Casper, WY

Travelled to Casper, WY today staying at Ft. Casper Campground, along side the Platte River. Ft. Casper Campground is an old campground with narrow sites, not easy access and we damaged the truck box getting parked. We had to turn tight and found out the bottom of the fifth wheel hitch scratched the top of the truck box, oh well it is fixable, just another one of those learning experiences. The weather was nice when we arrived but the next day was cool with some rain. There was a group in tents, appeared to be maybe Boy Scouts or a church group, felt sorry for them trying to cook over the fire and accomplish other tasks in the cool wet weather, I remember the days of tenting, not as much fun in the inclement weather! Woody drove into Casper to do some shopping and fuel up the truck. We planned to do some sightseeing around Casper but the weather was not co-operative, there are hiking trails on Casper Mountain and historic sites to see, oh well maybe another trip could not even see Casper Mountain and we were very close to it. In between rain showers, we walked the dogs and mostly watched TV. The museum, which is in Ft. Casper, was not open, guess it is a little early for tourists here. This a pretty area, with the River and mountains close, vegetation is turning green and much prettier that when we travelled through this are in the fall. We have not taken many pictures along the way as the weather has not been favourable, from Pueblo to here, but at least we have not had to set up or take down in rain. We have seen lots of snow in the ditches, in the valleys and on the hills and mountains left over from the 2-5’ dump they had a couple of weeks ago. We are sure happy we decided to extend our stay in AZ The dogs are doing great, handling travelling like the troopers they are, happy to be “home” whenever and wherever we park and very excited to explore the area with all the new scents that surround them.

Santa Fe to Pueblo

Left Las Cruces today travelling to Santé Fe, NM, a unique city, buildings follow the old adobe architecture style. We travelled through the area on the way to AZ in the fall but did not stop. We stayed in a park on the outer edge of Santé Fe, overlooking the city surrounded by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Santa Fe Skies RV Park is clean, built on the edge of the hill, so sites are terraced, not bad but rather small sites; it has a beautiful view of the city lights at night and is quiet, far enough from the main highway and mostly family, snowbirds with some long term campers.
Santé Fe is the capital of New Mexico, the forth-largest city in New Mexico and the oldest North American Capital City. No other city in North America has so many adobe style buildings and we noticed that the first time we drove by Santé Fe. We only spent the night and did not spend any time investigating the city, maybe next time.
For more information on Santé Fe, very interesting history, click on the link:
http://santafe.org/Visiting_Santa_Fe/Plan_Your_Trip/History/


A view from our campsite, can see a few abobe style buildings.

Another view from our campsite.

As we left the next day, the sun was shinning but as we progressed towards the Raton Pass and into Colorado, the skies were cloudy and we drove through some showers. The terrain changes from desert surrounded by mountains to open almost barren desert, as we get closer to Pueblo, CO our next stop.
We had booked a site for a couple of nights in Pueblo West Campground and Horse Arena, turned out to be an interesting park, which we would not recommend to our friends unless they are interested in horses and rodeo events. Not very clean but at least they did have a large area to let the dogs run and play. We had a site right next to the boarding horse stalls; hmmmmm gotta love that aroma of horse manure. Oh well we plan to spend a few days visiting friends, and it is close to Pueblo West.

Travelling to the Raton Pass between New Mexico and Colorado.

I am always intrigued by landscape along the route. This lone small mountain in the desert.

The building you see is the office of the campground we stayed at on the way down to AZ. This is a small campground but has an awesome view of the mountains and the valley, it sits at the top of Raton Pass.

Heading down the other side of Raton Pass.

In Colorado heading to Pueblo. The desert is so intersting, many different types of landscape.

I liked the colour of the rock against the green trees and the shape.

Las Cruces, NM

Left today about 11:00 or so, trip to Las Cruces was good but we sure did notice that many items had moved without the benefit of air ride the fifth wheel experiences a much rougher ride. Woody decided to take the extension off the fifth wheel, had to borrow a tool from Mark to accomplish the job. We stayed a few days visiting with Mark and family, enjoyed their company and some Mexican food at a real cool little Mexican

restaurant in old Mesilla, one of those places one would not probably find unless you had the advantage of a local resident guide. Mark owns a cabinet shop and builds homes in Las Cruces, so of course Woody spent some time with Mark, checking out his shop and looking at the homes he is the process of building. We met Mark and family while staying at the park in AZ, they camped there during the Christmas holidays, staying for the New Year’s Eve party. That was so cool to see families out camping during the Christmas Break, a totally new concept for us eh!
Mesilla was declared part of the USA in 1854 and was an important route since the 16th century, eventually became known as the Chihuahua-Santa Fe Trail. For more information on the history of Mesilla and Las Cruces, click on the link.
http://www.oldmesilla.org/html/early_history.html.

