text draft FMCA Albuquerque

Albuquerque FMCA Convention and Rally


Saturday when we hit the road it was still very chilly—in fact the outside thermometer never climbed above 40C, 39 0F, all day. The wind was still there though not quite as strong as yesterday so we made reasonable time. A hour later Art pulled into a rest area—he had seriously misjudged the heat in the sun and realised that a T shirt was not enough! He donned a sweat sweatshirt, we made a couple of mugs of hot coffee and hot chocolate and carried on. At the rest area a class C motorhome pulled up alongside sporting remnants of snow on the roof and hood!

Directions to the site we clear and explicit so we arrived at the marshaling point with out problem—though we noticed a couple of rigs in front of us missed the left turn to the freeway frontage road. Here we picked up our parking and convention documents and information, un-hooked the car and proceeded the several blocks to our parking spot.

Comments at the parking area were “why are your vehicles so clean, didn't you run into the snow storm?” So we shouldn't complain too loudly!

It didn't take long to set up—jacks down and slides out, throw the dogs off their bed and put the dinette up and we were done. There was no need for the awnings and it was too windy in and case; we certainly wouldn't be sitting out in this wind and cold even if it was sunny so the chairs didn't have to come out either.

Just before 6:00PM (MDT) we turned on the inverter, raised the satellite dish and watched the CHEK 5 o'clock news from home. It was a bit frustrating seeing the warmer temperatures there!!


Sunday 7:15 Mountain Daylight Time

Outside temperature -3.90 C, 250 F !!! Bright sunlight is starting to stream thorough the front door window but there is not a lot of heat in it yet. We set the thermostat for 61 before going to bed last night so the propane furnace kept us warm enough under the quilt. It was a bit cool in the front part of the coach this morning but the bath and bedrooms weren't too bad. Of course we still have no hot water and the battery voltage is down to 12.1 volts, having been running the furnace fan for a significant portion of the night. Art's morning ablutions were made a little more comfortable by heating water on the stove.

We are scheduled to have 120V power at the sites buy 9:00 AM this morning but so far no there is no sign of the powerplants being started up. Until then will have to use our own generator. Which will soon charge the batteries, run the tv and microwave and provide some hot water. We will still have to rely on the furnace as the outside temperature is far too low for the heat pump to operate efficiently!

Last night we phoned our friends Ken and Cathy, owners of Marleybones the dog whom we had first met several years ago in Zacatecas and had run into them again this year at El Manglar. They live here in Albuquerque and suggested we phone when we arrive. We are going to meet them for brunch in town.

Lots more to come here.