There and Back Again, well, almost

After 2 months of delaying our departure from Rockport, we finally wound up the hose on the 17th of April and left for a day with our great friends Larry and Lea Chrestman in San Antonio. They just beat us to Hidden Valley RV park where we all used our Passport America cards for one night in door to door sites. Larry took us all in to "the Alamo" for a tour. The trees and flowers were all in bloom and it was so pretty. I'm not usually one to go to battle grounds. The energy in so many of those places feels awful, but the energy has cleared at the Alamo, and it was very enjoyable. The displays were very informative, and the building and grounds were in great shape after all this time. There is a donation box, but no formal admission fee, so that was nice.



A short 2 block walk took us to the River Walk, which we'd heard so much about, but mover seen. I had no idea! It was beautiful! Sculpted paths lined both sides of the river which flowed through a man made canal. Restaurants, shops and motels lined the shores along with beautiful landscaping - trees and flowers and shrubbery. A mama duck and her little ducklings swam along and birds flew through singing as they went. I would stop there again in a heartbeat. We had lunch at this silly cafe where the waitresses make fun with you and make you walk down to get your food from the other end of the table. What a riot. Everyone had a wonderful time.  Cheese n crackers and a shot glass of Krupnik (compliments of our daughter Krystal and her boyfriend Kiff) finished off the evening. (Krupnik is a homemade Polish liquor that resembles mead and is made from vodka, honey and lots of wonderful spices. It's potent stuff! And delicious.)

Next morning we caravanned to Brownsfield, Texas where we all stayed in a little city park. This is Larry's hometown, and it's a very nice place. We went out to a little Mexican restaurant for dinner, and another little place with fantastic food for lunch the next day. Sorry, don't remember the names, but Lea can fill them in I bet. John and I stayed an extra day just to relax. Put on over 400 miles the day before. We got to meet some of Larry's family too, and they're a great bunch of people,

O the 20th we pulled out and headed for Taos. Nothing but oil fields as far as the eye can see for a long way- almost all the way to Roswell. Some barren but beautiful country. Roswell had the cheapest gas we'd seen in a long time; $1.53 a gallon for diesel. We had a headwind all the way, almost as if someone was saying, wait, no, don't go that way! A little foreshadowing there. From Roswell, we went up through Vaughn and on up to Santa Fe. The road signs in Texas had been so fantastic, never a question about where to go. New Mexico is different. A sign will come up with an arrow, but that doesn't mean you take the next left (or right) it just means that somewhere up ahead you'll be turning. It's a very laid back sort of system, and not extremely helpful. Thanks to the great road signs we got to see quite a bit of Santa Fe, housing, schools.... Just the places to be pulling an RV through, but we did finally get through and on up the mountain. Gee, it's getting kinda hard to breathe, you noticing it too John? And there's still a headwind. The mountains are beautiful, and .... Snow capped! Wow was a very common word as we continued on. We finally got to Taos about an hour before sunset then 5 miles East of town to our campground. Ken met us at the entrance and helped us fill up our tank with water as the campground water wasn't turned on yet. Been too cold. Hmmm. You short of breath too? Yup. Headache too. The campground was cute - small. Are you going to be able to get our rig in there? Where do we park the truck? The stream is really pretty. "That will be drying up in not too long" we're told. Oh. We're in a canyon that is breathtaking, and very dry. Next day we get a tour of the campground, following day. Start work. I'm nauseous, light headed,sucking air, but this will pass...Johns sucking air. The computer- has an "A" drive. The one next to it has directions on how to start it in "safe mode".   Hmmm. We ordered open campground right away so we'd have some sort of registration system to work with.  It gets better, but I'm not going there. I will say that the promised cell phone signal didn't exist.

After 3 days, I was scrambling to find us another job for the summer, between sucked in breaths and a mind that just didn't want to work real well. John was having a hard time breathing too - worse than me I think. OK, don't panic. John, I said don't panic! This will all work out fine.  Did a quick update on our resume on workamper.com and checked the hotlist - I think that's what it's called. We needed something at a lower elevation and not to far away. Gas will eat up your checkbook.  Hey, look at this, Meteor Crater Visitor Center. That's not too far from here, and it's paid! So made a quick phone call - oh, it's Sunday. Made up a site specific resume and got it sent out and low and behold, when I got done working the next day, I had an email waiting!  We went into town to make a phone call, and decided Pizza Hut would be a wonderful idea. Food is always so relaxing. And, then phone rang, and it was Lanah from Meteor Crater. Ahhhh, see, everything will be just fine. Seems she needed us as much as we needed her. 

So, John took the airport charter down to Albuquerque on Wednesday morning and flew into Green Bay for his mom's 98th birthday celebration. I went into the office and gave Ken the bad news. 6 days had passed, and I still was having problems breathing, light headed, massive headache and intestinal problems. I had told him from the start that I would do whatever I could to help, but that I wouldn't hurt myself in the process. I felt bad leaving like that, but really didn't have a choice. I worked that day and helped train Airen for a couple hours the next morning after hitching up the rig. Then I climbed in the truck, turned the key and all by my little lonesome with Sammy dog riding shotgun, I drove down the mountain.

As it turned out, we had quite a few offers. Many from our wonderful friends at Dworshak Dam in Idaho, but we just didn't want to go that far. We also got a note from Texas saying we could come back to our favorite park and work there for the summer, and we got an offer from Bryce Canyon (hmm, that might be interesting in the future) and one from a campground in Colorado. See, everything works out.
Pictures coming soon.

