Happy New Year

 Happy 2022 everyone we are out of data to do much updating. Have a safe NYE🌵🎉🌞🌧

Day 25 Dec 24 Christmas Eve

 Dec 24, 2021 Merry Christmas Eve,  Temps in the 70s yesterday and well into last night with rain most of the night hard enough to cause flooding in some areas. 

We all went last night to see the Phoenix Zoo lights a beautiful display of  Christmas Lights that was unfortunately very well attended but none the less it was fun to go out with Megan, Nick and Baby Jack as a family. We stayed overnight in our camper so we could be there and help with sone cooking in preparation for Family dinner on Christmas, Danielle and Ezra(Megan's siblings) are coming over and it has been many years since we all have had Christmas together so we are due!  

Again tonight we heard a chorus of coyotes that sounded more like squeaky toys! So many of them and in 2 groups calling back and forth. John decorated the outside of the Navion with Christmas lights and we had  dinner and watched the Christmas movie Home Alone a favorite. We hope everyone had a safe peaceful holiday!! More tomorrow. 

Days 21,22,23 White Tank Mountain Family Campground

 White Tank Mountain this is our 4th night here 10 more to go. The temps during the day are very warm up in the 60s-70s at night lows in the 40s we are only running the heat frost thing in the morning. We have been seeing family almost every day and thoroughly enjoying getting to know Little Jack he is so full of energy that Great Grammy and Great Grandpa are tired lol but we don’t mind he has a great personality he is funny and very good natured unless he needs something then he will let you know! Tomorrow night we are going to see the Phoenix Zoo Lights a Christmas display at the zoo. 

We have been seeing allot of coyotes 6 so far in 4 days some really small and some pretty good sized. Last night we heard a pack of them all running through the campground at dusk all howling. They don’t seem afraid of people and can run very fast. 

Tonight on the way home we saw a bunch of hot air balloons a common thing to see here and construction is happening everywhere!

Luke Air For e Base is very close by and from sunrise till sunset there are several fighter jets going overhead 

, this morning we saw one very low and up close it was a sight to see very impressed! That’s it for now...

Day 20, Dec 19 White Tank Mountain we made it

 We made it to Phoenix to see family, our grand daughter Megan, her man Nick and the most handsome little great grandson anyone could ever hope for, Jack he melted our hearts as soon as we saw him, he is 7 months old and we get to spend his first Christmas with him we are blessed. 

We left Gilbert Ray Campground and after a family visit we checked in to out campground for the next two weeks White Tank Mountain Family Campground. We have a pull thru site that could fit at least two more campers our size. Out our door we are facing the desert and we already saw a coyote trotting down the road. 

My posts may not be regular until after the holidays but I will be updating...

Day 18/19 Gilbert Ray Campground Tucson, Az

Day 18/19 Dec 17/18 Gilbert Ray Pima County Campground Tucson, Az 255/4193 total miles so far, mileage I’d still averaging g 14.5mpg today we drove across the Continental Divide and into Arizona finally! Last night it was down to 35 and we put the furnace on about 3:00am like usual when it gets really cold and also heard coyotes, something on the roof and other various noises outside.  We had a usual drive, trucks and more trucks, wind  we did get to stop at a place we saw advertised called Dwane’s Jerky advertising everything from Alligator to you name it Jerky( I didn’t look too close) but we did get some locally grown Pistachios and homemade peanut bluer fudge- John says mine is better who knows I can’t really make it in the motor home so I thought it was good. They had allot of jellies and honey and western gifts of all sorts, a fun little stop. 

We drove through an area that wasn’t White Sands NM but it had allot of white sand and signs warning to reduce speed, pull over and Do NOT put your foot on the brakes I guess if you get hit that way the impact will be less? Lucky for us it did not happen but it got our attention we are not used to sand storms! 

 

We will do some more investigating here tomorrow....

