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.