Cloudcroft NM (10/10/23)

 Who knew that a mere 2 hour drive from the sweltering heat of El Paso (95*) lies the small town of Cloudcroft, with daytime temperatures topping out in the low 70s?  Once we felt Gerry was stable enough, we elected to head to the higher elevations to do some hiking.

First up on the hiking agenda was the 2.5 mile long Osha Loop. There was nothing particularly exciting or memorable about this hike, although the company we had along the trail made it mildly interesting. In fact, each hike we did this week included some kind of wildlife encounter.

Next up was the 3 mile Zinker Canyon Trail.  The reviews of this trail said it was boring, but we really enjoyed it. It meandered through several meadows, interspersed with sections of forest.

We didn’t see any live wildlife on this trail, but we did see a group of feral horses on the way to it. They were gorgeous.

Since the first two hikes were short, we elected to hike a third day in a row- the 3.5 mile Cathey Canyon trail. This trail had a couple of viewpoints we could stop at to see Tularosa Valley and White Sands National Park.

Needing a day off, we spent the following day lazing around the campground.  It was so odd that it was so much colder here. In fact, it was too cold to sit outside without the firepit going, but it felt great!

Well rested, our final hike was a bit longer than the others. We chose an “out and back” hike because there is a lot of elevation gain on the trail and we wanted to be able to turn around. Our wildlife encounter on this hike was a hawk, who seemed to be watching us …..like a hawk, haha.

This trail also had several pretty meadows- a little disappointing because, I don’t know, If I were an elk, this is where I would be hanging out but there were none to be seen.

So, after 9 miles and 1400 ft of gain, we were satisfied that we deserved to be tired. Although each trail had some things of interest to see, the trails themselves tended to be frustrating. A good portion of the trails are rocky- really rocky. And this type of rock is really hard to walk on for a long distance.

Our last day was spent at Sunspot Solar Observatory. We had stopped in at the observatory a few days before, and decided it warranted more time so we left without checking it out.

The observatory houses the Richard Dunn Telescope, which studies the sun. This particular week they have a special project going on- this is one of several telescopes contracted by NASA to observe the Parker Solar Probe.  The probe  was launched in 2018 with a mission to get as close to the sun as possible and nothing has ever gotten this close before. In fact, the analogy they use is a football field.  If Earth is at one end zone and the sun is at the other, the Parker Probe is at the 4 yard line (3.83 million miles, lol), in the suns territory. The second closest probe only got to the 30 yard line, so, impressive advances have been made.

It’s too hot to have a camera mounted on the probe, so this is where the telescopes come in. Each telescope is focused on the area where the probe is, and are gathering information and photographs.  One of the goal, one that has been being worked on since the end of World War II, is to try and learn how to predict sunspots.

Tours  are available during short periods, several times a week. We knew when to show up, so we got to take the tour.

The telescope itself stands 138 feet tall- but that is less than half of it’s height. It continues an impressive 193 feet underground as well. State of the art when it was built in 1969, there have been many more advanced telescopes built since then. What this particular one offers though, is old school technology, keeping it very user friendly. Scientists and students come here from all over the world to test their equipment and ideas.

Keeping the telescope in focus is the job of the observation floor.  The platform floats on 120 gallons of liquid mercury. Most adjustments of the floor are barely noticeable, and when major movements are required, an alarm sounds ahead of time.

After a week, we headed back to El Paso. Soon after we arrived, we had a hail storm with the biggest hail I have ever seen.

Paul’s brother Tom and his wife Sue stopped by for a couple of days on their way to Big Bend National Park- always a fun time with them.

While they were here we were treated to a spectacular sunset:

Happy 93rd Birthday! (08-12-23)

 In our planning for our summer adventures, we took into consideration that August 10th is Paul’s mom’s 93rd birthday.  Our hope was to be there for it, and we were.

We also try to schedule her doctor and dentist appointments for when we can be there, so, she had a very busy 3 days when we were in town.

Her party was scheduled for mid afternoon on a day that had lots of activities for the residents, so I was a little nervous about the attendance- but when we arrived, the room was full!

One of the attendees was a woman who used to be one of her main caregivers. She has since moved on, but comes back to visit periodically.

El Paso is sort of a turning point in our summer travels- an intermission of sorts. We had all our RV parks before August 10th  booked in advance, and nothing booked for after the 10th. In late July we sat down and re-looked at our calendar. I still had to book a trip to Massachusetts, since the one I had booked for June was canceled due to my broken foot. We also needed at least a loose game for September and October.

