South from Albuquerque

Waking about 8:00 AM to a little frost on the jeep, not as bad as yesterday.

After breakfast for us and the dogs Gillian set off to pick up the winter's supply of Trekker's food. Art finished packing up the rig and planting the herbs in a container we had bought yesterday. The timing was perfect; Art finished his chores just as Gillian returned.

We were on the road about 11:15 enroute we hoped for Carlsburg, the home of the famous caverns which we had seen before. This time it would be just for the night. And as it turned out, laundry and internet!


The trip was uneventful--Roswell notwithstanding, where we stopped for fuel. $3.719 a gallon. We should be good now until Mexico, where we expect about 80 cents a litre!

As we were approaching Roswell Trekker kept a sharp lookout for aliens!




Did I say uneventful? Boring would be closer. Several hundred miles of more or less flat. These two photos were taken 2 1/2 hours apart!

The good news is that we descended about 2500 feet from Albuquerque with a tail wind! Better than 10 mpg for the day!



As Art was starting dinner he heard another ham radio station on the air. He answered the call and had a very short chat with a local ham looking for a signal report after setting up a new antenna. When they finished their conversation, another station called him--a ham in the next site in the RV Park!

The rest of the night we passed on the internet looking up options for Mexico, e-mail and the blog, and watching a couple of favourite Brittish TV series--"Heartbeat" and "Frost".

If we get going earlier enough in the morning we may make Eagle Pass, Texas--our crossing point for Mexico. We'll overnight in the Walmart and cross as early as we can get rolling.

Bluff to Albuquerque

Departing Bluff in rain and cloud we had finally decided to head to Albuquerque and perhaps visit Santa Fe by car. The trip wasn't too exciting, the low cloud and light rain had essentially taken out the view. Even the spectacular Ship Rock was no where to be seen, even though yesterday we had seen it from near Bluff, some 50 miles away! I'll post an old pic of the rock later if I can find it.It won't be on this laptop, there are on a memory stick somewhere!

We drove south just into Arizona then west to New Mexico and finally roughly south west to Albuquerque. Along the way we found fuel at a small Native owned station and store, at $3.759 per US gallon, just under $1.00 a litre. We later discovered that New Mexico has the cheapest fuel in the USA. We also spotted one place in Albuquerque with diesel at 3.629 per gallon.

Looking for a place to stay for the night we soon realised that having the Woodall's RV guide on the laptop might save weight and space, but having the laptop stored under the dinette made looking for things while driving a bit difficult. So punching "Walmart" into the GPS we found a place to park. In the morning we would search out a campground.

Across the street from Walmart was a Chili's restaurant, one of our favourite chain restaurants. When Gillian asked tentatively "Do you want to go to Chili's tonight Art promptly replied "Sure!". The alternative of course being a) a disappointed wife or b) having to cook himself! We had a great dinner and returned to the rig and went to bed.

In the morning we dug out the laptop and searched out a campground near the north end of town--closer to Santa Fe and some friends we planned to visit. Last night we had called our friends Ken and Cathy (whom we had met years ago in Zacatecas, Mexico) and arranged to meet the next day.


Once settled in the Balloon Fiesta RV Park we called them, they came over to pick us up and we went off with them for a wonderful lunch at a traditional New Mexico restaurant. The food was as wonderful as the ambiance. We have never had a more succulent burrito!


We were then taken to the Coronado State Park, a wonderfully recreated (on the same grounds) ancient native settlement. We were fortunate to be able to enter a recreated (in 1940!) Kiva.

A Kiva is a (mostly) underground building, access (as for all of their buildings) from the roof via a ladder. A kiva in a building solely for the use of men. Women were only permitted to enter in order to bring food or drink and were never permitted to spend the night. Before the "equal rites" people out there take offense, this was only fair, as the women owned the houses and men who had been thrown out of the house need a place to spend the night! Unfortunately photographs of the murals or of the interior of the kiva were not permitted.






They did have a good way of keeping people on the paved paths.





On the way home Cathy spotted a nursery. We had mentioned earlier that we hoped to find some culinary herbs to replace the planter that we had left home. We got some free basil (possibly damaged by the cold but may recover), parsley, tarragon, oregano, sage, marjoram, thyme and mint, all in 2" pots.

