Veteran's Day, Alamogordo, New Mexico

One of the great things about RV’ing is that you get to see a lot of villages, towns and cities all across this great country of ours.  In doing so, you have the opportunity to dig into some of the local activities that every community, large and small, offer.  I’m not talking about the touristy sites, tours and museums.  I am talking about what the locals are doing, activities that they participate in.  Things like Barbara and I did last Saturday here in Alamogordo, New Mexico; The Veteran’s Day Parade and a Chili Cook-off.

The following photos with captions represent a very enjoyable day for the two of us.

The start of the parade.

Local Police led the way.

Air Force was well represented.

Can you think of any better name for a mayor?!!

I am not ashamed to say I got a bit teary-eyed here.

Support for the men and women in blue was everywhere!

A large contingency of Mustangs were there. Loved them all!

The goat wasn't all that thrilled to be paraded around!

Not sure what school this is, but the mascot was a bear.

Turned around and there he was. Whew! That was close!

More of our mighty warriors.

Even the dog is a patriot!

What would a parade be without motorcycles...

.... and Classic Trucks?

The Fire Department with sirens blaring signaled the end of the parade.

A nice lady handed this card to me.  Felt good to be recognized for duty served.

After the Veteran's Day Parade, we strolled over to Alameda Park to take a look at the Chili Cook-off.  We didn't sample any of the chilis.  It cost to do so, plus just the names scared the heck out of us!

A pretty day for a Chili Cook-off.

Lots of activities and vendors.

They'll put chilis in anything!

Great entertainment. His name is C W Ayon. Great Blues.

We finished up our day with a trip up into the mountains for a little sightseeing.

Vista view near Cloudcroft, NM

Wherever you're visiting, I'd like to encourage to get away from the touristy stuff and blend in with the locals, doing the things that they love to do, year after year.

We hope this blog update finds you all well and healthy!  We recently finished two weeks of RV’ing back up at Cochiti Recreational Area, and that is what this update is about.

At Cochiti, we met our friends Mark and Judith, who came up to explore Bandelier and the Santa Fe area, and had a nice evening together.  They taught Barbara and I a new-to-us board game called “The Settlers of Catan”. They were easy on us and I ended up winning, so yeah, I’m hooked.  It seemed a bit akin to Farmville, the game that some would play on Facebook.  The day that they left to go back to Bosque del Apache we all drove into Santa Fe for a pleasant meal together, making plans to meet once again.

As mentioned in one of the earlier posts, Cochiti has become one of our favorite New Mexico recreational areas, maintained and operated by the Corps of Engineers.  What that means to us is; no free dry-camping and no inexpensive four-dollar a night full hook-up camping like we usually get at the NM State Parks.  With my old person’s National Park Discount though, we’re able to get electric sites there for $10.00 per night.  Not to expensive really, but that’s a hundred and forty bucks for 2 weeks!  We consider that splurging.  :-)

We justify that “splurging” by Cochiti’s location.  Situated on the Cochiti Pueblo Reservation, this man-made lake is surrounded by high mesas and mountains.  The lake itself is formed by a five mile long dam that was built across the mighty Rio Grande.  Is that considered a double adjective…. “Mighty” Rio “Grande”?  Doesn’t really matter, as this river that starts in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado and drives down through the states of New Mexico and Texas and then dumps into the Gulf of Mexico at Tamaulipas, Mexico is both mighty and grand.

We took a stroll along the top of the dam one morning, going just 2.5 miles across and then turning around to make it a 5 mile walk.  One wouldn’t believe it, but there was actually a lot to see on that dam walk. (Pun intended).  Fall was in the air so the foliage along the waters, both along the lake and along the Rio Grande spill-way, were turning.  The lumber along these areas are primarily cottonwood trees.  Anytime you look out across the scrub brush desert and see trees growing, you can bet that there is a water source there of some type.  It may even be a dry creek bed that has a water table of some kind not visible to the human eye.

We also had a birds-eye view of the lake and managed to see the “closed for the season” beach, a few sail boats out on the waters and even some ravens flying high above the lake but yet eye-level with us.  Pretty cool!

We came back up this way primarily to view the Aspen trees change to their shimmering golden fall colors, so one of our first ventures out was up towards Hyde Memorial State Park near Santa Fe.  There is a ski resort a few miles past the park and that’s where we headed….. us and about a zillion other fall color seekers.  Wow!!  We had originally thought of doing a fall hike up there but with so many people, the trails would have been crowded.  Instead of hiking, we looked for opportunities to pull off the road to take a few photos here and there and to stretch our legs.  We had missed the peak time by about 2 weeks but there were still some areas that had some color.  I love the way the gold-colored Aspens contrasts with the tall dark green pines.