The restaurant had a very nice waiting area.
Woody, Annette, Mark and ?. LOL

Some interesting birds in the waiting area.

Mark and Annette's son, Mark and guess who?

Enjoying good company and just finished a real Mexican dinner.

We stayed at Sunny Acres RV Park, a very nice park within the city of Las Cruces, large sites, well kept, great staff and there is a wonderful view of Organ Mountains. No pictures though, took enough pictures of the mountains and the park on the way down to AZ. When I made reservations the Manager remembered us and gave us big hugs when we arrived, as well she came out to the truck to see the dogs, love this place!

Leaving AZ

We planned on leaving Tombstone Territories RV Park today but ran into a snag after hooking up the fifth. We have a Trailaire ride hitch on the fifth, which have air bags and after hooking to the truck hitch the airbag needed to be topped up after sitting a long time. Woody hooked up the 12-volt air compressor, which we have used for this same purpose many times and after a few minutes of running it quit, okay we have a 110-volt compressor, set that up and no go. We realized by this time that we were staying another day to fix the problem. We had an 10 inch extension installed on the fifth wheel hitch while at the park, so called the installers to inquire what solutions or ideas they may have concerning the problem, they offered a few suggestions as to what the issue could be, followed their suggestions, still could not pump up the air bags to the proper level. Woody unhooked the fifth wheel and set it up while I went to the office to let them know we needed internet for another day. Returning to the fifth wheel, I got on the internet to find out more information on our Trailaire Ride hitch. The air bags will hold up to 120 PSI depending on the weight of the fifth wheel how much you need, so Woody went shopping for a new compressor as the 110 Volt compressor only goes up to 80 PSI. We looked online and saw a nice little compressor that was 110V/12V with PSI up to 160, should do the job, luck was in our court, and he found one at the Lowes Store in Sierra Vista. Well that did not help, now we think the extra length and slightly different angle of the extension hitch just will not allow the Trailaire ride hitch on the fifth to extend as it should, which means we can travel but will not have the benefit of air ride for the fifth wheel which is a bummer, the fifth wheel and contents will have a rougher ride. I checked the information on the internet and it does not cause any damage to the Travelaire hitch, but of course no air cushion. We talk it over and decide to travel to Las Cruces and see what difference we experience while travelling, so we will leave.
Our neighbour Charlie (work camper at the park) came over late afternoon, we showed him some DVD’s of our family and our Alberta home, very relaxing, and totally enjoyed our last visit. Charlie is a wonderful and unique fellow. He has major health issues due to injuries in the Viet Nam war and is a victim of Agent Orange but does not allow that to get him down, he stays positive and is a real hero in our eyes.

Charlie and his beloved dog, who unfortunately has been diagnosed with cancer. Prayers Charlie for you and your little dog. Keep safe and we will see you next year if you are still at TTRV!

Thanks for the emails since we left, we will keep in touch!

Christmas Eve

The weather was nice considering it is December, 60F, 15c and no freezing temperatures tonight, delightful day with a little wind. We both have a hard time wrapping our heads around the fact that families are here camping for the Christmas Holidays. We thought we might miss the snow around Christmas but we sure do not, busy enjoying friends and activities here, it is so different, we love it!



Christmas Eve we gathered at the clubhouse, singing Christmas Carols, snacks and some punch.












Left is Ken and Sylvia, park Managers.

Jim and Anne, park Activity Directors.

Ed and Bell, campworkers for the park.

We are all facing this screen which has the words to the carols projected from the Karaoke machine and the music which was provided via CD's on the Karaoke machine. It was a fun evening, singing, visiting and sharing Christmas Eve with our new friends.

Looking forward to tomorrow, turkey dinner with all the trimmings and gifts for everyone!

Karaoke

Karaoke is fun, but not many people are willing to get up and sing.  Pooch and the owner of the park John R.  John has a wonderful voice and Pooch is pretty good.

Donna, Pooch's wife, she always dresses up and brings knitting or crocheting to most events to keep her hands busy.










They love to dance and do at every opportunity.










Woody is not a great singer but I love his willingness to give it his all!

I really do love Karaoke, it is so much fun.  We pick songs from books that are provided by the park and then sing them or talk someone else into singing them!

Cool Day

Was cool this morning 24F -4C with a breeze, I actually wore my fall jacket and gloves when walking the dogs, first time since we arrived that I have wore either. By 10:30 am it was 55F +12C the sky is a beautiful deep blue, reminds of an Alberta sky. Spent most of the day cleaning up the hard drive of my laptop in preparation of selling it. I moved many files to the external hard drive and deleting files no longer required. Moved some video clips to the external hard drive and then checked to see if I could use them from the external drive, no way, USB transfer is too slow, took Sony Vegas forever to create the audio proxy so I moved them to my new computer and decided to burn them to DVD’s before I moved them to the external hard drive for storage. I am feeling bad for Woody, I know he understands that I need to get the old computer cleaned up and get the new one all set up I think he is feeling abandoned. He is keeping himself busy but I know he wants to go out about, not be hanging around listening to me grumble about computer stuff, which he cannot help me with. He is doing all the shopping on his own, cooking for us, and doing laundry, he does normally cook and do laundry but we shop together and go out and about a little more than we have lately.