Back at the motorhome Art had a decision to make--investigate a battery problem or watch the news from home with a glass in hand. For once he made the right choice and tackled the batteries.

It is impossible to check the specific gravity in all four batteries without removing the first two from the tray--the cables aren't long enough allow the tray to be pulled all the way out. But: On inspection Art noticed one connection was very corroded. He removed all the cables to the front 2 batteries, checked the SG--all readings were good--and cleaned all the cables and terminals.

One end of one cable was so covered with corrosion that it was surprising that any electrons had been able to fight their way through. He began scraping with a knife but some of it was so hard the knife had almost no effect. Art sprayed the end with terminal cleaner, let it set for 5 minutes and was then able to scrape off the softened material. It required 2 repeats to remove all the corrosion! He reassembled the battery bank, washed up, changed out of his "battery maintenance" clothes and had a drink while watching the later news.

It seemed to have sorted the problem, but the test will be the next "off grid" night.



Next morning Art looked out the bedroom window to see the black top of the jeep mostly white! No, not the S word, it was the F word. A very heavy Frost. Not surprisingly the furnace had come on quite regularly during the night!




Art woke up quite sore--probably from climbing the ladder out of the kiva--and didn't really feel like trekking up to Santa Fe. Since we would be paying for internet on a 24 hour basis we waited a bit to log on so we would have a short time at least before leaving next morning. When we checked the e-mails, there was one from Cathy inviting us to lunch at their place! They have a beautiful passive solar adobe house at the base of a mountain which sports a cable car to the summit. We decided that we would do Santa Fe and Taos, another year.

After lunch the four of us set off and took the "flight" to the top. The trip was about 14 minutes each way, spectacular scenery all around, below and above. Ken, who had hiked and climbed this area years ago, provided very interesting commentary.

One canyon (photo to come I hope) was called TWA Canyon for decades. Just after the cable car went into service Ken was going up with some visiting friends. As Ken pointed out TWA Canyon his friend had a surprising reaction.


The canyon was so named after a terrible air crash many years before. A TWA airliner had entered the clouds after takeoff from Albuquerque. This particular aircraft had two compasses, one set on each side of the aircraft. In this case one had an error and the pilot had to guess which one was correct. He guessed wrong. At the last minute he saw mountain in front of him and turned the aircraft to the left. As it happens, this was his second wrong guess and the aircraft hit the face of the canyon and all on board were killed. To this day there are still pieces of aluminum to be found at the bottom of the canyon. Has he turned the other way there was a good chance that he would have made it.

Ken's friend had been booked on this flight but the desk clerk in his hotel forgot the wake up call and he missed the plane.

We passed a short time on the top, the ladies going for a hike and Art and Ken sat chatting in the sun. The view was spectacular, though a bit hazy in the distance. Ken said that on a clear day you could see 6o miles to the west.

On the way home we stopped in for a bit of shopping, groceries (red wine, white wine, vermouth and milk) and planter and potting soil for the herbs we had purchased yesterday.

Tired after the days activities we settles for a few leftovers for dinner, watched "New Tricks" on the TV (during which Art worked on the blog) and went to bed. Moving on somewhere in a southerly direction tomorrow. The next time we can be reasonably sure of internet will be in Saltillo, Mexico, in a few days.

Moab and Bluff

October 22

An easy day today: 3/4 of a mile after getting back on the I 70 we took the exit for Moab. Hardly got up to cruising speed! And only 40 or so miles to go.

A nice flat road in reasonable condition at first then we began to descend, winding our way through beautiful rock formations. Most of the the traffic consisted of 4X4s of some description or other, or vehicles towing trailers carrying quads and dirt bikes. We have never seen so many Jeeps in one place!

Entering the town we began watching for an RV Park. We had been here before, in quite a nice park. However in Zihuatanejo last year we met a man who owned an RV Park in Moab which was just to the north of the one we knew. As we approached, we passed one, saying, “No. that wasn't it.” then we spied the Sliprock RV Park and Art exclaimed “That's it” and we pulled in.

The two people behind the counter were dealing with other customers, the man leaving to check something out for one of them. Then it was our turn. While Gillian was taking care of the paperwork Art asked the young lady if the owner was in Mexico last year and was told yes, that was the man who had just gone out. Art thought he had looked familiar!

