Vacationing Along the Jemez Mountain Trail

Ahhh, it feels good to be on the road again.  Steve and I are on a vacation in northern New Mexico.  As one of my friends observed, I really NEED a break from the stress of working one day a week at a spa.  Yeah, whatever.  I know I need to get out of town sometimes or I get a bit cranky and maybe even boring.

This trip has been anything but boring.  We hardly planned it.  We're going with the flow, taking things as they come, playing it by ear.  

On Wednesday, our first day out, we thought we'd get north of Albuquerque, but the brakes on the Guppy were mushy, so we added brake fluid.  When that didn't help very much, we overnighted at Kiva RV Park and Horse Motel, where I'd spent several nights last year before I first went to Truth or Consequences, and then had the brake lines bled in Belen by a mechanic whom we've gotten to know all too well on trips between TorC and Albuquerque.  Fifty dollars and a great breakfast later, we were back on the road.  If YOU ever break down south of Albuquerque, check out Mike's Auto Detailing (he's actually full-service) and Frances' Restaurant (menudo every day, but, no thanks, I'll pass on the tripe).  They're on Main Street, you can't miss 'em.

We still had plenty of time on Thursday after the brake repair to head up to Coronado State Monument in Bernalillo.  This is one of the pueblos that was probably visited in the mid-1500s by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado on his famous trek to find the Seven Cities of Gold.  All he found were Indians, but they were living an abundant, usually peaceful life.  Unfortunately, Coronado and his 1000+ followers stuck around long enough to change this pretty drastically.  (They wiped out at least two pueblos that got tired of feeding the entourage, and many more people died of illnesses to which they had no immunity.)  

The Coronado State Monument was established after WPA workers accidentally dug into a beautiful, rare, painted kiva in the 1930s.  Painted kivas were not so unusual a few hundred years ago, but they're rare today because they are so difficult to preserve.  

The paintings are done in a kind of fresco with natural dyes, and they are painted over and over many times.  It's thought that the process of painting pictures in a kiva was a sort of meditation or prayer.  So, in the one we saw, there were probably six inches of paintings that had been done over several hundred years.  Most of the preservation was done by an anthropology graduate student, who tried to isolate some of the most complete drawings and preserve a single layer.  

The paintings we saw inside the kiva were reproductions done by an Indian in the 1930s who got thrown out of his tribe for being willing to share something so sacred with the rest of the world.  You can still see some of the original paintings, dating from the 14th to 16th centuries, in another building where they are preserved.  

All very cool.  But the Coronado Campground just outside the Memorial was not so cool--they wanted $18 for us to park on a bit of gravel right next to a really big rig.  So we took a chance on what we'd find up the road, and it paid off!

We headed north up to Highway 4, a winding road through the Jemez Mountains that offers lots to see and do.   We got to see people still living in the old Jemez Pueblo, and we stopped at their visitor center, where they also provided information on National Forest Service campgrounds in the area.  So we ended up at a really nice little campground that cost us only $5 (Steve has the Golden Age pass).  We were surrounded by red rock mesas and we were close enough to Jemez Creek to hear a little waterfall.

After spending most of this summer in southern New Mexico, the cool evenings in the north are very welcome, as are the sights and scents of different vegetation.   We slept among the junipers on Thursday night, and then among pines last night (Friday).

Yesterday morning, we headed into the town of Jemez Springs.  It is a spa town, sort of like TorC, but smaller and up in the mountains.  It has some great little collectively-run art galleries, where I bought a couple fun things and learned lots about a top secret newly-invented media that I'll try working with once I get home.  We stopped for coffee at Hwy4 Coffee, which had free wifi.  That was great, because I hadn't had phone or Internet access for a while. 

 
We did not go sit in the mineral springs--we can go for free when we're home, and also the ones up here have a distinct sulfur odor, which we don't have in TorC.  In fact, when we were driving by that stretch of Jemez Creek, I sniffed and looked askance at Steve, because I was pretty sure the odor was his fault; but then we stopped to look at a natural dam that is the result of many years of mineral deposits caking up in one place, and that's when I realized, "Oh, it's the creek that smells."