Back in early 2020, Paul and I managed to score permits for a campground on a reservation, to visit Havasupai Falls.  Getting the permits is difficult, as is the actual trip to Havasupai Falls. Reservations for the entire year open at 8 am on February 1, and sell out within minutes.

Our “original” dates were for March of 2020, for 4 people because two friends were going to join us. We all know what happened in March of 2020. So, we rescheduled our dates for October of 2021, then October of 2022, and now, since they are finally open again post Covid, October of 2023. Our friends have since dropped out, so it is just Paul and I now.

The trip is for 3 nights. In order to get to the campground, you have to hike 12 miles, 2200 ft down into a canyon. There are 3 restrooms in the campground, which is 2 miles long. Everything else, you need to bring yourself. All the food, tent, sleeping bags, clothes, shoes, cooking utensils- everything. Lucky for us, since we aren’t backpackers, we were able to hire a mule to carry our heavy things- although lately people have been saying that there aren’t always enough mules.

 If we don’t get a mule, we can’t go.

Once you are in the canyon, there are trails to hike to different waterfalls. This is why its worth the effort to get there.

Will we make it? We will see. This hike is the reason we have been working so hard this summer to build up our stamina. Especially me, since breaking bones in my foot really set me back. Although I am happy with my progress, it isn’t enough. We will have to ramp it up more in Sept and Oct for me to feel comfortable making the trek. There is a possibility that we might be able to take a helicopter out of the canyon, but it doesn’t run every day, can’t be booked in advance, and doesn’t run if it’s windy. So, you need to be able to hike out.

We are lucky that our reservations are for after monsoon season because flash flooding is reasonably common, and has a drastic effect on the waterfalls…

Our tentative plan for before then: the rig, and Paul, will be in Fresno, CA, so he can spend time with friends while I fly to Boston for 12 days. When I get back, we will head a little further north, near Yosemite National Park, which has gobs of hiking. We will spend about a month there, getting in the best condition we can, and then head back to Arizona, mid October.

Havasupai Falls Trailhead is about 4 hours from our house, so we will give ourselves a week at the house to pack up our gear and buy whatever we don’t have. Mostly everything has been bought, since we expected to do this trip years ago. Our reservations are for October 26-29th.

Summer 2023, Episode 1 (06-30-23)

 With all the issues we were having with the house and trailer, I was pleasantly surprised that we actually left Lake Havasu the day we were supposed to.

Our first stop was El Paso, sort of.  It takes us two days to drive that far so we have to stop overnight in the Tucson area along the way. Our good friends Tom and Dianne, up until extremely recently, lived in Bayfield CO, and staying with them for a few days was already in our plans.  But then they sold their house! Not to worry though, they bought one in Sierra Vista AZ, relatively near Tucson.  They arrived there on the 20th, and we arrived on the 21st, about an hour after the moving truck left.

It was nice to get to see their new place and always fun to spend time with them, plus as a bonus, we saw our friends Jeff and Tina. Unfortunately we could only stay one night, but  we will try to stay longer next time.

From there we landed in El Paso, where we spent a few days with Paul’s mom. I wish I could say that all our bad luck was left in Havasu but at least a little bit of it followed us.  I occasionally have episodes of Atrial Fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat, and wouldn’t you know, my heart “kicked out” while we were in Sierra Vista. My handy dandy Apple watch alerts me, and also does an EKG. I sent a PDF of the EKG to my cardiologist, and let her know what my plan was- as long as the heart rate stayed low, I would wait it out, if it got too fast, I would head to the Emergency Room.  She agreed with my plan, so, wait it out I did. It’s not a lot of fun since I can’t walk very fast or do very much.  This bout lasted longer than usual, but finally resolved after about 5 days- after we left El Paso.

The small town of Bernalillo New Mexico, just north of Albuquerque,  was our next stop on the way to Colorado. Our original plan was to spend 6 days hiking and with my heart back to normal and my foot getting better, I was itching to get back on the trail.

My first, and really only hike here, was the 2 mile Capulin Peak Trail at the top of the the nearby Sandia Mountains. The temperature at the rig was 97 and at Sandia Peak it was 67- a huge difference.

There were nice views at the end of the trail, plus we drove further up the road to get a view of Albuquerque.

