Quick now. Which state was the 47th admitted?
August 29 - September 1 - We came down from the mountains and stayed at a county RV park in Bernalillo, NM. Nice place, W&E, and great wifi for $25. We ate at a New Mexican restaurant called Arbulita's. Small place, good food. We got there at 11:20 and got the last parking place.
September 2-6 - We moved to an RV park in Albuquerque that we have used almost every year. One of the reasons we came to Albuquerque was to pick up our mail that I had shipped here. I usually have it sent General Delivery to a town that has only one PO. Very convenient, no hassle. I thought since we would be here for several days I would have it sent to the RV park. Well, they were doing a little road work on the interstate exit and the carrier did not want to deal with it, so he quit delivering mail to everyone on the road for two weeks. Several businesses, homes, and an RV park. Complaints that the road was open fell on deaf ears, the kid did not have the through rain and sleet and snow creed. He finally relented today. Government worker and did not get fired!
Another reason to be here is to eat at three New Mexican restaurants. I am not sure what the term New Mexican really means. One thing is that every dish is offered with either red or green chile sauce. Being that NM is the chile capital of the US, the sauces are damn good.
Still up in the air about staying out or heading home. The last few days have not been bad. Could it have been the altitude - we were above 8,000 for over a month. Maybe my misshapen red blood cells had problems with the altitude?
You folks back east have probably long forgotten about the forest fires in California. We see smoke every day, sometimes as dense as a bad pollution day in Birmingham in 1960.
We seldom stay in RV parks. This year has been the exception. First for the heat dome, now because I wanted to descend to a lower elevation and that meant electricity for ac.
We get a kick out of the newbies setting up after they park. A couple in a new Airstream took over an hour to hook up. Almost two hours to get ready to leave.
We have noticed that almost all the new 5th wheels and trailers are gray, black, and white. Camping World next door to where we are staying has no other color schemes.
In other RV observations, we are seeing more than a few B+ rigs on the Mercedes chassis. The owners opt to spend $50,000 more to "upgrade" from a Ford chassis. What do they get besides prestige? I suspect the handing is suburb. I know the cost of maintenance is several times what the Ford would be. I suspect the reliability is poor like most every MB made.
I decided this morning to continue the trip and continue west Tuesday. I have been doing OK the last week. And who knows if I will be able to travel next year.
Tuesday, September 7 - Dear Blog, we got away by 9 and headed south on I25 turning west on US60 headed for Datil Wells. This place had been on my list for years. There is nothing there. But people go. I decided I wanted to go just because. Besides, it was a new way to get to Arizona and it was through some mountains.
Dorothy drove for a while and I used the time to study the large-scale New Mexico map. My eye was drawn to a road with many switchbacks. I noted there was a campground at the base of the mountain. So I plugged Water Canyon into our route. It seemed an agreeable place, so Dorothy fixed lunch and we had a nap after our long 2.25-hour drive. After lunch, we drove the seven-mile many switchback road up to 10,500 and had a great view. Not picture-worthy due to it being another California fire smoke day.
So why the road? What's on the top of the mountain? It seems that back in 1980 some professor at UNM convinced Congress to fund building an observatory and atmospheric research facility. It was not open, but what is these days? I suspect smoke from fires might have some effect on stargazing.
Wednesday, September 8 - We got away a 7 to drive to the highway to get cell service so we could surf. Dorothy made breakie while I checked mail. We paused at the Very Large Array. A sign noted the VC was 4 miles down a dirt road and it was closed.
We continued 10 miles to Datil where there is a really great BLM CG. Three sites have electricity. The camp host said it is experimental. We have a large level site with ramada and juice for $2.50. The downside is no usable cell signal, even amplified. The CG even has a small VC. But it is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Isn't everything?
History lesson. In the later part of the 1800's the route US60 traces was a cattle/sheep driveway from Springville, AZ to Magdalena, NM, where the stock could be loaded on a train. About every 10 miles there was a well. Datil Wells was one of the wells.
We did the tourist thing and had lunch, a green Chile cheeseburger, at the gas station, general store, RV park, and restaurant complex. It turned out that the restaurant served pretty good food.
We noted that many of the gas customers were in camo. It was opening day for Elk taken with a bow.
Thursday, September 9 - Based just on a remark made by a guy at the restaurant yesterday, we went a little out of our way to Arizona by way of Reserve. It was a rewarding drive with an ever-changing landscape. There were vast flat plains, probably ancient lakes, now used by grazing cattle and elk. The forest floor south of Springville in the Luna Valley is beautiful.
Only in New Mexico
No passing areas have the usual yellow lines, but also signs on both sides of the road announcing No Passing. The zone is terminated with a single sign Pass With Care. So three signs every time. I wonder how many thousand signs there are in the state? Locals ignore the signage.
Vehicles used in highway construction, ambulances, etc. have red and blue emergency lights. LEO vehicles use red only. I think NM is the only state to use those color combinations.
Pull offs are rare, road shoulders are narrow.
Friday, September 10 - We drove around to see what was around us. We had heard about a restaurant in Greer that serves prime rib. It must be really swell beef as they want $35 for the small prime rib. It will be a cold day before I pay that much. We buy it on special at home for $6.99 a pound. Dorothy ages it for 10 days and we enjoy it. The grand dog gets the bone which she enjoys for the 15 minutes it takes her to pulverize it.
We found a fine dispersed camping site and moved our home. We are parked in a meadow with yellow and purple flowers. We now have sun for charging the batteries, can run the genset before 8 to make waffles and save $12 a day. That said it was a superb Forest Service campground.
Our afternoon entertainment was being in a cattle drive. Two cowboys with two cattle dogs were moving a herd of about 100 beeves down the road. The beeves preferred the meadow to the road, surrounded us, and mooed loudly and for a while resisted the cowboys whoops to move along. I thought Oh Boy Prime Rib!
