Walking Clifton, AZ 3-29-07

Today was a relaxation day. We did our yoga and then later we took a walk around Clifton. It has been a mining town since 1870’s and there are a few structures that look as though they have definitely been here since then. This picture shows how they would build their house right at the entrance to their claim.

All of these pictures are of Clifton and the San Francisco River that runs through it. One picture shows how the current mine over looks the town. This town has a definite sense of decay to it. The last two pictures are of the canyon that the RV Park is in.

Clifton, AZ 3-28-07

The wind howled all night, lots of shaking and shuddering. The scenery was hidden in dust until we got out of New Mexico as the wind was still pretty strong. We left Columbus, NM at 9:25 and headed west on highway 9, then we caught highway 80 north to I-10 west. West of Bowie, AZ we caught highway 191 and headed north.

We gained another hour when we crossed into Arizona. They don’t observe daylight savings time so we are now on Pacific Time again. Gaining that hour was a plus and as we are heading into the less populated eastern mountains of Arizona we had to get some stuff done on the way to our next RV Park which didn’t have a laundry. So in Safford, Arizona we spent about 3 hours, which felt like a month….smile.

Safford has most things, fast food, Walmart, Home Depot and motels, etc.; but on the south end is a Federal Prison and on the North end is a State Prison. We found a laundry and had to fight the wind across the parking lot. The laundry had attendants, two women sitting in a cubby munching and puffing away on cigarettes. The place reeked. Needless to say we didn’t fold the clothes in the building; we folded them in the trailer. We couldn’t even stay inside, it was really bad. So while the clothes were drying we walked down the highway in my favorite, the wind, to KFC for some lunch. We got back to get the clothes and found one load hadn’t dried all the way, no heat when we got there, and some how it was our fault because we didn’t tell them…um how were we supposed to know? It was spinning and working when we left and spinning and not dry when we got back and then we told them…ladies with attitude.

After we got the clothes put away we went to Walmart Supercenter and stocked up on groceries and then trekked through town looking for diesel. We finally found some and then headed on north to the Clifton RV Park.

We got into the North Clifton RV Park around 4:15 and got the last spot. It is a pretty RV park tucked in a tight canyon right on the San Francisco River. Clifton is home to the countries largest open pit mine and a lot of the people living here in the park work there. Our site is really nice, considering it was the last one…it is on a little cul-de-sac and we are backed right up to the river. We are reserving judgment on how long we will stay here, depends on the habits of our neighbors. We were thinking we would like to hang for a few days, but we don’t have sewer here so that would be all we could do.

We traveled 239 miles today and gained the last hour we can gain…for now. The first two pictures are of the scenery here in the mountains near Clifton. The second one shows part of the mine tiered up the mountain.

These last are of our site here. That wall behind us edges the river, which is raging right now and the moon was rising behind the top of the hill right behind us, which is our view out of our front door. Early to bed for me tonight, my body is very confused over the time changes again.

Windy Pancho 3-27-07

We had a windless night which was a very pleasant surprise. The wind started gusting around noon and then it was windy the rest of the day. We did our yoga, walked into town to the Post Office and that was about it for our busy day. It was a warm day but the wind and blowing dust made being outside not very enjoyable.

This first picture is of the campground from a little knoll. We are the rig on the right in the front, a lovely sunset vantage point. This last picture is of the flowers that are everywhere in the desert. Onward tomorrow.

Pancho Villa State Park, NM 3-26-07

We lost satellite yesterday afternoon so there was no blogging. We had a big thunderstorm go through around 5 a.m. and it lasted for a couple hours. Big lightning and thunder and heavy rain, and when we got up the clouds had broken up and the air was sooo refreshing that we took a little walk. The rest of the day though was spent inside. The clouds kept dripping and by late afternoon they had built up again and we had another thunderstorm with wind this time. Heavy rain and between the two storms we got over 2 inches of rain, close to 3. There were big ponds all over the place this morning. When there are big dense thunderclouds our satellite signal goes away, so these first few pictures are of the ranch where we spent the last two nights.

Somehow this morning we were on the road by 8:45. Still clouds hanging around and as we hit the road we encountered this lovely rainbow.

These other two pictures were taken along highway 118; it was a gorgeous drive. Very hilly and curvy but we saw a stunning jaggedy mountain (didn’t get a picture) and the scenery kept changing with little microcosms tucked in sheltered valleys. We saw a couple of groups of javelinas, our first ever out in the wild sightings, no pics unfortunately. They look cute, but we have been warned that they are vicious.

