, so of course we had to play!

We actually went out on Tuesday to play, but they were closed for overseeding. To make up for it, they gave us a half price voucher for the next day. Nice!

So we went back Wednesday morning and played 9 holes. Played pretty well actually. Well, at least Max did. He shot one over par. But, we were playing to temporary greens so there wasn't any putting. Seemed weird to leave the putter in the bag!

Here is a pic of Dos Cabezos from the course. Beautiful views.

And here are Ron and Max on the tee at number seven. Not sure what mountain range is in the background here.

Today is moving day. Another 6 hour drive. Ugh.

Cheers,

Dr J

The Border

We realize how close we are to the border here in Willcox because of a couple of things. First, the mountains. When I asked Ron O about the border the other day, he pointed to a mountain range off in the distance and told me that they were well across the border in Mexico. Looked like it was just next door.

The second thing is the border patrol. On the way to the golf course here, we drive past a huge border patrol station.... with tons of razor wire atop the fence. It was a holiday so most of the vehicles were parked inside. There had to have been about 50 of them -- from SUVs to vans to offroad trucks.

And on the way to Tucson to other day, on the other side of the highway we passed a temporary checkpoint setup by the boarder patrol. This was on I-10 and they were stopping everyone.

Kinda hard for this Midwesterner to wrap her mind around all that!

Cheers,

Dr J

Apple Annie's, Mountains, and Wine

We spent the last two days touring around the Willcox area. Even though this is considered high desert, agriculture is still a big business around here. One example is Apple Annie's. The site we went to has a huge orchard with pears, peaches, and of course, apples. It is a "pick your own place" but we didn't want to get that sweaty. Grin. So instead we settled for buying some apple butter, apple bread, and Max even found some yummy apple cider donuts!

They have quite the setup, as you can hopefully see below. We probably should have done some picking, but Ron O has kept us in yummy pears from his trees at home.

My Dad used to live and work out in this area. Before our trip, he was telling me to be on the lookout for Dos Cabezos, which literally means two heads. And yep, sure enough, it does look like two heads up there!

No, we did not hike to the top. Do I look like an outdoorsman?!? Grin. Instead we went to the town of Dos Cabezos, at the foot of the mountain. The intent, beyond seeing the mountain, was to take me to a rock shop over there. All of a sudden, I've been thinking I ought to have a couple of their beautiful local rocks for my garden at home. (Guess Mom and Judy O are finally rubbing off on me!) Anyway, unfortunately the shop was closed today. However, on the way out to Judy's sis-in-law's mom's farm (whew!), Ron was pointing out some green granite and quartz rocks along the road. Well, let's just say that I ended up with 4 or 5 rocks! Grin.

The other form of agriculture that we visited today was a winery. Really. Napa Valley of the Southwest. Despite the arid conditions, this is apparently a pretty good place to grow grapes. There are several vineyards and wineries around and we chose to check out the Coronado Winery.

After some wine tasting (they let you try up to 6 wines), we came away with several bottles of wine, some beautiful stemless wine glasses that are etched with the winery logo, and..... oh, we also came away slightly tipsy. Our friends, Ron and Judy, after the wine tasting.

To round out today, we had dinner at a BBQ place that is located in a converted rail car. Sheesh, that was some really good food!! And the rail car is actually located on the site of the hotel that Judy's mom and dad bought and ran when they first came to Willcox. Judy can remember watching her very first Rex Allen Day parade from her bedroom window on the second floor of the hotel. Cool, huh?

Tomorrow, more sightseeing.....

Cheers,

Dr J

Small town festival

As I mentioned yesterday, we are now in Willcox AZ (pop. 3769). The town was established in 1880. So they have more than a few traditions.

One such tradition is their annual Rex Allen Days festival. Rex Allen, The Arizona Cowboy, claimed Willcox as his hometown. So we started off the day with the Rex Allen Days annual parade. There is nothing, in my opinion, better than a small town parade. And of course, what is a parade without a rodeo queen? And no, we haven't been to the rodeo yet. Hopefully tomorrow.

And every parade needs a tractor or two...... This one actually had about 20 or 25 in it! There is also a tractor pull, so they were showing off their entries.

And no parade is complete unless the Shriners show up!

I definitely have never seen a Shriner mini car made up as a van! And if you'll notice, they even have their own mini tow truck too. Grin. There were actually about 5 different Shriner mini car groups -- from the vans to mini corvettes!

It was a long parade as well.... over two hours. Lots to see.

We went to the community fair for part of the afternoon. Lots of booths and great food. We settled on Indian Tacos, which are basically tacos that are served on fry bread. Yummy.

This evening we went to a BBQ at the house of Judy's sister's husband's family. Whew! Where but in a small town do they welcome perfect strangers into their backyard for a cookout?! Good food and good company. A perfect end to a great day!

Cheers,

Dr J

Moving Day

We had a leisurely moving day. We started early, as always. Guess we are all getting used to Gabi getting up at 0-dark-early. At least we are all able to go back to bed for a while!