We also made the drive back up to another of our favorite NM areas, Eagle Nest.  Again, we were looking for fall colors and were hoping to see a snow capped mountain.  We lost out on both, unfortunately.  Even so, it felt good to be back in the area.  It was quite deserted as the RV’ing/camping crowds had all left for warmer areas (like we had!) and the snow skiers had yet to arrive, waiting on consistent colder temps and of course, the snow. We checked out a lot of the places that we had when we camped there earlier and drove up to Maverick Lake where I managed to throw the trusty Kastmaster lure out a few times, catching and releasing one Rainbow Trout.  Before we headed back to Cochiti Lake, we stopped off at 5-Star Burgers in Taos and, again, were quite happy with our meals.

One of our last adventures during our two weeks back at Cochiti was to purchase a round trip ride on the Rail Runner.  The Rail Runner is a passenger train that commutes back and forth between Santa Fe and Belen, which is south of Albuquerque.  We picked it up at the Kewa Pueblo Station for the ride into Santa Fe, for a round trip day pass of $9.00 for the two of us.  Of course, it was only nine bucks because once again, I got an old person discount.  See, there are perks for getting older!  

We got on the train early in the morning so that we could hit the Farmer’s Market, and had planned to come back after only a few hours.  But once we arrived at the market and went through it, we decided to stay a little longer…. well, a LOT longer actually and ended up catching the last train of the day back home.  We ventured into the Santa Fe Square, did a lot of window shopping along with people watching and I ended up visiting The Governor’s Palace while Barbara rested.  The Governor’s Palace is a place that sits along the north side of the square where Native Americans lay their jewelry out onto blankets for the public to look at and to hopefully purchase.  I had bought a really nice turquoise ring 6 years ago when we were out this way on vacation from silversmith Raymond Twinhorse.  I looked for him there, asked around for him and finally found him sitting next to his jewelry.  We chatted a bit and I bought a nice copper and sterling mandolin pick from him.  It was good seeing him again.

Another highlight of our day trip to Santa Fe was lunch.  It was a 25 minute wait to get into Cafe Pasqual’s and it was a bit more pricey than what we’re accustomed to, but let me tell you, it was well worth the wait and the cost.  Everything was natural and organic and made in house.  I had the Durango Omelette and Barbara had the Grilled Chicken Sandwich.  It wasn’t just the main part of the meals that were tasty.  The sides were just as incredible; the potato salad (which wasn’t like a traditional one), the hash browns, the red chili sauce and homemade raspberry jam…. all great stuff!

Once again, our little 2 week adventure in the Cochiti and Santa Fe area was quite pleasant and enjoyable.  The weather was perfect, the views were awesome and the people friendly.  It will certainly be on our radar come next Spring when we begin transitioning from our southern Winter camp sites back up to our northern Spring and Summer ones.  For us that’s one of the joys of Full Time RV’ing; being able to pick up and follow the seasons on a whim.  

If you’ve read this post, then please leave us a comment and let us know your thoughts on it and also what’s going on with you.  We really do love hearing from you!!

Bud & Barbara

Santa Rosa to Elephant Butte

From Cochiti we made our way over to Santa Rosa State Park near, of course, Santa Rosa, New Mexico.

Santa Rosa was once a thriving community that sat along Route 66, the infamous historical byway.  Sadly, it is now a mixture of small businesses and empty decaying buildings.  That said, it is not without it’s attractions. The typical tourist attraction is the Blue Hole which draws swimmers and divers in from all over the country.  As we don’t really swim and certainly don’t scuba dive, we decided to forgo the $5 admission charge and just glance at it from the parking lot.  Oddly enough, this attraction is part of the Santa Rosa Parks.  Now, if you’re anything like me (Bud)… and heaven help those around you if you are… your mind immediately conjured up a picture of Rosa Parks in a Santa suit.  I know… it’s a bit out there but dang….. “Santa Rosa Parks” just cracks me up!

"Santa" Rosa Parks

Santa Rosa is a mecca for anyone who enjoys old signs, and as a once-upon-a-time sign maker I was in photo heaven.  I did a quick photo shoot one evening and actually got there a bit later than I would have liked.  The sun was fading fast in the western sky and I had to hurry along the main drag to capture what images I could find. The morning sun would have been much better as far as the number of signs I could have photographed and with better contrast, but the evening light gave a warm color to my photos.  I’m pretty much happy with them.

After I hurriedly walked westward and then eastward along the main drag, I ventured off to a couple side streets, snapping photos as I went.  I eventually met a gentleman by the name of M.E. Sprengelmeyer sitting outside of the local newspaper office, coffee cup in hand.  He was curious about me and what I was doing and as we chatted I learned that M.E. was the publisher, editor, photographer and writer of the “The Communicator”.  Of course, there are a few others on his payroll that help in the gathering of news stories, photos, cartoons, etc.  He invited me in and I shared with him my history of newspaper work (illustrator, graphic artist, writer and ad sales).  We discussed the failing industry and both wondered how people who lived in a small community could ever keep up with the local sports, school achievements, chamber news, etc. without a local newspaper.  

M. E. Sprengelmeyer

I am sure, if Barbara and I had given it the time needed, that there were probably plenty of interesting places to explore and discover in the Santa Rosa area and perhaps come next year, we’ll go back for a little longer stay.  But we had Elephant Butte State Park on our minds and after three nights at Santa Rosa State Park we steered La Casita southward.

