We're New to New Mexico!

So the sad news is that New Mexico is slowly opening up.  Meaning the grocery stores are open & restaurant dine-in is limited to 25% capacity.  So the pools, museums and sightseeing stuff is closed.  Bummer.

But the outdoors is unlimited.  So let me explain, Tijeras, NM is about 6,000 feet above sea level.  There is limited grass but unlimited sand, rock, cactus and fun.  Our campground is limited to 50% capacity.  Its that gravel sand combination and in a valley. 

There are numerous mountains, trails and paths all over so we decided to do the the walking trails.  I used an app on my phone, AllTrails, to find one.  It was listed as "easy" and only about 6 miles away.  We were concerned about the terrain & temperature so Rita decided to stay back in CC and do some computer work.

Good thing she did.  We attempted to walk the Arroyo Trail.  Is started off semi flat but after we walked through the arroyo we came to a "Y" in the trail.  I seemed to have lost my map reading skills and we took of on the trail to the right.  It was a pretty interesting trail.  Super rocky, winding all over the place and most importantly, UP hill.  Kids scampered up with no problem, this old guy was sucking wind.  Granted the trail started a 6,000 feet above sea level but when we popped out onto another trail entry point we were at: 

Great view for these folks that live here, but the dogs didn't care for our intrusion, lots of barking.  The kicker was we were on the wrong trail. 

 So we "sauntered" back down the trail (way easier) and took the left fork and walked that for awhile.  Guess what still the wrong trail again, still not the Arroyo Trail.  But it had great views, not quite as hilly and we had a great time.  Stopped along the trail for a snack and a drink.  

And some blooming cactus.

When we got to the car we decided to try geocacheing.  Jackie had asked me to make sure Kolton gets some finds in states that she hasn't been to.  After a rocky start using his iPad for locating and struggling through one search we switched to my iphone at a different cache and found one!

By then we were ready to return to CC.  Me for a cocktail & the kids to their bikes.

Double day of driving!

OK so the last post I mentioned the 300 miles a day.  Maybe I should have said 300ish..... We are heading west.  We have an appointment in Tucson for some improvements to CC.  We don't have to rush so we decided to drive two days.  Spend a couple of nights at a resort, then drive two days.

So we left Grove, OK and are going to a campground on the Oklahoma / Texas border.  It's about 348 miles which isn't bad.  We planned on a picnic stop to break it up then fill on diesel near our campground.  Not surprisingly lunch plans changed.

So some background.   Everytime we (Bill, Rita, Brandi & Jackie) see a buffalo, we call them buffalo not bison, one of us we undoubtedly say, "look at the head on that one."  That's because when the girls were little 7th or 8th grade we took them snow skiing in New Mexico.  We stopped at a roadside restaurant, Cherokee Restaurant, and discovered they had buffalo burgers.  Since we never had that before we all had one.  Delicious.  The server mentioned that they had some actual buffalo in a corral outside.  Being that the girls never saw a buffalo in person we went over for a look.  When we walked around the building there was a monstrous buffalo standing right at the fence.  With it that close I couldn't help myself and I said "look at the head on that one."  That phrase has now been a constant in our lives.  EVERYTIME we see one, "look at the head on that one."

So back to today.  As we we were driving down I-40, low and behold I see Cherokee Restaurant and the corral with a couple of buffalo inside.  We made a quick, but safe exit.  Luckily they offered inside dining so we did what we needed to do, Buffalo burgers!  Well except for Mica, she went for the Cherokee chicken.  We all agreed that the burgers were still delicious.  After lunch we went to the corral.

He just sat there & grunted at us.

 Back on the road after talking to our girls and reminiscing about that first visit.  We finished the day pulling into a small 16 site campground just off the interstate.  We were the first ones there & picked a nice shady spot for the night.  We had plenty of time for dinner and then we sat outside until it got dark.  There was a pretty good breeze, so no bugs.  We introduced the kids to Bocce Ball.  They played it all evening.  What a great stop.

Next morning we took our time & had a hardy breakfast & hit the road.  Now we are heading to Tijeras, NM, about 360 miles.  We crossed into Texas a mile later and kept going west to New Mexico.  We crossed the border & into Mountain time right at lunch.  So a picnic at the rest stop.

Where as Texas was pretty flat.  New Mexico was not.  It was beautiful, hills, plateaus, mesas & buttes.  A very nice drive.  We arrived in Tijeras, New Mexico around 3:30.  We're in Hidden Valley Mountain Resort.  This was one of the few times we couldn't get CC to level.  The sites are built into the valley wall and not quite made for long rigs.  But after using some levelling pads we got her set
up.

