My Life and Travels
Travel day to Arizona.
We are at Gilbert Ray County Park on the West side of Tucson just south of the western section of Saguaro National Park. In site H24 and we’ll be here until Monday November 7.
And this is the view out the motor home door.
Campground has 130 sites and my guess is 15 sites are occupied.
By the way, we picked up of ballots in Deming, NM on the way through.
We spent the day visiting a variety of places around Las Cruces.
Not your typical road runner.
Interesting materials
A lot of shoes.
Train station with several model trains set up in the station.
And on Indian head at the park where we had lunch.
We have a plan for the next couple of weeks.
We will be here till Sunday 10/30
Move to a county park on the west side of Tucson for a week.
Apache Junction for a couple of days to visit friends.
Quartzite, AZ for a few days and plan the trip from warm and sun to the big house for Turkey.
We spent the day visiting places in Las Cruces:
Museum of Nature and Science
the cultural and art museums were closed for updating
Basilica of San Albino
Building in which Billy the Kid was convicted of murder
Farm and Ranch Museum
This was the courthouse in Billy the Kid’s time.
Last year we were on the eastern side of New Mexico where he is buried.
The Farm and Ranch Museum had a whole section on bees, and Jean walked through the whole thing.
In site 19.
We were here last year however this year we can see the Lake.
Don’t know how long we will be here. Part of the plan is to go to Las Cruses for a couple of days. This is the closest state park we could get into, the drive from here isn’t much different than driving to Seattle from our big house. The weather is the important part, 86 today ( Monday) and lower 80’s the rest of the week.
Today we went to the caverns and bat show. This time I walked from the caverns up the natural entrance and Jean walked around the big room.
We went to the bat show it was very different this time. We learn a lot of numbers and only saw a few bats. The bat show started at 5:30 p.m. and the bats did not start out until 6:40 p.m. They came out of the caverns just clearing the top edge of the opening and they all headed southeast. It was pretty dark by 6:50 and by 7:00 we could not see any bats however we could still hear them.
We did get a lot of numbers:
793,000 most bats counted during a 2005 bat count
64,000 least counted that year
This year most of the bats left during July, very dry month at Carlsbad and the bats went other places, however they have returned.
They can fly to 10,000 feet, they go to this elevation because the moth they eat will go this high.
Come out of the caverns at a rate of 10-12,000 a minute.
Fly at 25-30 miles per hour
Can live up to 25 years.
It is a nice small zoo. It is $5.00 to get in and they have a lot of information about desert plants.
This was in the nocturnal house.
Three bobcats and two mountain lions, these are the bobcats.
If you have one prairie dog you have a bunch and they had a bunch.
They have an aviary however it was closed because a new roof was being put on it.
We had a nice afternoon. Living Desert Zoo & Gardens State Park.
Another day at Carlsbad Caverns, walked down into the caverns and then around the Big Room.
This gives some idea about size, see the person’s head in the lower left.
This is a reflection in a pool of water.
More Carlsbad Caverns taken on Sunday.
I stood in the parking lot above the cave and took the video below this bat picture.