We hit I-10 and headed west. El Paso was very smoggy today and the traffic was bad. We gained an hour; we are now in Mountain Time. From the north end of El Paso we headed to the Santa Theresa port of entry so we could pick up highway 9 into New Mexico. We are at the Pancho Villa State Park in Columbus, NM. We are about 2 miles from Mexico. We got in at 1:35 and had traveled 288 miles. We were on the road 6 hours but we picked up that hour when we crossed the time line. These last two pictures are in New Mexico. We are here for at least the next two nights.

Now I have to do a little Mom bragging on my girls. Andrea works full-time and is a single Mom to a very athletic 4 year old and she has decided to add going back to school to her busy schedule. She is taking two classes a quarter.

Michelle has just completed a grueling third quarter. She has a husband and an active 2 year old to run after and is going to college full-time. She took on 23units this quarter and she received 5 A’s, 2 B’s, and 1 C. Woo Hoo, way to go girls!

On the Ranch in Fort Davis, TX 3-24-07

Windy most of last night again and warm, the low was 67. We hit the road around 9:30; highway 90 heading west. We hit all kinds of terrain today. We climbed up into the hills and had heavy rain for several miles. It was about 20 degrees cooler too. We crossed the Pecos River which was much larger than we expected, it was very pretty.

The countryside was intensely green from all the rain lately.

Then we went through very rocky, hilly and plateau countryside where it was getting browner.

Then we ended up in the high desert with lots of dry grasses.

At the town of Alpine we headed north on highway 118 through the hills and canyons. Alpine was a surprise, they have a very large, new looking state university and a lot of new building and growth happening.

We kept on 118 through Fort Davis to the Historic Prude Ranch which has a Passport America RV Park; we got in around 3:30 and drove 268 miles today. It is very quiet and peaceful here. We were going to stay only one night, but we may stay another. No trains and once it gets dark the road out here will be real quiet. No wind and no clouds and no humidity! The blue sky was a joy to behold! Seems like months since we have seen it! We had dinner at the ranch buffet, which was good and even better because I didn’t have to cook!

We took a walk after dinner and found this Yucca that was convenient for photographs. If you’re like me you have seen them while whizzing down the highway, but never really take the time to look at them up close. They are just starting to bloom here in the desert, but we have seen a few that are in full bloom and they look like glowing white torches. I hope to find one in full bloom soon; I usually see them where there aren’t places to stop.

The sun just finished setting at 8:15, we are at the western-most edge of the central time zone. It is so wonderfully quiet here that my ears are ringing. NO WIND…WOO HOO!

Beautiful Walk 3-23-07

Today we took another walk in another world. Hard to believe we were in the middle of a “resort”. It stayed warm and very windy all night; we ran the a/c all night because we couldn’t have the windows open with the wind. Also the sound of the a/c drowns out the sound of the wind, except like last night where the wind was really strong, couldn’t really ignore the strong shudders and shaking of the trailer…you may have noticed, I dislike strong wind.

The red bird I had on yesterdays post is a Vermillion Flycatcher. Its back isn’t red like the Cardinals, but Vermillion red is just a little more brilliant than Cardinal red and is such a treat to see flashing in the trees.

The purple shrub I mentioned is the Texas Mountain Laurel. Its flower looks much like a Wisterias flower, doesn’t it? Strong fragrance, but the flowers and seed pods are extremely poisonous.

Instead of roosters crowing, we awoke to the gobble-gobble of the wild turkeys. They were roaming all over the place this morning and the males had there tails all fanned out. On our walk this morning we saw deer, birds and a turtle plopping into the water off of a log. Turtles are extremely skittish. We drove around the little town here, but that took only 5 minutes. Tomorrow, we will be on the road again.
The trailer is being rocked again...I can't wait to get out of windy country!

Brackettville, TX 3-22-07

We hit the road this morning at 9:30, cloudy and rainy. We are heading west still. The hill country is full of ranches with “exotic hoofs”. Big game hunting is the thing around here I guess and some of these ranches have zebra and other game from Africa and other places. We saw a herd of big spiral-antlered antelope-type animals that we had seen in a zoo somewhere, I can’t remember what they are called and buffalo. There are a lot of taxidermy shops and game dressing businesses around.

The redbuds are all in bloom and yellow-flowered shrubs and trees blooming everywhere. There is a purple-flowered shrub that grows all over the hills, it looks similar to wisteria and smells very sweet.