After fixing breakfast, we decided to get in a bit of pool time. When we arrived, the regular pool was occupied with an aquacize class. I think Max's comment was something to the effect.... the only bad thing about these retirement resorts is all the old people. Grin. I know, I know.... we qualify for that as well!

The lap pool was open so I was able to get in some laps. Been a long time since I've done any real swimming. And while it IS like riding a bike (i.e. you always remember how), I certainly didn't remember it EVER being that hard! It turns out that swimming is a good way to get exercise, I guess.

After that, we started packing up for the move. I had arranged to get us a late checkout today.... 2pm instead of 11am. Glad that I did. We pulled out of the park at 1:59pm. A whole minute to spare! :) I've discovered that since we've become rvers (or perhaps it is because we are retired), we don't have "much hurry" in us.

We moved on to Willcox, AZ. It was only about a 1 1/2 hour drive, so it seemed like an easy day! Why Willcox? Well, to go to the Rex Allen Days celebration, of course! Who??? You mean that you don't know who Rex Allen was? Wry grin. Well, neither did I, so don't feel bad. Apparently Rex Allen was one of the cowboy crooners, ala Roy Rogers or Gene Autry. And Willcox was his hometown. So every year they have a weekend celebration to honor him. Really. You can read about the celebration at this web site.

Actually, the main reason we came here is to meet up with our friends, Ron and Judy O. Judy is originally from Willcox so she is in town to see her family. We are really just along for the ride.

More about the fun in Willcox later.

Cheeers,

Dr J

Busy, busy, busy!

All this RV living is certainly exhausting.... at least for the girls. I looked down after breakfast this morning and saw this. Nap time! :)

We started the day off early again today.... thanks to Miss Gabi. I figure that her body clock will adjust about the time we get home. Ah well. It gave us a chance to get out to the golf course before it hit the 90 degree range again. There were actually quite a few folks out on the course this morning. But even so, we played the entire 9 holes in about an hour. Max had a much better day on the links. Me, not so much. There's always the next round tho'.

On the way back from the golf course, I decided to snap a pic of the part of the park where we are staying. This is from one of the corners, looking towards our trailer. As you can see, there are a ton of open spaces. Although they've had probably a half dozen folks pull in just today. Apparently by the first part of November, this place is nearly full.

Then we decided to go see the Sonoran Desert Museum. Someone had told us that it is a "must see" out here in Tucson. We have to agree, even though we only made it through about a fourth of the whole thing. It is all outside, more of a combination zoo and botanical garden rather than a museum. And of course, our timing put us there at the hottest part of the day. It was VERY hot here again today. The thing we loved the most was the hummingbird "house". Oh my God, it was awesome.

They actually had a very large screened in area, with trees, habitat, etc for the hummingbirds. They have about 6 to 8 different species of hummingbirds in there. And let me tell you, you can get up very close to them! I was able to catch this little guy as he fed. They are fast and they are beautiful!

After the museum, it was time to run a few errands.... the main one being the grocery store. I happened to see on the map that they gave us at check-in that there is a Trader Joe's in the neighborhood. I have a couple of friends in California that just rave about how great Trader Joe's is.... that they wouldn't shop anywhere else. So of course, I just had to try it out.

Honestly, I wasn't that impressed. Our Fresh Market back home is a much better place to shop for the interesting, delicious, and exotic. Trader Joe's pales in comparison. So we picked up a few things and then went and found a Safeway to get what Max called "real groceries". Grin. I kinda have to agree with him.

Tomorrow we wrap up things here in Tucson. I really wish that we had a few more days since I haven't seen nearly all I wanted to. Ah well, there's always next time!

Cheers,

Dr J

A day at the resort.....

They don't "do" daylight savings time here in Tucson. So at about 3:30 this morning, Gabi decided it was time to get up. Fortunately, Max was able to convince her that it was still the middle of the night. She trundled back to bed (with us, of course!) until about 6am. The poor puppy was convinced that we were VERY late with her breakfast this morning. -grin-

While out with the girls this morning, I noticed a slight drip in the water line so while I fixed breakfast, Max got to fix our problem. I noticed during cleanup that our water pressure was nearly non-existent. So after several attempts at fixing our water, we thought to check the next lot over since it is empty.... same problem. I finally called the front desk and was told that the water was turned off about 20 minutes earlier and would be off the rest of the day. sigh. At least the problem wasn't us! Fortunately we still had fresh water in the tank from our trip out here so we could at least do the basics.

After starting our day in a bit of disarray, it DID get better. They held their first farmer's market of the season this morning at the resort. That really sounds weird to this midwesterner as our farmer's markets are actually winding down this time of year.

As you can see, it was a pretty small market but I did manage to find a lovely silver ring that my hubby didn't mind buying for me. I'm a lucky girl.

Then we decided that it was time to try out the golf course.