Gilbert Ray is only one campground in the Tucson Mountain Park that opened in the 1920s and the park consists of nearly 30,000 acres that’s about 47 square miles that as you will see has allot of Saguaros and other cacti that have a safe home here. There are also many birds, “ killer bees” ,mountain lions, and 6 species of rattle snakes and I imagine some of my other favorites like scorpions and tarantulas both of which are out at night( I am not) and we noticed a few campers have the hoods open on their vehicles so we asked the camp host and she said that they also put lights under the vehicles to keep away the pack rats that eat wires. Doesn’t it sound like a lovely place to live? Well we think not but during a nice sunny day it’s nice to visit...last night went down do 31F

Thats all for today

 

Day 16/17 City of Rocks State Park NM

 Greetings,

We were happy to leave Elephant Butte State Park our least favorite yet, and  we had a very windy drive to  The City of Rocks State Park but the  short drive was a treat, this is by far the best campground yet and to all of our stargazing friends OMG! Thinking of you, this place is a paradise for you. The energy here is beyond description but it is so quite and talk about big sky wow. The wind finally died down but the temps in the 60s were welcomed. Last night it got down to 35 but it was manageable. Today the sky is bright blue and it’s sunny so we have the solar panels out as we are completely off the grid. John went for a short hike nearby and I put up Christmas decorations.the temps are in the 70s and this is out last night in New Mexico, tomorrow we will finally be in Arizona! 

Site 1

City of Rocks State Park

Christmas decorations

Christmas lights

This was a wonderful experience...

Day 15 Elephant Butte State Park, NM

 Albuquerque is in the rear view mirror but to finish up with the ongoing saga about the fridge we got it installed yesterday at Rocky Mountain RV in Albuquerque located about a 2 minute drive from the KOA. The people there first heard from us on Friday morning calling from the road in Texas and 1 business day later in was all installed and working perfectly, we decided to change the name of out Navion from Janis to Max, with Janis we had one problem after another and it was just wrong, Max is the little dog from Secret Life of Pets, he is about 6 “ tall and rides on our dash everyday, Willow and I thought it would be good to take him on the trip so Max it is. We neglected to take any campsite pick there but it was a great campground with hot clean showers, laundry and power. 

We headed south this morning and we are at Elephant Butte State Park, an enormous lake that was built from the Rio Grand being captured and so far it’s ok, it is supposed to have “free WiFi” but after 30 free minutes it costs $3.00/hr or $8.00/ 24 hrs etc that is a major ah I don’t think so moment so we are using our own hotspot.  All the sites in this section are on a slight hill so we had to dig out the leveling blocks for the first time, and all of the real bathrooms with showers here are closed luckily we have bathroom of our own. It is only 1 night.

Route 66 The Musical Road

We took a ride yesterday and found the Musical Road  and if you drive in exactly the rite spot on the road you will hear America The Beautiful played on the rubble strips, you can look it up it’s very cool.

View from our site 42 

MAX

The weather today is bright and beautiful but windy and almost 70 at 4:15 and tonight the low is 50 a welcome change.  Tomorrow we head to The City of Rocks State Park our last 2 nights in NM and no wifi...more to come

Day 13/14 Albuquerque NM

 Day 10 we spent last night in Truth or Consequences NM and it got down to 23F and it was very cold, the kind of cold where you are so tensed up you can’t sleep, I now know why they used to wear nightcaps to bed. We stayed at Caballo Lake State Park, the lake was beautiful and the sites were adequate with a fire ring and large picnic table surrounded by gravel. It was nearly full and this morning everybody slept in as check out time was at 2:00 much later than usual. We had water and electric and when the sun goes down we were inside with the shades drawn. I decided to try my new Omnia over it’s a Swedish oven that is round and has a hole in the middle and sits directly on the burner. We made cornbread (Jiffy mix) and one of John’s favorites, to go with it I made chicken soup from scratch, there’s not allot to do in the camper when it’s cold out so I was glad to have a project. After dinner we attempted to watch a movie from the bedroom but in thes motor home the only speakers are all in the lounge area and you have to turn it pretty loud to hear it so we gave up.

Today we drove about 170 miles north to Albuquerque to a KOA on Route 66 3 minutes from the RV service people. The elevation here is about 5500’ and I dare say it is much warmer in NH! Tonight is expected to reach a low of 20 and the campground asks you not to leave your hose connected.  We booked 2 nights here in case they don’t get the fridge installed tomorrow as it’s coming from Dallas. We are still averaging 14.5 mpg, not great but it it what it is.

Today we bought a small space heater for when we have shore power to save on propane so that should help tonight. 

Caballo Lake State Park

Frost on the windshield

Frost on the upper window with chip number 2 

Tonight we finished off the chicken soup and cornbread, wish us luck tomorrow for a speedy install of the new fridge.now about that movie...