When he returned Art asked him if we had perhaps met in Zihuatanejo last season and his response was “Yes! I thought you looked familiar!” Mathew is taking his old bus to Cancun this year, leaving in ten days. We may see him on the road as we too are visiting the Yucatan peninsula this year.

Mathew told us that they are almost overwhelmed; He had laid off most of the staff two weeks ago as the season came to an end. This weekend however they had 90% occupancy due to the combination of two unforeseen things: 1) a very warm and sunny week, and 2) Teachers on a two day “professional day” resulting in a 4 day weekend for school kids. Time to hit the desert and the rocks!

Parked and level, slides out. Under and between a few big trees, satellite reception looked like it might be iffy. Art pushed the buttons and a few minutes we had a signal. Now we can watch the weather reports from home and smile smugly.

We spent the day trying to get the internet to work, catching up with the bank accounts and bills, then trying to figure out how to get our e-mail address book from Thunderbird into Shaw Webmail, then trying to figure out how Shaw Webmail deals with e-mail address groups. Not intuitive at all. Still working on it!

During this process we discovered that many e-mail addresses that we used when traveling were only on the Telus webmail address book which is now non-existent! Hopefully we can find them through friends. Or this blog! If you expected to hear from us and haven't, please send us an e-mail!

Then a trip though town, just having a look around and doing a bit of grocery shopping. Just a bit? Over $100.00! And to make matters worse the Canadian dollar is still half a cent below the American dollar, which means about 5 cents on the dollar by the time the Bank takes their cut.

Back at the rig to continue e-mails and to work on the blog. Of course now was the time for the internet to go out again. Access: Local Only! So to Open Office to write the draft there and will copy and past when the internet opens up again.

Of course by now it's evening, all the explorers are back and on the internet. When it is up it is very slow. Hopefully during the day tomorrow it will be faster and more reliable.

Smoke alarm just went off. Dinner must be just about ready.

Dinner done, lamb steak (no, not burnt!) Art carried on with the blog while watching Heartbeat on the Knowledge Network. Bonus: An old episode but somehow one we hadn't seen before. This was followed by “Frost”, one that Art had seen but Gillian hadn't (probably due to a dog class of some sort!)

So late to bed tonight, but we weren't going anywhere tomorrow.

9:40 Sunday morning we woke up! Guess we needed the sleep. After breakfast, during which we watched the news from home, Art spent the rest of the morning (and well into the afternoon!) on the internet working on the e-mail webmail address book.

He had finally figured out how to import the address book from Thunderbird but it seemed at first to not be working. After three attempts he discovered that it had in fact imported everything three times! The error messages that had been coming up appeared to have been related to only one or two addresses! It took a lot of time to delete the duplicates and triplicates! While at it we deleted many unused addresses. If we deleted yours inadvertently and you are not getting e-mails from us please let us know.

Later in the day we went into town to take Gillian's jeep through the carwash. Somewhere at home she had parked the car under a tree resulting in small dark blue almost black stains all over the hood and front fenders. The wash made almost no difference but did remove the residue of the bug and tar remover we had used and had to be rinsed off.

Then to the Moab Brewery for lunch and a local micro brew. We each chose their Scorpion Ale, a highly hopped brew which went well with Art's Jack Daniels Burger and Gillian enjoyed hers with Veggie Wrap with humus and blue cheese. The bill came in at under $25.00

On the way back to the campground we stopped off for look around the well set out and informative Visitors Center. Interesting fact: Utah requires operators of ATVs to have an ATV operator's permit or license. If your jurisdiction has such a program it is accepted here. If not, you have to get a permit here before heading to the hills in your ATV. We didn't look into the requirements since we don't have an ATV.

Back in the motorhome Art went back to the computer—Access: Local Only. So he lay down on the couch for a nap while Gillian got out the liquid wax and went to work on the spots on HER jeep!

The RV Park pretty much emptied out today, very quiet this evening. If the internet connection was up it would probably be quite quick!

Tomorrow, the town of Bluff, a few hours drive to the south. We have stayed there before and should have reliable internet connection there.

Monday, October 24

In the morning we tried the internet again; still :Local Only. Gillian went up to the office to find another camper with the same problem. He then went into the office ask for a reset of the modem. Gillian had the dogs and couldn't take them inside.

