El Paso (09-29-13)

The last week has been a flurry of activity while Paul and I visited his mom.  We started our visit with dinner at the local country club- what a view!

Paul spent a few days helping his mom with some projects around the house, and also took advantage of her workshop to refinish a couple of our cabinet doors.  As in most homes, the doors in front of the sink take a bit of a beating so he added a coat or two of polyurethane before they showed any wear.  






Of course, we don’t call his mom the energizer bunny for nothing ( if you ever wondered where Paul gets his energy and his intelligence, look no further!). She is extremely busy with her many philanthropic endeavors so we took some time to do some hiking.

  The nearby Franklin Mountains provide plenty of hiking  trails, so we set out on the Ron Coleman Trail. 

We were supposed to get to the peak of the mountain, but after almost 3 hours of hiking, we turned back.  We’ll get to the peak some other (cooler) day. The views from the trail were still spectacular, including this one, where we could see not only the City of El Paso, but into New Mexico and Juarez Mexico.

The week flew by and pretty soon it was our last night in town.  We spent it attending the first of a month long series of events celebrating the city of El Paso.  We heard two famous El Pasoans tell the story of “their” El Paso.  The first was Ginger Kerrick (who attended via video), a flight director with NASA, and the second was astronaut Danny Olivas.  It was interesting hearing what it was like for them growing up in El Paso, and the influence their childhood here had on their success.

We are now on our way to Santa Fe, New Mexico.  We’ve had to adjust our plans and our campground reservations because of the government shutdown.  For us, its just a minor inconvenience.  Others have been much more adversely affected by the shutdown.

Caves and Mines (El Paso, 12-23-10)



Hiking to the Aztec Caves

 



In the last couple of days Paul and I have done several hikes in Franklin Mountain State Park.  We hiked up to what's called Aztec Caves, but I don't know why they are called that.  Getting there wasn't too bad, a little steep, but once we explored the caves, Paul went around them, to go up the trail further.  I told him I might wait for him, which I did for a couple of minutes, then got bored and started to follow him.  Around the side of the cave was all rock, and really steep.  I managed to make it to the top (much to Paul's surprise- when he came back and found me there.) I thought I had gone the way he did, but it turns out the way I went was much steeper and more difficult. Oh well, no wonder why I was nervous the whole time.     

The challenge of a steep trail



Inside the tin mine



Yesterday's hike to the tin mines- supposedly the only ones in the U.S.- was much longer and more challenging. In the end, we hiked about 8 miles, and I can't wait to have my GPS so I'll know more accurately how far we hiked, and how much elevation gain we had. It was our favorite kind of hike- physically challenging without a huge possibility of getting hurt, with a destination of interest. There were several openings to the mine that we (he) could explore.   After leaving the mines, we made a big loop so that we returned on a different trail, which led us past several outcroppings of rock that contained a few fossils.   We were beat by the end of the day, but in a good way.

Today is Christmas Eve and Paul is fixing a few more things around the house before we head to the store for a few last minute items.  Its tacos and Margaritas tonight for a Christmas Eve celebration!









    





Hiking Franklin Mountain, El Paso, TX (12-18-10)

Since we've been in El Paso, I have been trying to stay active by walking down and back up the hill that Paul's mom lives on.  Its a 2 mile hike straight down, then 2 miles straight up. I try to find something I need to buy at the store, to make it feel like I have a purpose.


View from the ridge

   Yesterday though, Paul and I took off to go hiking in Franklin Mtn State Park.  The trails here are not that well marked or maintained, but we did make it to the ridge, which was almost straight up.  I felt like we were mountain goats, and there were a lot of times I didn't want to turn around and look down.  I just kept climbing.  Once we got to the ridge, we were supposed to walk along it to get to a higher peak.  However, within 3 minutes the wind had almost knocked me over twice, and the windchill factor was not at all pleasant.  We elected to turn back and head down the mountain.  In the end, we only hiked about 2 hours, but since it was straight up, I felt like we got a bit of a workout.   Once we left there, we did more more shopping, although we had already bought, wrapped and shipped the kids' gifts.  Paul already has his gift from me, which is one of those "does everything"  multi-purpose tools- apparently it saws, grinds etc.
My gift will be a handheld GPS, which we ordered but we have to pick it up in Tucson AZ.  I have been wanting to try geocaching and there are a lot of times, like yesterday, when I would love to know how far we hiked and how much elevation we gained.  Yes, its a toy, I guess, but it isn't big, and it doesn't weigh much, so we can have it in the trailer!   I really wanted the Garmin, but you have to buy the Topo maps separately, which for us, since we would need maps for most of the country, would be about a $1000 investment.
Delorme's GPS isn't as user friendly, but its only $30 a  year for access to ALL their maps.  So, we'll buy it and try it out and have 30 days to return it.