It says, Voyager Country Club.... but that is perhaps a bit grand for the actual course. To begin with, the pro shop doesn't actually open until November thru April. So the whole thing is on the honor system. Seriously. It is a very short, nine hole course where all of the holes are par 3s. Once we looked at the scorecard, Max took about half of his clubs out of his bag and I took about a fourth of my clubs out of the bag. Why? Well first of all, we didn't need the longer clubs. But mostly because this is such a small course that motorized carts aren't allowed. So we had to (gasp) actually walk the course! Max opted to carry his bag but I wussed out and rented a pull cart. And boy am I glad that I did! It was HOT today.

Anyway, the course is is pretty rough shape. In fact they told us that they will be closing the course on the 7th for overseeding and it will be closed until November. So at least we timed our trip correctly! And did I mention that it is a very small course? It is so small that you can stand on the first tee box and see the entire course. No kidding. But it was fun enough that we will go back again for another 9 holes tomorrow. Although we will go out earlier. Even though it only took us about 1 1/2 hours to play today, we didn't finish until noon. And it was HOT!

So of course, I had to do the obligatory photos of each of us on the course. We are posing on the 7th tee box, so we were both pretty wilted by then.

We rounded out the day with more of the resort's amenities. Max opted for the gym. They have a REALLY nice one here. I opted for the swimming pool. They actually have 3 swimming pools here, along with a huge whirlpool. Quite the view, eh??

We are a tired troop this evening, so it was okay with all of us to spend the evening in. It isn't too bad sitting outside this evening watching the moon rise. I could get used to this.

Cheers,

Dr J

Hatch and then Tucson

We headed south out of Socorro this morning. Actually got away about 9:30 this morning. That IS early for us, folks.

On the way to Tucson, we had to make the obligatory stop in Hatch, NM. You know, the home of the chili. As we approached Hatch (and as we left town), there were fields and fields of chilis. You could see the chilis from the highway..... bright yellow, red, and green. It was really lovely.

Anyway, we stopped at couple of the small shops in Hatch. They definitely aren't very fancy, but we did come away with some fresh red chili powder. Judy O tells me that it is the best for cooking. And on Ron's recommendation, we got some of the green chili salsa. Haven't tried it as yet, but anything with green chili is more than fine with me!

Now that I've mentioned green chilis, I have to backtrack and tell you about dinner last night. Afterall, our trips DO seem to revolve around food! On Ron and Judy O's recommendation, we went to a place called Frank and Lupe's El Sombrero in Socorro. Oh. My. God. It was good! I had some chicken enchiladas that were covered in a creamy poblana sauce. Dang, I wanted to lick the plate ... they were THAT good. Fortunately, I was able to restrain myself a little and had some yummy leftovers for dinner tonite.

We traveled our obligatory 5 to 6 hours today and got to Tucson this afternoon. Our RV park is actually an RV resort. And I DO mean resort! It is HUGE, about 1200 spaces. And the spaces are really close together. And there is hardly a tree in sight. But the amenities are amazing..... 9 hole par 3 golf course, 3 swimming pools, library, ballroom, ceramics shop, wood shop, silver shop, lapidary shop, billiards room, poker room, fitness center, sewing room, market, bar, restaurant..... I could go on and on.

I think that we are really gonna like this place for the next 3 days!

Cheers,

Dr J

One more from Socorro

I can't resist. One more photo from the RV park in Socorro. Right next to one of the abandoned cars (Max thinks it is a Mercedes), is what looks to be an old fashioned coffin! And no, I didn't look inside! :)

Socorro

Some will ask, why Socorro? Hmmmm, now that we are pulled onto our overnight spot, I'm beginning to wonder as well. This is a view from our door. There are 4, count 'me, 4 derelict old cars and 2 old trailers within our view. Not to mention the small front loader tractor that appears to have been abandoned several years ago while the driver was smoothing the gravel in the park. Interesting park.

To be fair, this is the view from our trailer back down towards the office. While it isn't beautiful, the park is serviceable. And..... Folks, there is a beauty parlor in the office. Seriously. There are two beauty parlor a chairs, sinks, and all the trappings. I kid you not.

So why Socorro? Well, the total trip time from Wichita to Tucson is about 17 hours. We decided to split it into three days of driving at around 6 hours each day. That meant Wichita to DalHart to Socorro to Tucson. Can't wait to get to our resort RV park tomorrow!

Cheers,

Dr J

Another thing about Dalhart

Okay, we learned a couple more things about Dalhart last night and this morning. First, there is a huge railyard right next to the RV park. Heck it runs the length of the town as far as we could see. Heard a lot of trains last night. Didn't bother me too much but Max says one was tooting its horn about 4 this morning. I didn't hear a thing. Grin.

We also realized that there are some humongo feedlots just outside of town. We suspected something like that when the storm that blew through yesterday evening changed the wind direction. My oh my, what a fragrant aroma! I was wondering why the folks next to us had their trailer all shut up tight and were running their AC. Except for the smell, it was a beautiful evening out.

Oh, and sometime during the drive yesterday, we discovered that Gabi doesn't like her harness. I mean she REALLY doesn't like it. She chewed completely through it in one place and most of the way through in another. See??!?!

Rotten dog.

On the road again today....

Cheers,

Dr J