Although my foot did ok, I didn’t want push it, so the following day we elected to explore the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History. The first section of the museum  was about World War II, The Manhattan Project, and The Atomic Bomb.

As I was reading through the displays- and it’s a LOT of reading- I began to wonder how Germany didn’t beat us to the punch with the atomic bomb.  There are several reasons as it turns out- they lacked resources, Hitler didn’t make it a priority because he was more interested in instant gratification rather than the long game, and the German scientists focused more on theoretical physics rather than experimental physics.

In the meantime, the United States was secretly working their way towards creating an atomic bomb. There were three sites in the U.S. that were involved- Oak Ridge Tennessee produced the uranium, Hanford Washington supplied the plutonium, and Los Alamos New Mexico was home to the design and production centers for nuclear weapons. The project was called The Manhattan Project and Los Alamos  was referred to Site Y.

It actually became pretty much a secret city.  The scientists, as well as their families, were essentially sequestered in this make shift military base/town.  Initially, living conditions were very primitive, but as time went on, many improvements were made, and life was more “normalized”. In fact it was so normal that they experienced a baby boom in 1944, creating a severe shortage of diapers and hospital beds. 

The birth certificates of children born there during this time listed P.O. Box 1663, Santa Fe NM, as the place of birth. Also creating a sense of normalcy were things like a youth center, a school, a church, a playground, etc.

Drivers licenses of people living in Los Alamos were secretive, listing a number as a name, and on the signature line the typed words “Not Required”.

After years in the making, on July 16, 1945, the atomic bomb, called Gadget for test and security purposes, was successfully tested at the Trinity Site in New Mexico.

A very short time later, August 6, 1945, Paul Tibbets Jr. and his crew aboard the Enola Gay, dropped the Atomic Bomb, Little Boy, on Hiroshima Japan, changing the course of history and the nature of warfare forever.

Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki Japan. The reason for the short time span between the two bombs was to create the illusion that the U.S. had plenty of bombs and was going to keep dropping them, with the hope that Japan would surrender. And they did. Fighting ended on August 14, 1945.

The museum didn’t just focus on warfare and bombs, it also had sections about other, less deadly, but just as important,  uses for nuclear power- such as nuclear power plants and nuclear medicine.

There was even a display of the DeLorean from Back To The Future- a car that was “actually” a plutonium fueled time machine.  The use of the car in the movie increased sales of DeLorean cars for a while, but not for long enough to keep the company afloat.

Our final outing in Albuquerque was a trip up Sandia Peak, via the tram. With us was our friend Teresa.

Once at the top we started out on a hike, but my foot wasn’t up for too much so we cut it short and headed back for lunch. The wait for the restaurant at the peak was way too long, so we headed back down to find someplace for a late lunch.

And then, we moved on to Colorado.

The Rest of the Way Home (10-04-20)

It’s hard to believe the summer is over, and we spent the last few weeks making our way home. We had to take our planned stop in the Black Hills off the agenda, since we got delayed by almost a week with the truck issues.

The change allowed us to take 5 days and drove south to Abilene TX, where our friends Wil and Gayle recently relocated. After a fun filled two days with them we were on the move again.

Our next stop was a two day drive- El Paso TX to see Paul’s mom.  She is doing great, although like all of us, she is struggling a bit with the isolation these last few months. She is still working on her 90th birthday gift…a puzzle of her kids and grandkids.

It’s still quite hot in Havasu, so we didn’t want to rush home quite yet.  I had doctor appointments in Phoenix, so we worked our way there and found a place to stay that has a decent pool.

We sat down with a map and calendar to see if our thought about going to the north rim of the Grand Canyon was actually a good idea. We decided it wasn’t. Frustrating that we weren’t able to make it there this year, but I guess it gives us something to plan for next year.

We chose, instead, to drive to Williams AZ and spend a couple of days hanging out there.  Its only 2.5 hours from the house, but its at higher elevation, so its cooler. 

 

In theory we were going to do some hiking- in reality we went for a “Scenic Drive” – or, more accurately, a “bone jarring, teeth rattling drive down a dirt ‘road’”. 

 The views where we stopped to have lunch were pretty good but not worth the trip there and back. 

We took advantage of the great weather to eat out at a restaurant with outdoor seating and live music.

Now that we are home, we will spend a few days moving back into the house, and getting ready for a visit from our daughter and her friends in a week or so.