Some time later Art walked up to see if anything could be done. There he met a couple from Saltair BC, about 4 miles from where he grew up! They too were having problems. Just then the young lady from the office came out and indicating a man sitting at a picnic table, said that she had reset the modem and that he was using the wireless.

Art chatted with the couple for a few minutes and returned to the rig to find Gillian reading the e-mail! We took care of some urgent business via e-mail and Skype then began packing up.

As we drove began to take notice of fuel prices as we would need to take on some diesel somewhere in the next 500 kilometers or so. The price of diesel at one station was 4.199 per US gallon--higher than some in California. A bit further on we saw that in most places prices were nearer or under $4.00.

We have been in this area several times and have many photos so picture taking was minimal, but here are a few just to add come colour to the blog.

We stopped for a few minutes in Blanding, just a short distance north of Bluff, to buy a few groceries that we had forgotten. Bluff doesn't really have a grocery store. Here Art made a sandwich for himself using the last of his ham and a fresh bagel from the store. Gillian had the remains of her wrap and salad from yesterday, which we ate on the road.

We found the Cadillac Ranch RV park with ease, having stayed here several times. The dogs love it: ducks, emus, a donkey, a small fishing pond that Trekker did not unfortunately get to swim in.

The rest of the day was spent just lazing around, Gillian with a book, sitting on a bench by the fishing pond and Art updating the blog then taking his siesta. The day drew to a close with a beautiful sunset behind the hills to the west.

For dinner Gillian made a pasta sauce, some of which will be turned into chili later. For the pasta itself we defrosted some pasta dough that Art had made at home and he kneaded, rolled and cut fresh fettuccine. The rolling and cutting was aided by some homemade red wine which later made a good accompaniment to the dinner.

We woke in the wee small hours to the patter of raindrops on the roof and the sound of the wind rattling the awning. Art got up, pushed the button to retract it and went back to bed.

In the morning we woke to cloudy skies and not a sign of the overnight shower--the wet had completely evaporated. The only sign of the rain was tiny water spots in the dust on the Jeep.

After a leisurely breakfast Gillian walked the dogs while Art tackled several day's accumulation of dead bugs on the windshield and the front of the coach. While at it he gave all the other windows a quick swipe as well. After the dog walk Gillian went back to work on HER jeep.

In the afternoon we went sight seeing in the jeep around areas we had seen before. Dry rocky country, a few horses and a few sheep was all we saw in the way of farming or ranching. Every once in a while we would come across a house alone in the middle of nowhere.

Our goal was Hovenweep ruins. Along the way we stopped at Hatch Trading Post, a rather picturesque place. . . at least on the outside. Inside it was more or less a small general store with one cooler full of beer, another full of soft drinks ( a good selection though), an assortment of snack foods and canned goods and a small but nice selection of native made jewelry and pottery.

At Hovenweep we walked about a bit, Gillian taking the dogs on one of the concrete paths, keeping a sharp eye out for rattlesnakes, there being a warning sign posted in the Visitors Center. We had been here a few years ago but had come from Cortez, Colorado.

Looking at the landscape it is hard to believe that the people who lived here essentially practiced "dry farming" that is without irrigation, relying only on rainfall, although they did apparently have a few small irrigated terraces.

We continued on the road, more or less doing a loop, back to the road to Bluff. Clouds began to form around us, there was a light sprinkle of rain and lightning strikes between ground and cloud--not too close fortunately.

Returning to Bluff we pulled into Twin Rock Cafe for a late lunch that will probably be dinner! Great food there again. The two spires on the left are known as the "Navajo Twins"

Leaving Twin Rocks we passed by Bluff Fort which which had been in the early stages of renovation when we were here three years ago. We notice the open sign was still up so we looked in. The lady in the info center called her husband on his cell phone to ask him to keep the cabins open for us.

We began touring the grounds just as the rain began. But without rain you can't have rainbows.

We were amazed with the progress made in the last three years. Besides preserving original structures they are well into recreating the old fort, building replicas of the original settlers' cabins and blacksmith shop and wagons. Also just being started, to be finished next year is the stone Co-Op Store.

Back at the motorhome Gillian took the dogs for a quick walk around the duck pond then loaded them and the laundry to go to the laundromat half a mile up the road. The dogs will complete their evening walk while Gillian waits for the machines to finishing going round.

