My Life and Travels
Moving towards the big house. Looking to the weather report for Northern California we may have to drive out to the coast to get by the mountains.
Today’s drive
We are at the Escapees park in Deming to do laundry and pick up our mail.
In site 22
And one picture of Jack.
Worked on the coach today.
When we left Zion the left turn signal on the pickup was not working when it was being towed. When I set pickup up for towing I put in a separate light system.
At Lee’s Ferry I figured out that power was not coming out of the coach. At Sky City I found a broken wire under the coach frame.
This wire was cut at one end and hanging by a few stands on the other end. The nickel is for size. This morning we drive to Walmart for groceries and wire to fix the flasher.
The only color Walmart had was red and black, hopefully red will work.
The yellow turn signal wire was broken on both sides of the main frame. It looks like the wire was pinched to cause the separation. The upper picture also shows a green wire with some sharp bends in it where it has been pinched. I don’t see a pinch point where the wire could have been pinched, maybe this happen when the coach was assembled. Don’t know.
Anyway I spliced in a piece red wire and the light on the pickup worked.
Had the pickup along side the coach so I could see the taillights from the coach driver’s seat.
Written on IPad.
Today’s map.
The drive.
In site 74.
If you go to the table area and go to the left you’ll see the river.
Today was the first time we had to go to three Campgrounds to find a site. Stopped at Elephant Butte, they had a couple of sites however they were on steep hills. Caballo Lake sites were all full, we found a place at Caballo River Side which is below the dam an right on the Rio Grande River.
Had a big thunder storm in the evening including a little hail.
Written on IPad
We decided to stay one more night because we have not decided which direction to go. When we leave here we have to go there east or west. Will decide before we go to bed tonight.
The site we are in is taken tonight so we have to move. A caravan is coming in this afternoon and they have booked a group of sites so they are together. Moving to site 35 and the park is charging us $15.00 a night rather than $20.00, that was a nice touch.
The campsite picture, not trees or view but this place has electricity, water, sewer, TV and good WIFI.
The left turn and brake light on the pickup ( while being towed ) quit working a while ago. I got a test light and while at Lee’s Ferry I figured out the plug on the coach was not putting out any power on this terminal. I spent a lot of time looking for a fuse panel for the trailer plug and of today still haven’t found one. Today I crawled under the coach with the intent of following wires back until I got power.
After looking around at the wire bundles with a flashlight I found this wire hanging by one or two strands at each end.
The nickel is to show size.
With the light tester I confirmed one side produces power when the turn signal is on and with a OHM meter the other end goes to the trailer plug. I will get some wire this weekend and fix the problem.
Written on IPad.
The above link will give you all the information about this city. They say it is the oldest continuous inhabited city in North America. It was interesting and here are a bunch of pictures.
Sunday was the last day of the fiesta unfortunately it was to windy for any of the balloons to go up.
80% of the people in the south RV park left Sunday and the rest of us had to be out by 11:00 a.m. today.
We stopped and did some laundry so we would be set for another two weeks or so. One of the guys at the Laundromat was washer the balloon field official’s jackets, like 6 large commercial size washers of them. Jean was talking to him and he gave her two Zebra Launch Director pins.
Today’s drive.
We are back at Sky City Casino 60 miles east of Albuquerque. We needed to dump, get water and we really didn’t know where we are going next. Will HAVE to figure out where to go next. Oh, and also we wanted to see the Acoma Village which is 15 miles south of here. We’ll do that tomorrow.
Sky City Casino site 22.
A couple of morning pictures.
Saturday evening the wind was blowing to hard to put up balloons so quite a very pilots set their baskets and burns up and did what they call candle burns.
Stayed at the coach to watch balloons.
We found out that on Thursday morning a balloon landed on the road right behind our coach and the cyclone fence. Some of the folks around us helped to hold the balloon down. When they asked the pilot what he wanted to do he said he didn’t know, he’d like to wait until his crew chief arrived. The road is a one lane road with RV’s with sharp things on one side and a cyclone fence with sharp wires on the other side. They got a whole bunch of people on both sides of the balloon and as it came down they were able to feed the balloon envelope onto the road.
Morning glow
Balloons
The Wells Fargo Balloon came down in our field again today.
One of the crew chiefs came over to me and asked if I know anything about the coaches setting behind me. I said yes I live right there. She asked if their was anyplace around that repaired RV’s, I said yes out by the front gate, what do you need. She said she need air for one of the tires on her balloon cart. I told I could take care of that for her, it would take me a couple of minutes to get my compressor out.
She gave me this Launch Director pin.
And then came back and gave me a Wells Fargo Balloon Crew Member Pin.
Darth Vader landed in our area this morning, here are two of the t-shirt the crew was wearing.
This afternoon Natalie and Rafael came to visit. It was great to see Natalie and Rafael is a really cute 13 month old boy.
Today we got up at 4:30 a.m. to have breakfast at the balloon museum. Breakfast is from 5:30 a.m. to 9:30 with a buffet going the entire time. It was really nice because we were in a room overlooking the launch field which had wonderful heat and an outside balcony to take pictures.
This is the pin we got at the breakfast.
After the balloons went up we spent time touring the museum.
Thursday evening we went over to the launch field to do some shopping and watch the evening glow and fireworks. May of the balloons are inflated and then the burners light up the inside of the balloon.
This is followed by some really cool fireworks.
We stayed at home this morning and watched the balloons from right outside our coach. It is nice because I can have my morning coffee and Bailey’s and a bagel with cream cheese.
Morning glow.
Even Hank wanted to see the balloons this morning.