We drove 139 miles today and are in Brackettville, TX off highway 90 almost to Del Rio at the Mexican border. We are at another Passport America park that was a very pleasant surprise.

The RV Park is inside a gated community that is called Fort Clark Springs. This was actually a fort in the 19th century and quite a few of the buildings are still in use. The compound is 2,700 acres and about half is undeveloped.

There is a home owners association, a golf course, a restaurant and 832 residents; the old barracks is a motel and lots of hiking and biking trails. A beautiful creek runs through here. We could hear turkeys and they were scattered all over the place. This one posed prettily for us. We’ve seen quite a few white-tailed deer, but after living in the mountains 14 years we aren’t impressed with them much anymore!

All these pictures were taken on our walk this afternoon. The cactus is putting on a lot of new growth, the amber sap caught our eye and was so jewel-like hanging there, I caught the Herons picture just before he flew off and the pretty red bird hung around long enough for me to get a couple clear pictures. I haven’t looked up what it is yet, I forgot to dig out my bird book.

The RV Park is nothing special, we are pretty close in here, but the surrounding flora and fauna really makes up for it! We are staying here two nights.

Texas Stonehenge 3-19-07

Today was drizzly and overcast. We did our yoga and then went on a drive. We had some stuff to mail, so the first little town we came to Larry went in and then came back out still holding our mail. The window was closed until 12:30 and it was 12:05, so we just continued on down the road. We came across this pretty creek scene with the huge cypress trees and then the Texas Stonehenge. We stopped and walked around it, it isn’t an exact replica or anything, these people just decided to do this for some reason. The dog that lived across the road ran over with a stick for us to throw for him and when we headed back to the truck he headed home. We drove through some beautiful countryside, crossing and re-crossing the Guadalupe River. There are a lot of fancy ranches in this area and we saw a couple of the biggest bulls we have ever seen, they were lying down and had huge long-horns and looked enormous not even standing up. We hit another small town with a Post Office and again Larry came back out with our mail. It was 1:05 and this window was closed until 1:30…pretty funny. So we finished our drive, drove past our place to go into Ingram to find its Post Office and the third time was the charm, Larry walked out empty handed this time! Drama on the road…will the mail get mailed today or not?!!! So that was our big adventurous day!

Ingram, TX 3-18-07

Well a change of plan for us came up yesterday. We had planned on staying in Hondo until the first of April, but yesterday at three in the afternoon an office person brought some mail to us that Larry had been waiting for and as he was leaving said, by the way, you did know that you have to move off this lot today or tomorrow? UH, NO.

A little background; this park is a co-op and the lots/spaces are leased, but when the lot owners are away we members are allowed to rent them. Sometimes if you are staying for an extended length of time the lot owners will return and you are moved to another lot. The thing that annoyed us, was that the lot owners are required to notify the office a week before their planned arrival, which they did, BUT the office didn’t notify us. Messed up our plans up for our weekend, but oh well, meant to get it in gear apparently. We could have easily spent the rest of the month there, but once you have everything put away and you’re hooked up, it is just as easy to hit the road, which is what we did.

So we decided to head north of Hondo a bit. We drove along the scenic back-roads of the Texas Hill Country to Ingram, Texas, which is just north of Kerrville, west of I-10. The wild flowers are just getting started, so we did see a few patches of Bluebonnets and the Yucca’s are starting to bloom, they are stunning.

It was cloudy and misty and the road twisted and turned and climbed and descended, but it was pretty countryside. Lots of big ranches and “dude” ranches and hunting ranches, we saw a big white headed with a black toupee wearing looking hawk and big wild turkeys and antelope and BIG Texas cattle along the way. All these pictures are out the windows of the truck along the way and as you can tell I didn’t catch any shots of anything warm-blooded.

We left the Lone Star Corral RV Park at ten and got to the Armadillo Junction RV Park at 1:30. It is a Passport America member park and we are here for the next 4 or 5 nights with full hook-ups for $9 a night. No place to walk laps here, I was up to 3.6 miles, but there are no trains and we are right beside a field that is full of juniper trees and has horses grazing around. The scenery is very pretty, behind us is a hill of junipers, oak and cactus. We traveled 111 miles today. We stopped at a market for groceries on our way in. It is 6:30 and the sun has finally decided to come out. I think tomorrow we’ll drive around to some of the local sights.