Kids burned up some energy running around and Rita declared we were going out for pizza, yea!  We drove down Old Route 66 to the next town and ate at Pizza Barn.  Great pizza and 22 different draught beers.  Of course I went local.

We did time it right, a thunderstorm hit while we were eating, but was done when we walked out.  We swung by the grocery store for a couple of things then back to CC.  Kids did another energy burn.  Then reading & bedtime.

Oklahoma is OK?

As you may know it is our goal to only drive 300 miles a day.  That way we don't have to get going super fast in the morning.  But mostly so we can take our time and stop along the way and to mostly make sure we arrive at our next stop well before dark.  Plus we're not exhausted, we can take advantage of the overnight stop and enjoy dinner.

So our first trip was about 305 miles.  We stopped for lunch and had a picnic.  Took a walk around the rest stop.  We fueled up at the last Missouri station and arrived in Grove, OK for the week.  It was raining when we got here, but we got hooked up ok.

The kids were disappointed that they couldn't jump in the pool.  But we had dinner and settled in.  Then came the fire truck.  It drove around the campground with the lights & siren going. We thought maybe a fire?  Maybe someones COVID birthday celebration?  It was raining pretty hard.  Soon the gate attendant knocked on the door.  "Tornado coming".  Holy crap!  We grabbed shoes, jackets & flashlights and ran to the designated tornado shelter.  It was a beat-up old gas station.  It was made of concrete so it must be safer than CC.  Everyone from our section of the park was there.  They had plenty of chairs, but the place was poorly maintained and the roof leaked.  But it was safe.

Me & my tornado buddy!

The rainy weather pattern kind of hung around.  No more tornado issues, but LOTS of rain.  I'm beginning to think that Oklahoma is an Indian word for rain. Tuesday & Wednesday were mostly rain.  But there were some breaks & the kids got in the pool.  The chilly pool, but they didn't seem to mind.  They were swimming and happy.

Wednesday was Mica's 10th Birthday so she wanted Mexican food so luckily restaurants are open here so we had a nice lunch.  Mica got the Birthday treatment, which includes a sneaky pie in the face.  Kolton got caught in collateral damage....

Kolton didn't seem impressed

Outside it was still raining so we went to the grocery store...

Thursday the weather finally changed.  A quick check of "tourist"attractions showed that although things were starting to opening up, the Cherokee village and other sites weren't opening until next week.  So we had to settle with just the pool.  The kids took advantage of that!  Maybe to exhaustion.  Look what washed up on shore.

We settled for the pool everyday.  At least three hours a day.  We really went through the sunscreen and avoided any real sunburn. 

We got to try our new propane fire pit.  I know, what are we thinking, propane????  But with us moving a lot and restrictions on carrying firewood across state lines this solved the problem.  When we get to a new campground we would normally have to buy firewood.  Usually $5 a bundle and it's not that big of a bundle.  With propane we can s'more every night, anywhere!  Which makes the kids happy.  We were at Camping World and found one on sale.  It was a nice size and it was the last one there, it was a display model.  Rita negotiated 20% more off the sale price.  So we bought it.  It works great!

We are leaving here Monday on our journey to the desert.  The desert in June?  Are we nuts?  Yeah, probably.  But we are going to Olstrom's Custom Coach for some upgrades to CC.  We'll survive.  I hope....

Our “Littles” Adventure!

So this has been in the planning stage for awhile.  Rita & I are taking the “Littles” with us for the summer.

The “Littles”?  Let me explain.  We have two daughters.  Our youngest, Jackie, has two sons.  Hunter, 19 & AJ 17.  We have taken the three of them on our summer vacations since we bought CC.

Our eldest daughter, Brandi, has three kids.  Saxton, 11, Mica, 10, & Kolton, 9.  Jackie started calling them “ The Littles”.

Last summer we took Hunter with us for his Senior year adventure. We spent 3 months traveling together & having a great time.  (Checkout last years posts).

We have had the Littles with us when we camped around home for weekends & short stays at Carlyle Lake.  But never a long adventure, especially without their mom close by.  But Kolton has grown & is ready for a trip away.

So, after clearing it with their dad, we are leaving home Memorial Day weekend and heading to the Southwest & then into the Rockies!  We were going to go to San Diego for Hunter’s Marine Boot Camp graduation but since it’s closed to the public due to COVID we have amended the trip.  It will be an awesome adventure, not coming home until mid August!

Are we crazy? Nope.  These kids are great.  They are eager for an adventure.  They want to help me & Rita with all the tasks involved in RVing.  The initial weekend in St Peters, MO has been flawless. Nice campground great bike trail.

