Abbey's Road

Driving by the Cloudcroft ski area I felt pretty sorry for the owners. It looked pretty sad with absolutely no snow. I later found out that Cloudcroft has been so warm this winter and because of the drought they’ve only had about 3” of snow. The ski area never even opened up. So I was even more surprised when I checked the weather on the internet and found out that a big cold front is coming through New Mexico and it’s supposed to be down in the 20s at night, and up in Santa Fe next week, where I was planning on going, it is supposed to be in the teens at night! Thank God for a flexible schedule. I found all this weather information out while I was waiting for someone to come unlock my RV. Yes, I finally did it. I locked my keys in the RV with Abbey inside, which was probably better than her being outside waiting with me. That way I could go to the library and get on the internet in the meantime. Following a ranger’s suggestion, I was driving up this winding mountain road wondering if it was a good idea to be heading this way with cold weather coming. I decided not to listen to the voice of reason and went anyway. When I got to the spot I was surprised to find someone already parked there. They had a pickup truck and an old Airstream trailer, a real classic. After I fed Abbey I was sitting down figuring out where to go to get out of the cold weather when someone knocked on my door. You have to understand that this doesn’t happen very often. It was Brian and Leigh, the owners of the Airstream, and their dog Curtis. They were coming to check out their new “neighbors”. It turns out they are fulltimers as well, though they are even younger than I. They are working from the road so they stay put from Monday to Friday. They have a satellite dish they set up wherever they go so they can “dial in” to work.

Brian & Leigh & their Airstream

Abbey and I went on a hike that left right from the campground on Wednesday morning. There’s an Air Force base nearby and there were quite a few planes going overhead so she was her usual timid self. It took a lot of coaxing at times to get her going. We probably hiked over 6 miles which was a little long for her. She hasn’t done that much in a while and she’s a bit sore now. I guess I’ll have to take it easy on her for a few days. Brian and Leigh stopped by again and invited me over for dinner. Two dinner invites in one week. I’m getting spoiled. That night it got even colder and it was really windy to make matters worse. My furnace came on about every five minutes so I didn’t sleep well at all. Plus, I’ve been suspecting problems with my house batteries so the next morning I packed up and headed for Las Cruces. After stopping at a service center I found an RV park that didn’t look too bad. I at least had a nice view of the mountains without worrying about freezing pipes. The next day I went to Oliver Lee SP near Alamogordo, which is known for being outside of White Sands National Monument. I’ve been hanging out here for the last few days because it is still too cold anywhere north or in the mountains. Unfortunately, it has been really windy – 20-30mph with gusts in the 40s – so I have been able to see the white sand without even going to the monument. Yesterday and today it’s been so bad that they issued a “Dust Alert” and the whole area looks like it’s engulfed in fog.

I’m hoping to stop for a night in Ruidoso if it warms up a tad before I head up to Colorado. I’m sure it will be even colder up there, but I’m going to go skiing with the Gibbons family and I won’t have to stay in the RV at night.