We drove up mountains on scary roads yesterday to see about staying at Fenton Lake State Park, but the campground was full, so we just ate lunch and headed back to Highway 4.  Then we found another nice NFS campground where we slept last night.  Steve heard wild turkeys and had brought along his turkey call, so he tried to attract them closer, but there were too many people in the campground for these skittish birds to come visit us.  We did see a few other smaller critters, though, and we heard lots of barking dogs. 

I was ready for a different sort of campsite tonight, after being woken by the dogs this morning, and we have found it.  We spent part of today at Bandelier National Monument (which was, disappointingly, mostly closed due to rocks on the road), and the rest of the day at the science museum in Los Alamos (owned and run by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, just so you know what to expect if you go there yourself--very informative, but don't expect to hear ANY criticism of nuclear weaponry or energy).  Even though we weren't really thrilled by the attractions in this area, the drive itself was amazing.  Lots of switchbacks and scary mountain roads.  I love that sort of thing!  

When it came time to find a campground, we were near Espanola, and the only "RV park" in town is one of those places where people tend to live full-time.  Really run down and right in town.  So, after driving around north of town and asking some questions, we found ourselves at a fishing lake at the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo.  We don't have hook-ups or showers, and it is way overpriced, but we are also the only ones staying here overnight (so far), I'm writing this about 10 feet from the lake, and there are no dogs.  There's a nice breeze and the evening promises to be pleasantly quiet and cool.  


We left Sonja at home in this little tiny basket (and arranged for daily visits by our friend Kelly, who is a great pet sitter!):

We plan to continue our vacation for another five or six days, so I think there will be another blog post about this trip.  We're thinking of heading east next, through some of the mountains south of Taos,  catching up with our friend Bridget at her ranch or somewhere nearby, and then circling back to Santa Fe where we know a few nice folks.

Tripping Around New Mexico

If you go, try the brisket. The moist (i.e. fatty) type, not the lean.

My departure for Why, Arizona, is coming up in two weeks, and in the meantime I've been seeing a little more of New Mexico before I leave for the winter.

This past Wednesday, Steve and I drove up to Albuquerque to have dinner with my friend Joni Sugimura, whom I've known my entire life and who helped me immensely during my epic stay in San Francisco this spring. Joni was vacationing in the Southwest and was spending the last few days of her trip enjoying the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.

We went out for barbecue that was finger-lickin' good. I was so enjoying the conversation and food that I forgot to take pictures, until we had already bid Joni farewell in the parking lot, so I only got the photo of the restaurant's sign above.


I did manage to get a picture of Steve driving his truck. This is a view I'll be seeing a lot of from now on.

Of course I could not go to Albuquerque without also doing some eBay shopping. We hit three thrift stores before meeting up with Joni, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience except for the crazy guy who kept wanting to talk to me wherever I went (and I'm not talking about Steve! Him, I like to talk to). I bought lots of cowboy shirts, which have been selling pretty well for me on eBay these past few months. I've found that the higher the BBM factor (Brokeback Mountain), the better they sell. Paisleys, florals, wild colors are the best. Check them out at my eBay store.

The drive home was lovely. We had to stop and enjoy the sunset for a while. It was just too good to merely drive by; it needed savoring.


Today we are heading to Santa Fe to visit friends and enjoy artwork for the rest of this week. We'll be making a day trip up to Taos, too. I'm looking forward to five days of vacation before I have to buckle down and get ready for my move.

Oh, I nearly forgot! I completed a mosaic project for my employer, La Paloma Hot Springs & Spa, last week. It is the top of a wicker desk that is in one of the nicer lodgings. They liked it so much, I've been commissioned to do a couple more pieces before I leave Truth or Consequences and probably a few more when I get back here next spring or summer. While I'm in Santa Fe, I need to get to Lowe's and stock up on some glass tiles, antiquing glaze, and other supplies. Here's the desk:

Okay, gotta go get ready for my trip. Adios!

