May 18, 2013 - Time to do Some Housework, Etc.

A very quiet morning. Marilyn did laundry and cleaned the fifth wheel while I worked on the blog. Everything is now clean and up-to-date. Went into Santa Fe after lunch to do some grocery shopping and get the lay of the land. Marilyn liked the $2.99 wine at Trader Joe's. Me I preferred the meat counter at Whole Foods Market. Thought about eating out but things were very busy so we picked up some stuff for dinner and headed home. While grocery shopping we saw some fiddleheads and got all excited until we saw the price $20/lb. Too expensive,...

May 17, 2013 - Halfway Across Route 66

Today was a long drive. Amarillo to Santa Fe, New Mexico. I-40 almost all the way and the truck had to work extra hard as we battled headwinds and a 4000' rise in elevation. Just west of Amarillo we saw a piece of art work called Cadillac Ranch. Ten Cadillacs had been buried nose first in the ground in a row. Over the years people have spray painted all sorts of graffiti on the cars (with permission). We also saw a cattle feedlot that held 28,000 cattle. Huge. 90% of the cattle in Texas pass through Amarillo. This is 25% of the cattle in...

May 11, 2013 - Santa Fe, NM

We left Gallup and travel about 200 miles to Santa Fe. Along the way we continued east on I-40 with the edge of the Colorado Plateau to our left. Then we lost site of the Plateau and we passed through some dry rolling country. This included a few miles of lava beds. Known as Malpais, or badlands, these extended a few miles on both sides of the interstate including in the median. This is pretty open country. We came to Albuquerque and turned north to Santa Fe. We chose to visit Santa Fe because it had a good RV park, and Albuquerque...

Apr 21, 2013 - cliff climbing day

It was cliff explorations today as there are some excellent sites close to Santa Fe. We motored up to Puye Cliffs which is a group of caves and shelters that were occupied from 1200 to around 1600 by the ancestors of the tribe running the tours. Our guide, Madelaine, was very knowledgeable and she told us she had been coming to these caves with her grandparents since she was a little girl. She explained how life was for these folks and how they existed, living off the land growing crops and raising turkeys not originally for meat but for...

Apr 20, 2013 - Santa Fe via Tonto & UNB

It’s getting warmer (but not fast enough or warm enough for Donna!) so we got ready to head into town on our bikes. One last check of everything revealed that our camera, our reliable, compact part of our traveling family, wouldn’t turn on! And it is amazing how, when something doesn’t work, one just keeps trying it over and over and over and over............and it still wouldn’t turn on, for either Wayne nor Donna (as if IT would know which of us was flicking its switch!). A quick search in Google resulted in knowing that others had this...

Apr 19, 2013 - love the High Plains of New Mexico

We made our first stop this morning at the Santa Fe Visitors centre and were blown away by Patricia, who had an unsurpassed knowledge of her community. For every question we asked she had an answer and at least one piece of promotional paper. As you know Donna has questions so we left with a stack of booklets, maps and pamphlets that would take a month to read. We decided that a return trip was a must so let’s just head to Taos on the High Road and see whatever we can fit in. The drive up was spectacular as we wound through the hills and...

Apr 18, 2013 - God bless Texas - it needs all the help it can get!!!

It was bloody FREEZING this morning!!! OMG – what happened to our wonderful, warm, delightful high 20’s days?????? We know all you guys back home are chuckling at our misfortunate – admit it, yes YOU are!!! It was the first time we had tried our furnace since it crapped out on us in January (and miraculously fixed itself) so we were keeping our fingers crossed that our kind words to it (ya, right!) had not fallen on deaf ears (or nuts and bolts!). Otherwise we would have been hanging out in the all night Walmart...........all night! But...

Mar 24, 2013 - Santa Fe

Today we saw Santa Fe. It was very pretty (I am running out of descriptors). We loved all of the southwestern architecture but we did not find much else to do but shop. Neither one of us did too much damage today. We thought the drive this morning to Santa Fe was boring when all of a sudden we were in beautiful desert and rock country again. From Santa Fe to Santa Rosa it was definitely boring. We now understand why people claim aliens land around here. There is no one and nothing to prove them wrong. So our camera saga had another chapter...

Dec 3, 2012 - Do You Believe in Miracles?

Do you believe in miracles? We report...you decide. Arriving in Albuquerque for a few days, on Monday we drove to Santa Fe to see several things on our "bucket list." Santa Fe is a beautiful city and is the "oldest state capital in the U.S." Santa Fe is one of the country's most famous walking cities. It's small enough to navigate easily on foot, with miles of winding streets filled with charming adobe shops, homes and historic buildings as well as contemporary galleries, boutiques and restaurants. Not being shoppers, we did enjoy spending...

Nov 25, 2012 - A Great Month in New Mexico and Colorado!

As we drove through Lexington, Kentucky to the Barklay Lake Resort, we were amazed by the the miles of spectacular horse farms that bordered the Blue Grass Parkway. I'm not often impressed by the evidence of wealth, but in this case I was in awe of the opulent ranches, the expanxe of white fences and of course, the magnificent horses. It was so far out of my personal range of experiences that I almost felt as if it were a movie setting. Alan was equally interested by all of the distilleries that we passed!!! Kentucky bourbon abounds!! We...

Oct 27, 2012 - Socorro to Santa Fe

Another cold morning in the desert at Socorro so jeans and windcheaters were pulled out of the bag. Drove up the interstate to Los Lunas for morning tea and a wander around the local Home Depot. The hardware stores are always interesting due to content and variation of their stock. Unfortunately 110 volts won't cut the mustard in Australia and most of the other stuff of interest is to big or too heavy to bring home. Next stop was Albuquerque and a visit to the National Nuclear Science Museum. This museum covered the history of nuclear...

Oct 14, 2012 - a family business

Sunday we took a ‘down day’ and just stayed in our campground to get the trip journal caught up. The Santa Fe Skies RV Park is a very special place, run by a very interesting family and a nice and friendly one. The owner John is a heavy construction expert and he has done big projects all over the state. He has a sweeping business besides his job with the state, and he has the RV park where he has installed a million dollar solar array that generates nearly 200 KW of power. The system feeds back into the grid and has already half paid for...