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.

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On Friday I left the Davis Mountains and drove up to Guadalupe Mountains NP. I had remembered being told in the past that the park is supposed to be a beautiful place. Of course, I had to apply the Texas factor so I wasn’t getting my hopes up too high. The park is pretty small – only 82,000 acres – and there are very few roads into it. The campground was in a nice setting, right up against the mountains, but the RV area was actually part of the trailhead parking lot. I wasn’t too excited at first, but it turned out to be not that bad. There was even a short trail I could take Abbey on. We got there in the early afternoon so after taking Abbey on her lone trail, I took a moderate hike up one of the canyons. It wasn’t quite as beautiful as I had been told, but I think part of that is due to the severe drought the whole southwest has been under the last several months. The next morning I started out early on a loop hike which was supposed to be pretty strenuous climbing over 2300 ft. up to the Bowl. It also was supposed to have an entirely different ecosystem than down below. The Bowl did have pine trees but it wasn’t overwhelming, at least not to me. The view from the top, however, was quite nice and it felt good to get in a moderately difficult climb. Besides, I can't complain too much. I did get to see the tallest peak in Texas - Guadalupe Peak. I’m sure Abbey was happy she missed it, especially since it was pretty warm. I got done much earlier than I expected. That afternoon a couple from Germany pulled up in the site next to mine. They had a pickup with a truck camper on the back that they had actually shipped over from Germany. They have been traveling around since July and are winding up their trip in a few months. They had a really big dog, Mila, with them so I can only imagine how cramped it was in their camper. Poor Mila had sore paws from the rough rocks and all the burrs. Apparently she had gotten a few stuck in her paws and they must have gotten infected. They didn’t have any booties for her so they put socks and plastic bags on her front paws. It was pretty funny looking but I felt bad for her because I’m sure they hurt. I have to pull the burrs out of Abbey’s paws all the time. They didn’t have anything to disinfect them with so I gave them my peroxide and some other stuff. I told them I used to live in Germany but was embarrassed that I could hardly speak a word of German. I really have forgotten much of the little German that I knew. Anyways, they tried to talk me into going to Alaska this summer instead of the Canadian Rockies, which I have been planning on. It was their favorite place so far. Of course they could go to some pretty remote places with their truck that would be hard for me in my RV. Maybe I’ll have to look at trading mine in for a truck camper so I can see the real Alaska. Decisions, decisions. And I thought this was going to be easy.

On Sunday I went to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. I was anxious to compare it to the previously visited Caverns of Sonora. I have to admit that they aren’t really in the same class, but in some ways I like Sonora better than Carlsbad. They were much smaller, but much homier. For their size they had an amazing amount of formations and they did have more color than Carlsbad. But for sheer size and volume of formations Carlsbad prevails. Carlsbad also had helictites, like Sonora, though they kind of got lost because of all the other formations. It also had something I hadn’t seen before – cave pearls. I’m learning more about caves than I ever imagined. I wanted to do one of the auxiliary tours which were supposed to be a bit more active so I signed up for one on Monday to go down into Lower Cave. Other than climbing down a rope and a few ladders it wasn’t that strenuous. It was an OK tour, but it was a little slow for me. The guide did a lot more talking so we didn’t cover as much ground as I had expected. However, there were some pretty amazing formations nonetheless. Sorry, but the lighting wasn’t that great so I didn’t take any pictures in Lower Cave. We mostly just had the light of our headlamps.

Sunday evening I moved to a new campground at Brantley Lake State Park north of the town of Carlsbad. It turned out that a couple I had first seen in Big Bend, and ran into several times in Terlingua and the Davis Mountains, were staying there as well. When they saw me pull in they came down and invited me over for dinner – my first dinner invitation by other RVers. I guess I’m one of them now. Actually, Doug and Liane have been fulltimers less than I (only 2 months) so I even had some tips for them. They plan on traveling around for about 2 years or so before looking for some type of work to do. Of course, they are in their 50s and a bit closer to real retirement than I am. Then again, I could always do workamping or be a park host….. Just kidding Dad. In any case, I had a good time talking to them and comparing notes on places to go, but I probably had a bit too much wine. I was pretty tired today, Monday, after the Lower Cave tour. Tomorrow I’m heading to either Cloudcroft or Ruidoso, NM, depending on which has less snow and open campgrounds. That’s all for now.

Carlsbad Pics

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Well yesterday, Friday the 13th, I headed out on my own from Albuquerque and left the security of DeeAnne's home behind. Most of the last 2 weeks I've spent getting things for the RV and life on the road. I still don't have my RV registered, but hopefully it will be before I get pulled over. We did manage to get away last weekend to a state park north of Santa Fe and take a few short hikes. And we managed to see a bit of Albuquerque besides Walmart, Target, Big Lots and Whole Foods.

But now Abbey and I have started the next part of our journey. I'm not sure who's more nervous, she or I. After taking a look at some of the places we might stop in the next few weeks though, I started to get excited. Our first stop was Heron Lake State Park in northern New Mexico. It wasn't any place special, but it was quiet and peaceful. Until, that is, some other campers pulled in around 10pm and started to set up in the dark. They didn't keep me up, though, and their country music in the morning didn't bother me either. I celebrated my first night alone on the road with a cold beer and some chips and salsa for happy hour. Then I had some wine with dinner. Living in this thing isn't exactly roughing it. We headed out in the morning for a nice hike along the Rio Chama. We had to cross the river on a suspension bridge and then the trail climbed to the top of the canyon. We only did a small part of the trail, but we still got some nice views. Saw an amazing rock slide (see picture) that looked pretty fresh. I was glad not to be there when that huge rock came crashing down.

Now we're spending the night at Navajo Lake State Park, also in northern NM. We had a real short thunderstorm, but it was enough to send Abbey back to the RV where she'll probably stay for the night. It's too bad because she had only been in the lake a few minutes when we heard the first thunder. This place is much more crowded but it will give me a chance to catch up on some stuff and straighten out a few things. Tomorrow morning we're heading out early to make our way to southeastern Utah. More then...

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