Albuquerque, New Mexico - Read There and Back again first!

Straight down the mountain I went on Interstate 25 into Albuquerque, hang a right and head west on Interstate 40 and get off on Atrisco Blvd. Turn left across the bridge and right on the frontage road and on into High Desert RV Park for a week. No Problems! It was really a great drive, and the lower I got in elevation, the better I felt. This is a great little park right off the interstate. Yes, you can hear the trucks going by, but it's very clean, reasonable and on the very edge of Albuquerque.  Note to self: make sure there's enough room to open the slide BEFORE you get everything hooked up.  If you have a problem, borrow someone else's man to help.  This was too funny. I couldn't get the lever pulled out far enough to dislodge the rig from the truck. There was a fella walking to his rig just about across from mine, so I walked over and asked if he might help me with it. Like a flash of lightning, his girlfriend appeared from in her little casita and glued herself to him. No way was he coming over here with a strange beautiful woman ( well, yeah!) without her. Like I was trying to find myself a man for the night or something. I giggled about it to myself for awhile afterwards! He said he had an injury and wasn't sure he'd be able to do it - yeah, this was a soft city boy. I like my man, period.Anyway, he did finally get it to unlatch. I think I need some grease on that lever - it was pretty rusted from our stay on the coast.

Two exits back east is Unser Blvd, and to the left on Unser, down through the construction and housing developments is Petroglyphs National Monument. That's were I headed after finishing set up. Thought Sam would like a nice walk. He was so excited to go for a walk, AND a truck ride! Sam has never seen the desert, or the sand, though he has experienced buffalo grass which isn't much different from sand burrs. Poor little guy, I didn't think he'd have any problem, but he did not like the sand - at all! We didn't go too far, and while I was looking at the volcanic boulders with petroglyphs carved into them, he laid down and didn't want to get back up, so we headed back to the truck. So much for a hiking companion. What an incredible place though.

Saturday was the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center for me. It's $6 to get in, and well worth it. The gallery is filled with map paintings - something unique to this area, and incredible to see. The people of the 19 pueblos of New Mexico are working to keep their culture alive, and these paintings are being done to keep the names of their sacred places known. Prints of the work are available only to Native American people, so the only way we white folks can see them is to visit the Cultural Center. I so respect these people and their culture. They respect the earth and they teach their children to respect it also. They understand that none of us "own" it, and that we must care for it so it will be there for our grand children and their grand children. They know that what we do to the earth, we do to ourselves. They are heart and soul. I guess that tells you what I think of "our" culture. Enough said.
I waited to come here on the weekend to experience the dancers. Since this week was the gathering of Nations here in Albuquerque, they had three dance troops performing for 6 hours. I got to enjoy Zuni hoop dancers, Zuni Basket (water jar) Dancers and singers, and Apache Cloud dancers. They were wonderful! Artisans were also there vending their work, and it was all so beautiful. I bought a Pueblo Cookie around noon. It was the size of a mall pretzel, and delicious! Not too sweet, and very satisfying. The lower level is a museum with incredible pottery, beadwork and the story of the people as they tried to survive all the changes that were forced on them. I had a wonderful day!

Sunday the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History is free from 9am to 1pm (its normally $4 to get in), so I drove down to Old Town and toured the museum. Outside is a sculpture garden that is a must see! It's on 19th Ave. Life size bronze figures of early settlers, oxen, horses, mama's and babies, children, a dog, soldiers. It was incredible! The museum was between shows, so only 2 galleries were open. The paintings were ok. There was one that I really liked of a coyote's upper body & head. You'd swear it was going to jump right out of the frame. I spent about an hour there. Just behind the museum and through the tile and adobe archway is old town. What a riot! It reminded me of Wisconsin Dells and Nogales, Mexico. Shop till you drop! I thoroughly enjoyed going through all the shops and looking at everything. Turquoise jewelry and Native pottery everywhere and everything else. I had lunch in a cute little café and then headed back to the truck. Lunch was my only purchase.
Found a grocery store (Smith's) on the corner of Central and Coors many blocks west of Old
Town. That was my second purchase of the day. Fresh white corn tortillas, salsa, lime, tomatoes, oranges... yum!

Today I headed back over to Petroglyphs National Monument. Sam stayed home. I found a great seat in a shady spot up in the volcanic boulders and just took it all in. I even had a new melody come to me, and I played it into garage band right there on the spot. Cool! I saw 3 little lizards, a hummingbird and a beautiful big yellow butterfly, and of course many interesting rock carvings. This is a very popular place, and people were walking by frequently, so solace wasn't possible, but I found the quiet within for a little bit. I decided to try to find another site within the park and discovered that urban sprawl has surrounded the different areas, and remember those signs I talked about in the last blog? Well, I never did find the 2nd site. I was going to check out the one on the back side of the park that is down Atrisco in the opposite direction from home, but I'm comfortable and just going to have a leisurely dinner and relax.

I've enjoyed Albuquerque. I was having trouble believing there are over a million people here, until today driving around looking for the other Natural site. The houses are huge! Urban sprawl hasn't missed Central New Mexico. It's a wonder the water shed can support this many people. There are many other things to see here; botanical gardens, zoo, aquarium, natural history museum... but I experienced what I wanted to.

Tomorrow I get to pick up my honey from the airport. This has been a good week, but I'll be so happy to have my best friend back.  I wish I could have gone with him, but with our 3 little furry friends, it just wasn't possible. This was the best solution since I couldn't stay in Taos.

I'll get some pictures posted as soon as I shrink them down to a better size.