The rains returned along with a little thunder and lightning so we spent the evening deciding which of the 99 photos should go in the blog, reading and watching TV.

Tomorrow we move on into New Mexico, either Santa Fe or Albuquerque. We want to visit both, not sure yet which we'll do first.

Nevada

In the morning we confirmed our thoughts of driving across Nevada on Highway 50, known as the “Loneliest Road in America” and set off at 9:50. Part of this road was the route of the old Pony Express. Gillian found it worth a smile as we encountered a US Postal Service van then a UPS truck on the same road.

We made excellent progress, though keeping our speed to 55 0r 60 MPH in order to see what mileage we could get (about 10 US MPG) over the distance.

About half way across we began to run into mountain ranges: Grind up hill, sometimes for miles, then down again, then miles of flatland at the bottom and back up hill to do it all over again.

The town of Austin looked to be an interesting place, we almost regret not stopping. We were a bit pushed for time as this was one long road. In retrospect we should have stopped. As we approached town we got behind a huge hay truck grinding up about 6 miles of hill!

At the top of the hill the truck pulled over. Soon we were going back down the other side which led us to a very long straight stretch. Almost time for a nap.

The scenery was interesting, the variety making the drive easy. Good thing too as we arrived at the Silver Slag RV Park in Eureka Nevada at 5:30 PM after 771 kilometers and almost 9 hours of driving.

Nevada to Utah

Friday, October 21 we departed minutes before 9:00 AM. It had been a very cold night but was warming fast in the sun. Even the heavy 50Amp power cord had warmed enough to be fairly easy to coil back into the bin.

We were heading into what might be another long day. Moab, Utah, was where we planned to spend a couple of days in an RV Park doing laundry, catching up on e-mails, banking and the blog. Moab however is a loooooong drive from here. Not sure we want to too many more of those. Not really planning to reach Moab today, we'll just see how close we get and so have a short run tomorrow.

Still long hills, though not quite so much, and lots of long relatively flat country. Geology lessons continued as the many soil and rock layers were exposed. (Click the photo to enlarge it then use the Back Arrow to return to the blog)

110 miles later we crossed into Utah. Just before the border we stopped for fuel, then for lunch at Summit Pass at 6280 feet. From here we continued on the 50 until it met I 15 which we followed north for 10 miles or so where the 50 cuts off to the south-west for a while to the join the I 70; 126 more miles to the exit for highway 191 which we would follow to Moab then later our route to Bluff.

The road was for the first part slow curves and gentle hills. We were sure we had taken this stretch before but nothing was familiar. It was 100 miles later when we came across the exit for Highway 6. that the lights came on: the last time we followed I 70 to Moab we had come from Provo, Utah, and taken the 6 to the I 70.

The road atlas showed three Rest Areas on the I 70, the “Next Exit” mentioned several Rest Areas and View Areas at near the same locations. The GPS notified us of upcoming View Areas. We planned to stop for a break for the dogs at one of these Rest Areas but it wasn't there!

The geology was changing as we entered mesa and canyon country that Utah is famous for and that we love so much.

About 80 miles before our turnoff for Moab we pulled into a View Area at Mile 104 for a stretch and some photos then carried on, thinking that we would probably stop for the night at the next one 20 or 30 miles further along I 70.

We found the next area as advertised but as we pulled in a sign directed Trucks to the left, the truck parking was only a wide loop just off the freeway. Cars were directed to the right where a narrow road wined up the hill between the rocks. Discretion being the better part etc etc we pulled back onto the road and carried on. Hoping that the next and last Rest Area would be where the atlas and the book said it would be, otherwise it might be a night drive to Moab!

With the sun almost at the horizon we were getting close. We were now, and had been for some time, in the midst of starkly beautiful geological formation for which Utah is famous and that we love so much. They looked so much different in the evening light. We weren't even put off by the highway sign.

Shortly after descending this cut, At 7:00 PM, at Mile Marker 180, we found our Rest Area. Not only recognizing it as where we had spent the night some years before, we also parked in the same space up alongside the bank where we could put the slide out with out risking passing traffic.

We got out for a stretch, the dogs as well, took some more photos (the motorhome pic was taken the next morning), set up the satellite, watched the news, had dinner and went to bed. 691 kilometers today. Tomorrow, Moab.