Becoming New Mexican

La Paloma Hot Springs & Spa

Yesterday I started my job as a part-time spa attendant at La Paloma, which offers hot springs baths, massage, lodging and a conference center for retreats. It's a very nice facility, and one of the perks is that I get all the free soaks I want.

The job itself is pretty easy--two days a week, I will take whatever reservations come in, check in people as they arrive for a stay, and do some light housekeeping in the bath house between bathers. Job duties include such things as making sure the New Age music from Pandora is always streaming into the bath house and doing a sage ritual at shift change.

The downside of the job is that everyone that works there is seriously nucking futs. Housekeepers come into the office to complain about everything and everybody. So I'll be learning to have good boundaries on this job. The only question is whether to be really positive or just tell these crazy people I will hurt them if they spew their negativity at me. I'll probably try the nice approach first.

I did talk to a few people that I consider to be sane about the bitchy backbiters at work, and they said, "Welcome to TorC." I could get a job somewhere else, but it will be the same anywhere. This is a town where you are a superstar at work if you show up, do the job, and don't say anything really crazy (such as attributing missing cleaning supplies to ghosts...seriously!), and that's what I intend to do.

Turtleback Mountain just before a monsoon

In my last entry, I wrote about selling both antiques and my artwork at January's Gallery With a Card Shop here in Truth or Consequences. A few days ago, I stopped by with more vintage stuff for January to sell in her shop, and she kindly included me in a "ladies night out" at the new ice cream shop in town that evening. It was really fun getting to know a few more people here, especially since they share my interest in reselling old crap.

I took the picture of Turtleback just as I left the house. Normally the mountain is a dark brown against a light blue sky, but with a rainstorm about to begin and the sun on its way down, the mountain was illuminated against a dark cloudy background. For those of you who know Brian, that's his house on the right with the big swamp cooler on the roof. Brian lives so close to me that I sometimes back the Guppy into his fence, trying to get out of my parking space and into the alley. Not on purpose, of course.

Sonja's kibble in a moat

I didn't know about the monsoon season before I moved here. Coming from the Pacific Northwest where it rains all fall, winter and spring, it seems funny to be someplace where the majority of the rain falls in the summer. But it's also nice, because the storms usually occur in the afternoon or early evening, and they bring cool relief from the hot days. When I was at the ice cream event the other night, the rain came down pretty hard for a while, so we just stayed longer and chatted more until it cleared up.

Another thing I didn't know about before moving here was the ants! Lots and lots of little ants, different colors and different kinds. The locals know their names. I don't. They're all just pests to me. I was feeling frustrated about ants coming into my house and swarming in Sonja's cat food dish, until I talked to my neighbor Janice, who does a lot of pet-sitting. She told me to put Sonja's dish inside a larger dish full of soapy water. This completely alleviated the problem.

Candlesticks painted in New Mexico colors, then distressed

This week I took a major shopping trip down to Las Cruses with my friends Gretchen and Tom. Man, do they know how to shop! I thought I was a shopper, but they wore me out. Gretchen shopped 'til I dropped. It was good, though. We hit some thrift stores that have a 30% senior discount on Wednesdays, and I found lots of good stuff for resale and also to incorporate into artwork. Then we went to deep discount department stores, such as Big Lots and Factory 2U, and I got a bunch of things I needed for my apartment. We topped it off with lunch at Golden Corral, which also has a senior discount, but I wasn't old enough for that one. I don't think I can afford to go with Gretchen and Tom every week (money-, time-, or energy-wise), but it was fun and I will definitely do it again.

