My Life and Travels
We are again on the Virgin River while heading north.
Today’s drive 435 mile, Friday 280 to Ely, NV, Saturday 409 to Ontario,OR and Sunday 250 to Richland. I know 435 miles in a day and you are retired? Some days my old type A personality can not control itself and I want to get to Richland on Sunday to visit Jack.
We are in site 71 a pull through. Pictures don’t want to up load so I will try tonight.
Update 11/12/2016
Campsite
Travel day to Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert area to visit with the Gails.
We are in site 88. Will be here until Thursday when we leave to visit with the Garcia’s on the way home.
Site pictures.
View out the door.
Sunny and mid 80″s with mid 60’s in the morning.
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.
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.
We came back to see the bats at Carlsbad Caverns again. They were amazing last year and since we were halfway across New Mexico we continued east a ways. There is no point in going north of Albuquerque this time of year because the weather is going to start getting cold. The weather report for home is a major wind and rain storm this weekend, Yuck.
Don’t know how long we will be here. Going to see the bats a couple of times, need to do laundry, food shopping and spend some time doing nothing aka retirement.
Campsite pictures, same site as last year, site 37.
Here is the view out the front window.
The site across from us is closed for the time being, electrical is out. It also looks like they ran new power lines into the park since we were here last time. They we having some problem with about half of the reservation sites and could not figure out what was wrong when we left last year.
Today’s drive.
The short line just above the lake is a stop at Lakewood Post Office. I purchased a new camera strap from Amazon which Richard has been using. I had it sent to Brian and then when we decided to come in this direction I asked Brian to send it General Delivery to Lakewood.
We found a site and then went and dumped the holding tanks. We are set for a while.
We are in site A12, by 5:00 all the electrical site were full.
Chair is on the site post because I had to drive around the loop an extra time, I was to close to the bushes on the left.
Today’s drive.
This is the last morning of balloons and we leave to head north and then east, I think.
Maps of today’s drive. We are at Cochiti COE Campground south of Santa Fe.
Drove through the campground to find a site and then dumped the holding tanks, after 9 days they were full.
We are in site 7, power but no water.
We went to another site to get water. I have been carrying an extra water hose since we got this motor home, today was the first time I have used it. All the water was up on the hill above the sites on the inside of the loop.
Almost made it, needed several more feet.
We got up at 5:00 a.m. to get the bus to go and watch the Dawn Patrol and the first Mass Balloon Ascension for 2016. It is dark here in the morning and we really didn’t know where were going other than north.
The bus picked us up just 5 motor homes from our sight and dropped us off 50 feet from the launch field gate. The RV parking field is right across the street from the festival area they have bus lanes so getting to the park and return is rather quick. I understand to walk from where we are is a mile or a mile and a half depending on who you talk to. I’ll look on a map and figure it out or walk it later in the week. Oh, by the way all questions have at least two answers, depending on who you talk too.
We were on the balloon field from 5:45 to 9:30 and only got to see a few of the balloons. You get to stand on the launch field right next to and between the balloons. It is really neat event and we are glad we came.
Street maps of the festival area.
You can see where we walked.
Stayed on one spot and watched balloons going up around us.
This is where we are parked.
This is a great location, we seem to have more space then many other areas of the RV park.
Here are some of the balloons lit up in the morning.
Group of balloon pictures from the launch field.
Here is the campsite Richard and I set up between our motor homes.
Today was our arrival at the balloon festival. As we drove into town this morning you could see balloons flying across the valley.
Campsite pictures, site 3894C
Saturday we will be going to the Dawn Patrol (balloons lit just at dawn) and mass Ascension of all 600 balloons. We I say going l mean going a mile north to the field where the balloons are assembled and lift off. Our current understanding is we will be able to see a lot of the events from where we are parked.
We are in site G8 one of the newer areas of the campground.
No electricity or water but it is kind of flat.
Overhead view.
This morning started out with taking Hank to a vet. Last night we were playing our usual evening games and while running to jump onto the bed he gave out his high pitched squeal, like he does when something hurts him. I thought he had stepped on a burr or caught a toe nail. He was not putting any pressure on his left hind leg. When he has a burr he usually chews on his paw until he get it out however he was not chewing on it. The first time he got a burr in his paw he let me pull it out, the second did go as well as the first and haven’t tired it since.
This morning he did not come flying out of his kennel and when he did he was not putting any weight on his leg. Google had two vets in Winslow, the first one was out of the office today visiting ranches and the second turned out to be great. Hank has a strained knee ligament on the inside of left hind leg. Doc have him a shot and some medication for the next ten days. Said Hank should be better in two weeks but not to worry if it takes up to six weeks, another one of those age things again. He is to be kind of quiet for the next one to two weeks so he does not over work his good right leg. This means carrying him in and out of the motor home to pee and poo. Hank has never liked to be picked up however he has been pretty good about it today. Hopefully him and I will get it all worked out and he will not be as afraid as he as been in the past.
Driving maps:
Around Winslow
Winslow to Bluewater Lake.
Campground over view.