The Beginning of summer? (04/20/25)

 

Paul and had already decided to head to Massachusetts this summer- our son is there, and we still have lots of friends and my family there. We don't drive all the way back very often anymore, but I sometimes fly on my own.

So, it was time for a longer visit.

With all that in mind we decided to leave for the summer on April 3rd. That's a full two months before we usually leave Arizona.

We made the most of our time with Liz and Randy before leaving,  getting in one boating day and a couple of pool days.

Just before we left, we went out to dinner to celebrate 75 years of marriage. 25 years for us, and an impressive 50 years for them.

Paul also finished one of his projects that he was working on in his spare time- a stained glass window for the trailer. It came out awesome.

I sorta promised Paul that we would stop and see new things along the way to MA,  and not make a beeline for the coast. By leaving early, we will have plenty of time to explore. We also needed to be in Green Valley, AZ for a week in April to pick out flooring, cabinets, granite etc for the new house.

While we were there we took a drive up into nearby Mt. Wrightson wilderness in the Coronado National Forest. This area is on the migratory path of an  incredible amount of birds, including hummingbirds.

I saw two New to Me varieties of hummingbirds-

The Rivoli Hummingbird

and the Broad Billed.

I didn’t get to spend too much time looking because Paul couldn’t find a spot to park the dually so he dropped me off at the visitor center. I can’t wait till we live here and can spend more time bird watching.

Of course, I put up my feeders as well, and in addition to hummingbirds, we were visited by Hooded Orioles, both the male (pictured) and the female.

Leaving Green Valley, after a short visit with friends in Sierra Vista, AZ,  we landed  just outside Las Cruces New Mexico. The nearby Organ Mountains- Desert Peaks National Monument has some hiking we were interested in. We drove up to the Dripping Springs (note to self, it is barely dripping) area and did two hikes. The first was 3 miles, to Boyd.

The story behind this building is that Dr. Boyd agreed to rent this area from the owner at the time, Eugene Van Patten, for $25 a year, but shortly thereafter, refused to pay, and refused to leave. Van Patten sued him, but in the course of the court battle it was discovered that Van Patten had described the area incorrectly, so his homestead patent was actually for a different area. He got it straightened out, and was still owed all the rent from Boyd, but trying to collect it  for 13 years forced him into bankruptcy and he ended up selling the area to Boyd for a dollar.  Very Strange.

The other hike we did was a 1 mile hike to La Cuerva, the Cave, which is really just a rock shelter. Apparently I deleted all my pictures of it, oh well, I guess that tells the story of how interesting it was.

Next up on our journey was Mayhill New Mexico, which is near Cloudcroft. This is one of those spots we like to stop for a day or two to do some exploring and hiking. The Lincoln National Forest has a lot of hiking trails, but with only one day, we chose the 3 mile loop, Little Apache Trail. I really enjoyed the smells of the forest.

Of course we also stopped several places to watch the wild horses.

Our final visit with friends for this leg of our journey was in Abilene Texas where we spent a few days with friends Wil and Gayle. While showing them pictures of our house project on the big screen, Gayle became our own version of Vanna White…

After a couple of days and lots of camaraderie, it was time to move on from Texas to Oklahoma.

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:

S '23, Episode 7, Manitou Springs, CO (08-11-23)

 For the past few weeks we have been staying for a week at each destination we had. That part of our summer is over. At this point we are headed towards El Paso to spend time with Paul’s mom for her 93rd birthday. We have time to stop a few places along the way, but not for a week, and we have no reservations.

We discovered that with the heatwave that has hit most of the country, RV spots in cooler areas are hard to come by. We finally found an RV spot in Manitou Springs- it was recommended by a park that had no availability (“they are so expensive, they might have a spot open still”) –and so they did.

It seems like whenever we look at a map of Colorado, our eyes skim over Florrisant Fossil Beds National Monument, and we say some day we need to go there. Well, today was that day. We realized our rig would fit in the parking lot and it was on our way to Manitou Springs. Perfect.

This is one of the largest fossil beds in the world. They were created when nearby volcanoes erupted, covering the entire area with massive mudflows.

Our original intent was to just walk one of the short trails and check out the most impressive fossils, but we arrived just as a tour was starting, so we joined it.

The fossils in this area are all permineralized- created when an animal or tree is buried quickly. Over time, water seeps into the dead organism, and leaves minerals behind- essentially making a stone replica of whatever was there.

After an hour or so, we were on our way again.

The Manitou Springs/Colorado Springs area has an incredible amount of hiking available, and that's what we were focused on.

We first headed to Red Rock Canyon Open Space area- a place where we have never hiked.

We chose the Red Rock Canyon trail (very original) and ended up hiking almost 4 miles.

Since our hike was reasonably short, we felt fine looking for another hike the following day. This time we headed back to Garden of the Gods Park. We have hiked here before, but we took a different trail this time.

Along the way we passed by, among other things,  the Siamese Twins Rock formation. 

 

The bright green foliage against the red rock is a really spectacular sight.

This park is very popular so you are never really alone. We ended up hiking about 3 miles.

Our final day in the area we went a slightly different way. We drove to Seven Falls, which is a privately owned park, and therefore, has a cost associated with it.

There are two ways to get to the top- the stairs….

…and the elevator. Yes, elevator. We originally took the elevator up, but realized it didn’t go where we wanted,  which was the top of the waterfall.  Turns out there are TWO sets of stairs.

So we came back down and headed up the other stairs- 224 stairs up to the top.

Once there, there are a couple of hiking trails that lead to other waterfalls and some viewpoints. 

 

We hiked both of them. They aren’t very long trails.

Once we were done, we felt like we deserved some ice cream, so that’s what we had for lunch.

We could easily spend a month in this area, but 3 days is all we had, and then it was time to move on, closer to El Paso. At the pace we are moving at, it took us a few days more to get there.

After the success we had visiting Florrisant while towing the rig, we looked at doing the same thing at Pecos Pueblo National Historic Park, which was along our route to El Paso. It worked out very well.

The site of Pecos Pueblo was settled in the 1400s, and was inhabited until the mid 1800s when the last of the Pecos people relocated to nearby Jemez. 

In the 1600s the Spanish arrived, looking to convert the natives to their religion. In the process, their treatment of the Pecos people got worse and worse (oh, the irony) and in 1680 the people in several of the surrounding pueblos banded together to take their lives back. They planned a successful revolt, pushing the Spaniards out of the area. This is what is left of the church that was built.

We took a one hour tour of the ruins, and one of the things the ranger talked about was different ways of viewing “trash”. We, as modern people, view trash as things that have no value, that aren’t needed anymore. The Pecos people say that the piles of “discarded” items are halfway along their journey back to dust, and so, didn’t necessarily bury their loved ones separately from anything else.

A few days later we were hiking a trail somewhere else, and came across a rotting tree that really reminded me of that idea. You can clearly see that the top part of the tree trunk is essentially dissolving.

Soon enough, we were in El Paso.

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.