Well, as usual I am late with the blog for the month of March, but I had a technical difficulty. On with the show! The end of March has come and gone and so have we. We left Elephant Butte on March 24 and went to Albuquerque to meet our friends Jack and Lynn. After spending a day with them we headed home to Michigan. After spending 6 months in New Mexico we had to say good bye to all of our new friends. We had a wonderful time there. All of the volunteers and park staff were great. I think they spoiled us for anyplace else we may go.
Last month I mentioned that we had bought a new Jeep. Well this is it. Cute isn't it? It's a Wrangler Unlimited Sport. Not real fancy but it rides nice, has a sun roof (just remove the panels) and lots of leg room. It was getting hard for this old man to get in and out of the Saturn so we went and looked at Jeeps. The first dealer we went to was ok until they brought out "slick". He was part of the reason we drove to Albuquerque to buy it instead of Las Cruces where we first looked. I had to install the base plate and lights to tow it but that was fairly easy. It tows really well and it's fun to drive on the trails.
We took it up into a box canyon when our friends Jack and Lynn stopped by on their way to Arizona. We had a great day to wander and look at some pictographs that we were told were about five miles up in the canyon. We didn't get into any real hard core 4-wheeling but we did get into 4-wheel drive and crossed the same stream about a dozen times. Holly and I had taken the Saturn down a lot of roads (that's what the maps called them) but this is one place I would not have taken the car.
 |
| Entrance to Ted Turner's Ranch. |
On another trip we went by one of Ted Turner's ranches. It turns out he owns a lot of property in New Mexico. We were following a county road which was all gravel. We took of the top front panels (sunroof) and headed for the mountains. It turns out this road goes on and on and turns into a drive way for someone's ranch. Well we turned around and found a two track on the way back. That's right, you guessed it. Dropped the Jeep into four wheel drive and off we went. That was a dead end also so we turned around and went back and headed home. A little bouncy but we had a ball.
We were going to go on a little four wheeling trip with two other couples from the park who also own Jeeps. It rained the day before and you don't go into box canyons after it rains. Something about flash floods. The following week Holly and I headed for Caballo Mountain. You can see the top of the mountain from I-25 and it has a lot of tiny antennas on top. Well we found the road up to the top and started up. We started out at about 4500 feet and when we got to the top we were almost at 8000 feet and guess what? Those tiny antennas that you can see from the highway are not so tiny when you get to the top.
It was a little climb to get to the top but the view was well worth the trip, even for someone who has a little problem with heights (me). As you can see, the day was beautiful. The road was dusty and steep in the last little bit right at the top. The trip down was not as bad as the trip up (yeah right).
 |
| The view from the top is worth the trip up. |
While in Albuquerque on the way home we met Jack and Lynn who were now in Santa Fe and took the train into Albuquerque. We picked them up at the train station and toured the town together. We visited Old Town and Jack and I had plenty of time to sit and talk while Holly and Lynn shopped (plenty of time). We went to breakfast at Weck's Restaurant. They make a great meal and boy, do they know how to use green chiles. For lunch we went to Church Street Cafe. Great Mexican food...one of my favorite places to go to eat in Old Town.
We took the tram up to to top of Sandia Peak. It is one of the longest trams around and takes about 15 minutes to get to the peak which is just over 10,000 feet (this is where the height thing comes in again for me). There was a ski resort on top and their web site said they still had a 30 inch base. It was chilly but not cold. Holly and I went in shirt sleeves, Jack and Lynn were wearing coats (they are from Florida you know). While we were there some guy jumped off a cliff face. Good thing he was para sailing or he might have gotten hurt.
It was so nice to spend more time with them. They have been friends for years and it has been a long time since we were able to spend time together. Hopefully they will get their motor home on the road more often and we'll be able to get together again. After the trip down the mountain (it's the height thing again) we dropped them at the train station and said our goodbyes. We then headed back to the RV park after stopping for ice cream. I still needed to decide what route we were going to take home and hopefully avoid all of the bad weather that was going on in the mid west. I really don't like fighting the weather.
 |
| Lee and Gloria |
 |
| Mary Lou, George, Us, Manny, JoAnn &Frances, Betty&Frank, Bob&Wilma |
 |
| Holly and Marv |
 |
| George (the raging Cajun) |
After all of our time away we were ready to go home and face the kids (I mean see the kids). Holly has been getting a little excited to get home and I guess I was too. We made good friends, saw a lot of New Mexico, ate a lot of Mexican food, and had a wonderful time during our stay. These are some of the great people that helped make our stay so nice. The only ones we didn't get a picture of are Joe and Rae.We are going to miss them all and we hope to return to Elephant Butte at a later time but for now there are way to many places to visit. So we say goodbye for now to our friends and wish them all safe travels as many of them, like us, are moving on to other places. We hope to meet again down the road on this amazing journey.
 |
| JoAnn and Frances |
 |
| THE END (of this adventure) |