Overall this past week has been another social butterfly week for me. This just amazes me, given that I used to be such a loner. I find myself dropping whatever I'm doing to have coffee with Dhultky or iced tea with Brian or a chat with Janice, plus I need to fit in the phone calls to friends and family elsewhere. I've also begun writing a weekly snail mail letter to my son Sly, because sometimes it's difficult to find times that we're both available to talk on the phone. I am changing here...no longer isolating, and becoming a person who values companionship, kindness, and mutual interests when they come my way.

Mosaic birdhouse completed this morning

I do, however, need to grab those times that I have to myself and get things accomplished! I actually do that, but not to the extent of my capabilities. I gather things up to take to January and I do artwork and I eat pretty well and ride my bike here and there to run errands, but I tend to put off the less fun stuff. So today I'm having a Garbage Day to take care of the garbage I'd rather not do, such as pay bills, do paperwork, and clean house. And I'm going to get it all done before my siesta, so I gotta run. I know I'm not completely a New Mexican yet, because if i was, I'd take my siesta first. One day at a time, I guess.

My Little Piece of Sunshine

It's my first full day living in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. So far, it's been really good. I have the Guppy parked at the Artesian Spa. My space gets shade in the morning and evening, and my neighbors helped me figure out how to set up my awning, so I get a little shade in the afternoon, too.

This RV park is very affordable, $130 plus electricity per month. I also get my hot mineral baths for half price ($3 per hour), and there are showers, a bathroom, and a laundromat. I stayed here when I was visiting TorC earlier this year, and I liked it enough to come back.

Today I discovered there's a freezer in the laundromat that I can use, as well, with a sign that says it is only for FOOD. I don't want to imagine what prompted that sign to be posted.

The location is great. I can walk to the grocery store, post office, movie theater, bookstore, etc. I'm thinking I will probably get a bike with baskets. My new next-door neighbor rebuilds old bikes and I can probably get some help from him if I buy a used one.

I was thinking that I'd need to find somewhere else to live soon so I could have someplace to do my mosaic artwork. However, the spa owner said it's fine if I start out doing some mosaics in the little yard area that I have next to the Guppy. He'd rather have someone doing artwork than rebuilding an engine. So, for now, the Artesian will work for me.

Later on I will need more space, probably a store front or similar building, for a business I'd like to start here in TorC. But I'm not in any hurry to do this. I don't need to pay rent on a commercial building until I have all of my plans in place. And who knows? If I am content just making and selling my own artwork and continuing to sell on eBay, I may not need or want to do anything more.

I started out my day with a long walk, about 6:30 a.m., while it was still cool. I enjoyed looking at this mural that was designed by artist Dean Stanton and made with the help of 240 TorC Elementary School students just a few months ago, in April 2011.


The mural includes all sorts of scenes related to Truth or Consequences: farming and ranching, the Rio Grande, Native American and Hispanic history, boating and fishing, the hot springs historic district, and more. Sorry my photos aren't better today! I'm having trouble with my mouse and couldn't crop them as I usually do.

I did some thinking about my own artwork while I walked. I'm not sure whether to fold my art blog into this one, or vice versa, or what. Anyway, it seems to me I need to do some sketching of images that are found in my new environment. It will be like learning to draw as a little kid again--you draw what you see every day. Here in New Mexico I've seen lots of windmills, mourning doves, cacti, adobe and stone buildings, mesas and mountains, and sunrises and sunsets. Eventually I'll work some of these images in mosaic. I'm going to take it slow and easy, and just soak up my environment.

I have already learned the advantages of taking a midday siesta. It gets hot by about 9:30 a.m. and stays that way until the sun goes down. It's not an unpleasant sort of heat by any means. I've taken several more walks today to get groceries, a book, and tent stakes for my awning, and so long as I take it slow, it's fine. Perspiration evaporates quickly. But around high noon, I might as well read for a while and take a little nap. Why not?

I have the air conditioning on low here in the back of the Guppy, and it keeps the house pleasantly cool. My fridge is full of cold water, Jumex juices and fresh fruit and vegetables.