When we were up at Eagle Nest back in August and September, we had met a couple who actually live in the village of Elephant Butte.  Roger and Dianna use to RV extensively and eventually settled down into a stick built home but still own a camping trailer for small jaunts around the state.  After getting to know each other, Roger handed over his phone number and asked us to give him a call once we made our way to Elephant Butte and they would show us around some.

Elephant Butte State Park has quite a few places where one can camp and we chose South Monticello campground.  Wow, was it ever nice!  Once again, all of the amenities, paved roads and nice level graveled sites with plenty… as in P-L-E-N-T-Y… of space between RV sites.  Practically everyone near the east end had excellent views of the lake.  Well, what lake there was.  Elephant Butte Lake gets pretty full in the spring, being fed by the Rio Grande, but as the summer drags on more and more water is released for irrigation purposes to help the farmers in New Mexico and also those down in Texas. Seeing as we arrived in October, most of the lake at our end of the park was dry.  Still, the view was beautiful and the sunsets awesome.

Once we got settled in, we gave Roger and Dianna a call and they graciously took us out to dinner at… where else… but the Ivory Tusk Restaurant.  Afterwards, they invited us up to their home to visit.  Up… way up.  They have a really nice home that sits on the edge of a very high mesa, overlooking the lake.  It was a gorgeous view as we sat outside on the back deck chatting and getting to know one another.  I was having a great time, until I wasn’t paying attention and walked right through the closed screened patio door, tearing it off the railing and bending the frame.  What a klutz.  Sorry Roger!  I’m blaming the fantastic views that I was looking at!

Dianna & Roger

Our stay at Elephant Butte seemed to be a socializing mecca for Barbara and I.  Through the RVillage website, we had made contact some months back with a couple who’s paths we finally got to cross.  Mark and Judith are fellow Ohioians and after we met in Truth or Consequences over a sweet bite, we seemed to have hit it off pretty good.  They were volunteering up at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, which is about an hour north of where we were staying.  They have been full-timers for a year now.  Our initial meeting must have went well for them also, for we eventually got invited to meet them in San Antonio, NM for burgers and then into their home ( a beautiful 5th wheel ) for a visit.  It was an evening full of grins and giggles and a bonding that I am sure will last for a long time to come.  That said, every full-time RVer knows that the relationships one builds while out on the road are relationships that are eventually separated by hundreds of miles apart.  BUT… as we all have the wander lust in our veins we know that eventually our paths will once more cross and we’ll pick up where we left off.  

Mark & Judith

Barbara and I did make a trip up to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge for a guided tour, led by another couple.  It was nice, but the geese and other migratory birds hadn’t started coming in full strength yet so we saw very few birds.  But hey, it was a free tour and a nice day to be out.

"Hank Heron"

We also reached out to another couple through RVillage; Bill and Sandi who hail from Indiana.  They are another pair that we found fun to sit and chat with and of course, had lots of laughs.  They have only been RVing full-time for a month or so, but seem to be settling right into it.  As plans now stand, they will be hanging around the southern New Mexico area, as we will be, for most of the rest of this year.  We hope to continue to visit with them and get to know them even better, and Bill and I are even talking about next spring…. trout fishing up around the Eagle Nest area.  It’s never to early to plan a fishing trip!

Truth or Consequences, NM is another one of those sad but nice little towns.  I talked to a former New Yorker who owns a very nice, eclectic shop filled with old and new stuff along with some handcrafted items.  She told me that T or C (as it is often called) is officially the poorest town in New Mexico.  It does have some interesting shops, often very colorful, and the local Walmart has bank after bank of solar panels that not only provide the electricity to operate the store, but also provides nice shade from the sun for their customers.  Pretty cool!

With all of that socializing, we didn’t get out and about much to explore the area.  We had Roadrunners, Jack Rabbits, Cottontail Rabbits and Gambel Quail in and around.. and ON…. our campsite.  No snakes.  One big spider that I “think” was a tarantula but wasn’t 100% sure so I left it alone.  :-)  

We heard coyote in the distance and enjoyed the ever changing mountains as the sun rose and sat.  We stayed a full 2 weeks there and then headed back up to Cochiti Lake.  I am not sure how long we’ll be at Cochiti.  We’re mainly going up there to use it as a home base while we drive back up into Eagle Nest to view the fall foliage and, hopefully, a snowcapped mountain or two.  After that, we plan on returning to Elephant Butte, hooking up with Mark and Judith, Roger and Dianna and Bill and Sandi again, and try real hard to find some time to explore that area more thoroughly. 

Thus far, this adventure of ours has been worth the effort and the risk that we took to make it happen.  

Gives us your thoughts about all of this and also let us know what’s going on with you and your life. We truly do want to hear from you.

Bud & Barbara

At Santa Rosa State Park

In Santa Rosa

View from Camper at Elephant Butte State Park

Jack Rabbit!