On the bike front, Hunter & AJ gave Saxton & Mica their mountain bikes.  Kolton still has his.  These kids are loving the bikes.  We are riding EVERY DAY.  Some times numerous times.  I plan on posting the mileage on my bike to see how crazy it gets.  But that won’t show the extra miles they do tooling around the campgrounds.

Oh yeah, I forgot our other passenger, DD.  Brandi made a white dragon for the kids to bring along.  It’s sort of our version of Flat Stanley.  DD stands for Dangerous Dragon.  But we also know the DD is the nickname Jackie gave Brandi when they were very young.  Jackie’s kids call Brandi Aunt DD.  So DD will be in our posts too.  He’s even went on a bike ride with us.

Yes, that’s a dragon in the background 

"COVID 19"

We left Florida March 15th.  We were going to the Texas Hill Country to do some SkyMed presentations at a couple of campgrounds & doi a couple of rallies before heading home for doctor appointments & our annual trip to Mexico.

We did a couple of Walmarts along the way just as the news was changing with the Corona virus.  The crazy run on toilet paper was beginning.  We got to Colorado River Thousand Trails campground near Columbus Texas & went out to dinner.  The next day everything locked down.  No restaurants, gyms, pools or spas.  We can stay in the campground, we just had to "social distance" while there.

We were able to go shopping.  But no TP.  Crazy.....

we did do some driving around to enjoy the scenery.  The Blue Bonnets & Indian Paintbrushes were blooming.

 Saw this cool looking tree on a backroad...

We took a lot of hikes in the campground.  There were a bunch of trails.

After Rita found a couple of these on the trail she insisted we stick to the main campground streets.

 The one below is poisonous.....

We did enjoy an evening fire with some new friends while maintaining "social distancing"

Oddly on one hike these back buzzards were following me.  I kept a close check on my heart rate on this walk incase they knew something I didn't know...

 I set our bird feeder right outside our dinette window.  We had this view for every meal

 Finally to battle the virus I started the new routine.  I call it the Quarantinee.

 
The campground allowed us to stay during the lock down until May 1.  All our doctor appointments went to online visits & Mexico was locked down so we changed our plans.  We left & headed to Iowa and a visit to HWH for a check up for CC.

After a clean bill of health, both us via Teledoc & CC at HWH we went to Burlington Iowa and visited Mike watson for a week.  He even had 50 amp hook up.

We got home May 11th.  Back to kids & family.  Still waiting for the virus crap to be over......

First Winter in Florida

So we left Louisiana and met up with our friends the Weible’s in the Florida panhandle for a couple of nights.  It was New Years Eve, but I got a touch of the flu and stayed pretty close to CC if you no what I mean.  We broke camp & headed to our winter spot in Clermont Florida.

We would be staying in Clerbrook Golf & RV Park until March.  It’s a Encore Park & has about 1200 sites.  A nice golf course, small but challenging. Three pools a bunch of shuffle board courts & a lot of Canadians.

Our site was directly across from the Weible’s so we went back & forth a lot.  We played golf in the resort & took trips to the many courses around us.

We attended the Tampa Super Show, then the Country Coach International Rally in Lakeland.  On the way back to Clerbrook we got a front end alignment for CC.  Wow, I thought she drove good before.  Now she’s a dream to drive.....

Jackie & the boys came down for a whirlwind vacation, it was Hunter’s last vacation before leaving for the Marines.  We did a number of Theme parks.  Too many in a row for me & Rita so they did some on their own.

We met a walrus at Sea World.

Even found the perfect diner for Jackie, “KeKe”

They headed home, we rested to recover and March 15 we headed to Texas for some rallies.  But that’s a whole different story..... 

Now Louisiana

So we finished Texas and needed to do some stops for SkyMed in Louisiana so early December we rolled into LA.  We wound up just north of New Orleans in Livingston, LA for Christmas.

Brandi & the kids came down on the next day and we had a nice vacation together. We rented them a cottage in the campground.  It was too cool for the pool, but the playground was covered & fun.

We did an airboat tour of the Atchafalaya Swamp.

Afterwards we headed to Henderson, LA for dinner at Crawfish Town USA. That way we could sample the "swamp food".  Saxton fell in love with crawfish.  He sucked out the heads and everything!

We toured Oak Alley Plantation.

We also visited the French Quarter in Norleans...

We also spent some time in Baton Rouge.  Mostly to see the USS Kidd a WWII destroyer.

The kids headed home New Years Eve and we moved on to sunny Florida for the winter.....