After finding that Page, AZ will be in the high 90's for the next 10 days we have changed our plans. We will hang in the Arizona mountains between here and Flagstaff until it cools off some.
In other news, we have been above 8,000 feet for the last four days and I am not experiencing the low energy days I was having two weeks ago. Perhaps the elevation was just a coincidence.
Saturday, September 11 - Yeah, it's that day again. It was 46 this morning.
We needed a few groceries and I wanted to check out the Casa Malpais Museum, being only one letter different from my name. Malpas is bad pass or bad step. Malpais means badlands.
The museum, named for a nearby pueblo, was more than expected. While the few artifacts from the dig were interesting, the rest of the museum was of more interest to us. Art and history.
Springerville and Eager adjoin. There is a marked difference between the two. We guessed due to LDS. Turned out that a Springerville resident believed that Mormons could not be killed due to their sacred underwear, so he shot one. That led to the town of Eager being founded by LDS.
Sunday, September 12 - It was warmer this morning, a low of 50. We took a short drive on 273 seeking scenery. We got it, but it was all the same. We went up a thousand feet and were on a vast flat plain. Spent the afternoon reading and vegging.
Monday, September 13 - File under what you don't know can mess you up. We left our pleasant boondock near Greer and headed west in search of new vistas. I did not know we would be losing so much elevation - the natural ac. By the time we got near Show Low, we had lost 1,200 feet. It was warm and we needed electricity.
The other thing I did not know was that we would leave the rural forest and be in a tourist destination. Miles and miles of stores along the highway from Lakeside to Show Low.
My outdated guide to public campgrounds led us to a campground that has been closed since 2017. We wound up in the Show Low city park. That would not be so bad, but it's managed by RRM which has to be the absolute worst concessionaire going. I know the owner Warren Meyer, by reputation. This is our third or fourth experience with RRM and they have all been dismal. Mr. Meyer must have a talent for only hiring pompous assholes to manage the campgrounds.
Tuesday, September 14 - Today I learned that just because it's called Rim Road does not mean you will peer over the Mogollon Rim. We entered the Rim Road on the east end and drove past summer home after summer home until we saw a dead-end sign, which was followed by some mega-mansions and finally a gate to even more homes. Perhaps some of these homes were on the rim. I will never know. I decided to try the west end of the road. After driving miles, we came to another gate. This time it was the Apache that promised we would be stretched out over an ant bed if we proceeded. So much for the Rim Road near Show Lo.
Show Lo was named because the two owners of a ranch decided it was only large enough for one of them. To decide who would take control of the ranch they played cards. The game was not decisive. So one of them said if you can show low you win. The player flipped over the deuce of clubs, the lowest ranking card, and won the ranch. There is a street named the Deuce of Clubs.
Wednesday, September 15 - We moved west an hour and parked in the largest Forest Service campground I have ever seen - Canyon Point. There are 100 sites widely spaced. Most are pull-throughs with enough room to park several RV's. Great campground except, like most Forest Service campgrounds, there are too many trees to allow enough sun to reach the solar panels.
We checked out two other FS CG's in the vicinity and several boondock areas. We found one dispersed area on another Rim Road that has a few sites that should allow us enough sun.
We found one place where we could look over the rim. We could see nothing but trees all the way to the horizon. Well, trees and California fire smoke. It looked like the Blue Ridge mountains.
What we saw from the rim looking out 25 miles - Smoke from California
The next day - an improvement
Thursday, September 16 - We moved to a place on the rim where we have 1) Sun, 2) an overlook over the rim, if we walk 50 yards to the rear of our site and 3) interesting neighbors.
1,500 feet of wind hits the rim wall and is forced up providing a cool breeze.
We drove some of the rim roads and found a great spot to park, but it's too far down a rough road for KoKo. There are hundreds of dispersed places. Most are marked "Park Here". There are even Forest Stewards that drop by and advise you on forest rules, like fires only in fire pits. Never encountered that before.
Friday, September 17 - We did a short drive on the west rim road. Frankly, the views from Shades Crest Road in Birmingham are better. I am sure the view would be greatly improved without the California smoke. I am calling the Rim not worth seeing after looking so forward to it.
This place is popular with the Phoenix crowd. Phoenix is only two hours away. 111 degrees there. 82 here.
At the campground, they had a dump and trash disposal. There was a volunteer couple collecting money to dump $7 and for trash $3. We had a soccer ball size trash bag. I passed on paying three bucks. I can not imagine having my RV parked at a dump and standing up all day collecting cash.
Saturday, September 18 - We read our books. The sky changed from overcast to full sun several times during the day. There were sprinkles of rain a few times.
Sunday, September 19 - We descended from 8,200 to 3,500. Oh yeah, it's warmer. We want to drive a trail near Sedona. Hope we will not roast.
We stayed at Dead Horse Ranch SP in 2007. $30 a day for W&E. The park has several loops that make it seem not so crowded.
Monday, September 20 - I made blueberry pancakes this morning since we had electricity. We got away to Sedona to drive the Schenbley Hill trail. The trail was scenic and rough. Getting on the trail before 8:30 we missed the traffic. Just a few of the Pink Jeeps that make a living hauling fat cheesy tourists at double the speed I drive, 5mph, on such trails.
We did not go the entire trail. As we exited the red rock area I decided the fuel gauge indicating empty meant we should turn around. I had to drive 8 miles once we got back to Sedona to get to a gas station. There are only a few in town. No room for them due to restaurants.
We had lunch at an Indian restaurant. We thought it was the same one we went to in 2007. It was good and quite expensive.
Tomorrow is my birthday - again.
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