New Mexico: Roswell, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe
Wind, wind and more wind has been with us for the last 4 days. We left Texas and the extreme heat but the wind continues to BLOW. We arrived in Roswell practically sliding sideways into our campsite at the Elks Lodge. According to locals this is “spring weather”, certainly no fun for drivers of big flat sided rigs like ours and very scary for the extreme fire danger that much of the state is in. We drove through a small road side fire and could see how it would explode with the fanning by the winds. Roswell is a bigger city than we had envisioned. We, of course, visited the UFO Museum and Research Center; intriguing place with a lot information about the 1947 incident that captured the world’s interest. They have an amazing research library if you are into that sort of thing. In the afternoon we went in search of “reasonable” diesel price, finally finding one that we could fill our very empty tank for $350.00, OUCH that hurt but at $3.79 it was less than $4.00+ a gallon we had been seeing and think we found a bargain.
The wind has forced us to stay an additional day in Roswell, even stronger winds were forecast today and Mike knew we should not risk trying to drive through 50 mph gusts; so we stayed another night at our friendly Elks Lodge, enjoyed their hospitality, found a municipal recycling box and checked our e-mail and caught up on our record keeping, and housekeeping.
Wednesday, May 12th, day # 76 – we got up early and were on the road by just a bit after 5:00am, a pretty drive watching the sunrise over the desert and the winds were fairly calm for the few couple of hours. We made it into Albuquerque by 10:00, got all settled into our RV site and were into town by early afternoon. We enjoyed a tour of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, giving us a good introduction to the culture of the tribes of New Mexico. Lunch at our favorite El Pinto Restaurant, margaritas were good and lunch was delicious.
Day # 2 of Albuquerque was spent in camp; the co-pilot came down with a 24 hour flu bug and was staying pretty close to the conveniences. Day #3 saw us heading up to Santa Fe, one of our favorite towns. We were joined by many others on a picture perfect day: blue skies, a few scattered clouds, and temps in the high 70s and a BEAUTIFUL desert. Our first stop was Shindoni Foundry and Gallery; this is a bronze casting foundry, art gallery and 8 acres of sculpture gardens. A real variety of art from life-size bronze alligators to abstract wind sculptures – none of which were really in our price range. We had hoped to see a “pour” of the bronze but they had some complications and were not performing the regular Saturday activities, still a very interesting stop. Old town Santa Fe was our next stop, we ate lunch up on the balcony of the Ore House, looking down on the town plaza that was buzzing with a weekend art and cultural fair. We spent the afternoon browsing, finding a couple of colorful toucan prints for our MoHo and a “funky” sun for the backyard. “Have been trying to be good about not buying too much “stuff”, but sort of blew it here. Mike and I really like this area; definitely a return visit is in the works: MORE TIME!
Westward ho: we have Arizona in our sights, boy this trip is quickly coming to a close, but stay tuned we have a lot more things to do.
Wind, wind and more wind has been with us for the last 4 days. We left Texas and the extreme heat but the wind continues to BLOW. We arrived in Roswell practically sliding sideways into our campsite at the Elks Lodge. According to locals this is “spring weather”, certainly no fun for drivers of big flat sided rigs like ours and very scary for the extreme fire danger that much of the state is in. We drove through a small road side fire and could see how it would explode with the fanning by the winds. Roswell is a bigger city than we had envisioned. We, of course, visited the UFO Museum and Research Center; intriguing place with a lot information about the 1947 incident that captured the world’s interest. They have an amazing research library if you are into that sort of thing. In the afternoon we went in search of “reasonable” diesel price, finally finding one that we could fill our very empty tank for $350.00, OUCH that hurt but at $3.79 it was less than $4.00+ a gallon we had been seeing and think we found a bargain.
The wind has forced us to stay an additional day in Roswell, even stronger winds were forecast today and Mike knew we should not risk trying to drive through 50 mph gusts; so we stayed another night at our friendly Elks Lodge, enjoyed their hospitality, found a municipal recycling box and checked our e-mail and caught up on our record keeping, and housekeeping.
Wednesday, May 12th, day # 76 – we got up early and were on the road by just a bit after 5:00am, a pretty drive watching the sunrise over the desert and the winds were fairly calm for the few couple of hours. We made it into Albuquerque by 10:00, got all settled into our RV site and were into town by early afternoon. We enjoyed a tour of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, giving us a good introduction to the culture of the tribes of New Mexico. Lunch at our favorite El Pinto Restaurant, margaritas were good and lunch was delicious.
Day # 2 of Albuquerque was spent in camp; the co-pilot came down with a 24 hour flu bug and was staying pretty close to the conveniences. Day #3 saw us heading up to Santa Fe, one of our favorite towns. We were joined by many others on a picture perfect day: blue skies, a few scattered clouds, and temps in the high 70s and a BEAUTIFUL desert. Our first stop was Shindoni Foundry and Gallery; this is a bronze casting foundry, art gallery and 8 acres of sculpture gardens. A real variety of art from life-size bronze alligators to abstract wind sculptures – none of which were really in our price range. We had hoped to see a “pour” of the bronze but they had some complications and were not performing the regular Saturday activities, still a very interesting stop. Old town Santa Fe was our next stop, we ate lunch up on the balcony of the Ore House, looking down on the town plaza that was buzzing with a weekend art and cultural fair. We spent the afternoon browsing, finding a couple of colorful toucan prints for our MoHo and a “funky” sun for the backyard. “Have been trying to be good about not buying too much “stuff”, but sort of blew it here. Mike and I really like this area; definitely a return visit is in the works: MORE TIME!
Westward ho: we have Arizona in our sights, boy this trip is quickly coming to a close, but stay tuned we have a lot more things to do.
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