Backyard hiking, El Paso, TX

This afternoon the weather was really quite nice, so Paul and I decided to go hiking in the "backyard".
This picture is the view from his parents backyard.  Their property backs up to the Franklin Mountains of Franklin State Park. We took off, walked uphill for about an hour, until it got too steep to really keep going(there are no trails to speak of  back there), then we headed back down the mountain.....a relaxing afternoon.

I guess in general, all is quiet on the western front, as they say.  I just looked at my last post and I can't believe its been that long since I posted.  Life has sort of been quiet since then.
I took a 4 day trip to go see my daughter Jess in Muncie, IN.  I flew out spur of the moment, last Thursday,  and came back Monday night.  She's been feeling a little down lately so we thought it would be nice to have a girls weekend.  No Girls weekend is complete without a hot tub... but of course the hotel that I booked neglected to mention that their hot tub is not working, so after spending 2 nights there, we moved to a hotel with a working hot tub! We did have a relaxing time, and I got to spend some time with her boyfriend David, so it was nice to get to know him a little better.
I have decided that Southwest Airlines is my new favorite airline.  Not that I fly that much right now, but its been easy to book flights for the kids, knowing that if I need to change the dates, I won't have to pay a change fee. That's pretty cool!
Actually, Paul was nice,going for a hike with me  since he was probably itching to start on his truck project.  For his Christmas present he ordered a new Pioneer radio with GPS for the truck.  All the pieces finally arrived today, so I am sure he is anxious to get it installed.  Hopefully he'll get it done tomorrow, and we can test it out, although he also ordered a new oven and dishwasher for his parents, and the oven arrives in the morning, so he'll probably spend a good part of the day getting that installed too.  He is quite busy right about now.  Meantime, I am planning our trip to Vegas, trying to find a route that won't take us through snow.
I want to spend a few nights on the way there on "BLM" land.  BLM stands for Bureau of Land Management.  Basically its land owned by the federal government.  You can camp there for free in your RV, and we've never done it before, so I'd like to do it for  a night or so.  There is no hook-up (electric, sewer and water) so we have to use the generator if we want to use appliances etc.  Its called "boondocking" since you usually do it in the "boonies".

El Paso, TX

Paul and I were lucky to be able to get reservations at Hueco Tanks State Park.  Essentially, admission to the entire park is by advance reservation only, and is limited to 70 people at any given time.  Even so, we were only able to get reservations for a guided tour, and were not able to do a self guided one.
Hueco Tanks,which basically means Hollows/Tanks, is named for the basins that are hollowed out of the rocks, which fill  with rain water, and  have been used as a source of water by people for thousands of years.
The reason for the severe limit on the number of people allowed into the park is to control access to the pictographs on the rocks.  There are hundreds of rock paintings, some of which are 2000 years old.  Unfortunately, some of them have been ruined by graffiti already.  A lot of the pictures are of masks, some are of animals, and some are of people dancing. There used to be a stage coach stop in this area years ago, and there is a huge boulder that has the passenger list for one trip engraved in the stone.  Apparently that was done so that any friends or family following behind would know that those are the people who made it this far, since so many people died along the way.
Our tour was 3 hours of climbing in and around the rocks and caves looking at the ancient paintings.  Its amazing that they are still there and haven't faded completely away. Most of them  are in small caves and never get rained on, and are always in the shade. After our outing we headed to Paul's parents for dinner.
We have spent the last couple of days doing some hiking at Franklin State Park, and eating.  Paul helped his dad pull out a couple of small trees in the yard, and I have been doing some research on Arizona, our next stop on our trip. We have cooked dinner a couple of times for his parents,and they have cooked a few times for us.  In general we have just been hanging out and relaxing.
Yesterday Jess flew out from Indiana.  She's only here for 3 days, but still it feels great to have her here. It also helps knowing that in another 3 weeks she'll be flying out at the end of the semester to meet up with us in San Diego for a few weeks.
She  had called from Chicago, between flights, from a stranger's cell phone, to let me know that her phone broke and she can't turn it on.  When she got here at 10:30 pm, Paul looked at it and sure enough, it's toast.  We immediately started researching options for her.
So this morning was the hunt for a new phone.  I think Jess almost jumped out of her skin when we agreed  that maybe she could get an iphone, if her current phone was not under warranty.  We were planning on getting her an itouch for Christmas anyway,and its the same price, so really it makes sense to get her the iphone.  We spent about 2 hours at the AT&T store and in the end, she got the iphone, and has been glued to it ever since.  We went shopping at the outlet stores this afternoon and didn't buy ANYthing, so I think the "new phone distraction" actually saved me some money.
Paul picked up our truck finally from the dealership.  The fix for the air conditioning was very expensive, but we don't feel like we have much choice.  Since it's a known issue for this truck, Paul is hoping that Ford will help with the cost of it.
Tomorrow we head to his parents for Thanksgiving.....