My friend Brian is picking me up for a meeting tonight, and I've been on the phone with a new friend I made the last time I was here who will also be the meeting tonight--I'm thinking of asking her to be my AA sponsor.

A bonus today is that I called the mechanic in Oregon who had my old car and he sold it! So I'll have a little money coming in from that, and I can cancel the insurance I've been paying on it.

I'm gearing up to be ready to start selling on eBay again as soon as tomorrow. I can use my shady little patio area for taking photos in natural light. Besides my usual inventory of vintage silk designer scarves, I plan to expand into the area of funky Western wear. Last time I was here in TorC, I saw some great cowboy and cowgirl shirts in the thrift stores.

Happy Trails!

I'm Going Back to Truth or Consequences

Wow, did I ever have a great time in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. I stayed there over a week, at a humble old RV park and hot springs spa built in the 1930s. The little downtown in TorC, as everyone here calls it, has a historic hot springs area with many little hotels, rental cabins, RV parks, etc. You can go sit in a nice hot mineral water bath for as little as $2.50 an hour, or much more if you choose one of the fancier spas. I've been meaning to email all of my friends up north and say, "Hey, this is the place to vacation! Inexpensive, relaxed, warm, nice people, etc., etc."

I also got to spend time with new friends in TorC. I'd previously met Brian, a member of the VanDwellers Yahoo group, online and we'd exchanged emails and phone calls. It was really great to meet him in person, and to also get acquainted with Brian's friend Paul, who was visiting from Colorado. We shared some great meals and conversation.

Of all the places I've visited so far in my 2-month journey, TorC has the most "Come Back Next Winter" appeal to me. I could definitely see myself setting up a new mosaic studio under a carport in the sunshine. Also maybe helping some of the many creative folks in town get their artwork sold online. And definitely sitting in those spas every day! I checked out the local AA meetings, and there are a surprising number of them for such a small community. I guess that's part of what I like about TorC--the surprises of it. Like accidentally walking in on a reading by local poets at the bookstore, which is only open on weekends. I kept asking myself all week, how can this little town be so sleepy and yet so vibrant at the same time? And it's surrounded by a great deal of natural beauty, plus it's a great base for exploring some national parks and other nearby destinations.

One of the nice things about being in one place for a while was getting a little more interior decoration done on the Guppy. I had plain foam rubber cushions on the dinette until I got to TorC, but now they are covered with a bamboo pattern fabric. Slowly but surely, things are coming together, and I continue to get more comfortable with the mobile lifestyle.

I left TorC this morning and meandered down to El Paso, stopping to shop at a swap meet, a gas station, an antique store, and a Camping World before parking at a Walmart for the night. Tomorrow I start my way east across Texas. I plan to stay off the main freeway, I-10, as much as possible and take a more southerly route on Hwy 90. My next major stop is San Antonio, and I definitely need to call my dear childhood friend Lise to let her know my arrival is a few days hence.

Four Days at The Kiva

Rescue Burros at the Kiva RV Park & Horse Motel

I last wrote on Monday morning from the Route 66 Casino just west of Albuquerque, after having spent two nights boondocking in parking lots. That morning, I drove into Albuquerque and visited a few of the thrift stores along San Mateo Boulevard, then headed down I-25 to the Kiva RV Park & Horse Motel in Bernardo, NM.

This is an interesting place where they rent RV sites and horse stables, as well as operating a burro rescue operation. There were all sorts of animals around to look at and interact with, including a bevy of Bassett hounds. I could imagine how much fun it would have been to stay at a place like this when my kid was little. Someone at Kiva gave me some horse cookies to feed the critters. It was a little scary to have those huge mouths taking cookies from my hand, but lots of fun. (The foal was too young for cookies, but it sure was interested in them, anyway!)

It was also cool to see how much work they had done to make this flat piece of land more interesting. There was a beautiful meditation garden with a pond that I liked very much.