Dec 19th & 20th

Dec 19^th

Today the highlight was attending the Jam Session, did not take any more pictures, just relaxed and enjoyed the music. Did not do anything exciting, just daily tasks, high today was 66F 18C a great day none the less!

Dec 20^th

Attended the Breakfast Buffet today, always good food and wonderful camaraderie, sure do not need lunch after such a huge buffet! At 2:00 pm gathered at the clubhouse for High Spirits Flutes presentation, more information on learning to play the flute plus sharing with all the flute players here in the park. Harry Seavey (owner of the Flutes and Feathers Productions) commended Woody on his progress; he was very pleased as he felt he was not progressing fast enough

.

Returning from the High Flutes Session I settle in to working on the computer, I am still spending a lot of time setting up the new computer, things are taking a lot longer that I anticipated but I will persevere. Woody finds things to do while I am so engrossed with this computer stuff. We spend the evening chatting online with friends.

Willcox, AZ

This morning was very windy (20-22 mph), cloudy and some snow on the mountains, we are joining a group on a field trip to Wilcox, visiting the Rex Allen Museum, and other historic sites, lunch at Big Tex, pie at Stout’s Cider Mill. We met at the clubhouse at 10:00 am, Jim (Activities Coordinator) had called Wilcox to check weather and was informed it was much nicer there so the trip was a go. Wilcox is about an hours drive from the park and we will travel through Texas Canyon on Hwy 90, a very neat canyon with unusual rock formations. As we drove towards Wilcox, the clouds were breaking up and by the time we arrived the sun was shining and the wind had calmed down.

We took a short cut, gravel road but in pretty good shape.

Once we joined State Hwy 90 we drove through Texas Canyon, the rock formations fascinate us and I took more pictures, we drove through this canyon on the way down here but as with all mountains big or small they always present different pictures with weather or direction change.

Hope you enjoy the pictures which of course does not capture the awesome view that our eye can see.

Our first stop was the train station, which has been restored, houses a small museum and the town offices.

Patsy, John (owner of TTRV) and Georgina (park guest and friend).

Jim was filling us in on a little history of the old Train Station.

Just down the street was Big Tex Diner (right), where we planned to have lunch.

The train station as it looks today.

Walked across the street to Big Tex Diner, an old railway car turned into a restaurant for lunch, excellent food and company

We gathered in the addtion, our group was to large to sit in the actual train car.

That was okay though, as you can see they were all decked out Christmas and we totally enjoyed visiting with the gang.

We would surely recommend the Big Tex, the food is awesome and it is a fun place to visit.

Right is the original stove in the train car.

After lunch we visited the Rex Allen Museum.

Statue of Rex Allen, his ashes are spread in this park.

His horse Ko Ko is buried in front of the statue.














The from ranches in the area of Wilcox, AZ

The movie theatre is named after Rex Allen.

The museum is small, is well organized and displays a large assortment of Rex Allen memorbilia.

His guitar.

Some items from his parents home.







Posters from his live appearances and movies.

His saddle and many outfits he wore, I had forgotten how colourful his outfits were.

The buggy used in the TV series "Frontier Doctor", man I had forgotten that show and used to watch it many years ago.

Some of our group.

We left the museum and walked across the street to take a look at the oldest continuous commercial store in Arizona.

The train car that houses the "Big Tex Diner".

Almost everyone bought something at the Willcox Commercial Store, they carry good quality merchandise at reasonable prices. Woody bought a new belt.

The outside of the store has been redone but much of the interior is original including ceiling, floor, many old display cases and the original old cash register which they still use today!

Leaving Willcox Commercial Store we headed to Stout's Cider Mill for dessert. The owners specialize in fresh hand-made products, no preservatives, use fresh apples grown in their own orchard. Our group just had to try their most famous Apple Pie, made with 9 lbs. of apples! It truely is spectacluar!

If you are ever in Willcox do make this a "have to visit" place! They are just off I10 -Exit 340.

We arrived home late afternoon, greeted by our dogs who were very excited to see us and needed a nice long walk after being inside for most of the day! We enjoyed the walk, then spent a quiet evening at home!

For more information on the museum see: http://www.rexallenmuseum.org/

For more information on Stout's Cider Mill see: http://www.cidermill.com/