I'd planned to spend two nights at the Kiva, then pick up my general delivery mail at Bosque, a larger town about 10 miles up the road, but my mail didn't come as soon as I'd expected, so I spent an extra night. So I got some time to figure out my income taxes and get a lot of eBay stuff done. I mailed out about a dozen eBay packages this week from Bosque.

Overall, it's been a quiet week, so I don't have a lot of stories to tell, but I do have a great appreciation to express for New Mexico. I like it the best of the states I've visited so far. Everyone I've met has seemed really down to earth, with no pretensions, and the communities I've visited so far seem that way, too. It's also beautiful country, and there are lots more places that I'd like to explore here...Santa Fe, Taos, Roswell, Carlsbad Caverns, and all the beautiful back country places. I'm definitely gonna have to come back sometime when I'm not on my way to Georgia, the Midwest, and other places I have commitments.

I'm also definitely going to have some stories to tell about Truth or Consequences, where I arrived today! I am staying here at least a week and have a spot at an RV park/hot springs spa for $65 a week. Whoo hoo! I'm meeting up with two of my VanDwellers online friends here. I'm looking forward to hitting some AA meetings, trying some different spas, and just generally having fun before I get serious about heading east.

Meandering East to New Mexico

Today's Sunrise at the Gallup, NM, Walmart

When I left Williams, Arizona, the Gateway to the Grand Canyon, on Wednesday morning, I planned on just taking the short drive down to Camp Verde, south of Flagstaff, and settling in for a couple of days at an RV resort where I had reservations. However, an interesting phenomenon has occurred a lot lately. I've been getting to the place I planned to stay fairly early in the day, and I still have energy, daylight, and a tank of gas, so I decide to keep going instead of settling in for the night. This happened at Camp Verde--I arrived early in the day and kept driving south to Prescott, a great little mountain town that I've wanted to go to ever since I was a high school student and knew someone going to college there.

I was very pleasantly surprised to find that there was excellent eBay shopping in Prescott, and also on the drive up and back! Lots of thrift stores, antique stores, and one particularly good vintage clothing store. I did almost as much vintage designer brand shopping in that one day as I did the whole time I was in San Francisco!

The drive down Hwy I-17 from Flagstaff to the Verde Valley was beautiful. I had wondered why anyone would name a mountainous part of Arizona "the green valley," because I have a misconception about Arizona being all desert. The Verde Valley was full of light green spring leaves popping from the trees. In fact, one of the places I stayed in this area was idyllic...right on a lazy bend of Oak Creek. The Guppy was parked right on a bank of the creek. Lovely! My neighbors and I all sat outside in the evening, reading our books and watching the water slowly flow by.


When I left the Verde Valley, I drove north on Hwy 89A through Sedona. It was incredible. I only had a chance to take pictures at one scenic viewpoint as I was approaching Sedona from the south. The most fantastic pictures could have been taken from within Sedona itself and just north of Sedona--but I was busy driving then and couldn't take photos. Sometimes it would be good to have someone riding shotgun with a good camera, or maybe if The Guppy was rigged to take photos like one of those Google Earth cars...

North of Sedona, I saw a sign for the Walnut Creek National Monument. I'd never heard of it, but I recently bought an America the Beautiful pass that gets me into just about every sort of federal recreational lands, so I stopped. I'm glad I did! It was a fascinating, more close up view of cliff dwellings than I had seen before.

Yesterday I had another one of those days when I got to my destination early and then decided to keep going. I'd planned to stay somewhere along I-40, heading east from Flagstaff to the Arizona-New Mexico border, maybe stopping somewhere around Holbrook. But I got to Holbrook in the midafternoon, stopped at a Native American owned cafe for a delicious Navajo taco, and decided to keep driving. I made it all the way to Gallup, New Mexico, and did my first night of boondocking at a Walmart! I got there around 6 pm before the lot had filled up with semis and RVs, so I got a nice little corner, where some little Airstreams later joined me.
Last night I went into Walmart and got myself a Verizon modem so I can have Internet access wherever there is Verizon 4G or 3G coverage (so long as I can plug in my laptop or its battery still has power). I used it in the Gallup (3G) area and it seemed to work fine.

Right now I'm using the free public WIFI at the Route 66 Casino just west of Albuquerque. I had no particular itinerary in mind when I left Gallup this morning. It was an extremely windy day and I saw the first sandstorm I've ever seen in my life. Keeping The Guppy on the road during gusty winds is a challenge, so I got off the freeway every hour or so to take a good break, and finally decided to get off the road for the evening when I came to this particular casino.

I've covered about 400 miles in the past couple of days...much more than I have previously been driving. Except for the wind that I experienced across New Mexico today, the driving has become easier. I have more confidence that The Guppy is going to be okay, now that she has almost 2000 miles on her new engine. There are fewer mountains--actually, plenty of mountains to look at, but fewer to have to drive up and down, since the freeway runs through the valleys and flat rangeland, so I can really get some miles behind me.

I'm also less wedded to having plans about where I'll spend each night. Now that I've boondocked a few times (although not yet anywhere really out in the boonies, such as BLM land), I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to find a decent place to stay, so I just get in the RV and drive and see where I end up. This seems to be working for me, and, as you can see from the photos, Sonja is pretty comfortable with things the way they are going right now, too!

Trip Planning Across Northern AZ and NM

(Today's pictures are from the Colorado River, the border between California and Arizona)

Today I'm at Ridgeview RV Resort in Bullhead City, Arizona. I stayed here last night and will stay again tonight. It's not much of a destination, more of a stopover, to me. The resort is just across the river from Laughlin, Nevada, where there are lots of casinos.

I had thought about going over to Laughlin just for laughs, so to speak, but when I got here to the resort, everyone was all excited because today is their yearly Bash. It's a day long event involving a pancake breakfast, a cake walk and some games, an open bar, and a chicken dinner. I decided to pay my $5 so I could eat the pancakes and chicken, but I'm not interested in the rest. Most of the participants are snowbirds who spend a good part of their winter right here at Ridgeview, so they all know each other and are having a Bash before they go home to Canada, Alaska, Michigan, or wherever. I did meet a very nice couple from British Columbia this morning over breakfast.

I spent a good part of the day using my road atlas, the Internet and a AAA tripbook to plan my route for the next couple of weeks. I want to be in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, two weeks from today to meet a couple of my online VanDweller friends. In the meantime, my itinerary looks generally like this:

• March 27-28--to Williams, AZ, and take a train day trip up to Grand Canyon
• March 29-30--Sedona/Flagstaff/Prescott area
• April 1-5--Head east to Albuquerque and Taos area, hopefully meet my online friend Bridget
• April 6-9--Head south to see the aliens in Roswell, plus maybe Carlsbad Caverns, then loop back west to meet up with my friends in Truth or Consequences.

I'm not sure how long I'll stay in TorC--a few days, I hope, before continuing the push eastward. I'm just really glad to have the opportunity to do some sightseeing and relaxing here in the beautiful Southwest. I have been here several times before, but never was so struck by how beautiful the landscapes are or how temperate the climate can be. My previous trips to the Southwest were usually a little later in the spring, during my kid's spring break from school, so it was hotter. I could really see spending significant times of the winters in desert settings--and that's part of why I'm traveling this year, is to get an idea of what sort of place or places I'd like to spend more time.

I'm sure looking forward to taking the train up to the Grand Canyon! I was so conflicted on whether to go camping up there. The daytime temps are still in the 50s this time of the year, and the night time temps can be well below freezing. I wanted to go and I didn't want to go, so much. Radical ambivalence. I finally decided to camp at the Grand Canyon Railway RV Park and take the train up for a day. It's expensive, but it will be very memorable and I know I will enjoy it.

Time to go out and spend the rest of the day in the sunshine before I join the red neck diesel pushers for a fried chicken dinner.