New Mexico (NM) – 3. Albuquerque (pop.525,000)

Like a lot of western towns and cities, Albuquerque is split in the centre by two interstate highways that intersect near the downtown core:

• I-40 runs from Texas in the east to Arizona in the west, and I-25 runs from Taos and Sante Fe in the north and runs south to the US/Mexican border at Las Cruces and Juarez;
• running parallel and just south of the 1-40 is Central Ave and this 'avenue' is the infamous Route 66. So... if you followed Central Ave as far as you could to the east, you’d end up in Chicago and, if you followed it to the west, you’d end up in Los Angeles;
• running about parallel and west of 1-25 is the Rio Grande (River). Here, ranchers live right within the city limits. And, if you floated south down the Rio Grande, you would arrive at a tri-corner where New Mexico, Texas and Mexico meet; and,
• running to the east of I-25 is the Sandia Mountain Range. Sandia means ‘watermelon’ in Spanish – I’m sure for the colour the sun brings to the mountainside at sunset. With the mountain range on the east, population growth for the City naturally spreads everywhere but east.

The placement of the interstate highways in the centre of town essentially creates four quadrants within the city. It’s for this reason that almost all city addresses end with a NE, NW SE or SW. With this organized approach to city planning, it was easy to get around once we got our hands on a city map. FYI, we were at the KOA located in the SE quadrant right on Central Ave – old Route 66:


Rather than use the interstate, we often chose Route 66 to start our day's journey. As we toured our way into the city core, we’d see sand-coloured motel signs from the 60’s – some in perfect shape and some not. And almost all buildings are low-lying. I suspect the City has an ordinance of some kind to ‘keep things just the way they used to be’. Just before the university is a section called “Nob Hill” – a very trendy resto-bar area where Central Avenue narrows. It is dotted with many super restaurants (more on these later…).

The University of New Mexico (UNM) is very near the city centre and was established in the late 1800’s. Similar to Queen’s, UNM focuses on the fields of medicine, business and engineering. It boasts the highest population (50%) of Hispanic and Native American faculty and student population in the US. And like our home town, the UNM students bring a bustling and youthful flavour to the city.

The sprawling city (and surrounding small towns) has an overall population of about 900,000 and is the 6th fastest growing city in the US. At the city core is like most historic Spanish towns – a central square or ‘plaza’ that looks like a park and, on the perimeter, are shops, a big old Catholic church and government offices. This area in Albuquerque is called ‘Olde Town” and we went there many times to shop, eat and walk about. The sidewalks are crowded with Native American vendors and plenty of jewellery and the clothing shops promote the southwest trends and colours of turquoise and soft pink. Even the interstate highway arches and overpasses have carved and painted southwest patterns – some are even lit at night.

When we drove into Albuquerque on I-40 West that day last February, we came through the Sandia Mountain pass and there, before us, was the City. We were shortly at the exit for the KOA and, in minutes of arrival, we were installed at our site. The view was spectacular: to the northeast were the mountains and everywhere else, there was blue, blue sky. Here's a photo of our site with Sandia Mountains in the background:


For the next 5 weeks, we enjoyed great weather – not great for sunbathing – but great for touring: 70’s+ during the day and in the mid-30’s at night. Being the news junkie that I am, the local newscasts were more than interesting and reflected what we observed during our stay – there exists an incredible respect amongst the people who live there. No one seems to care where you’re from or how you got there and what you look like. Everyone treated us well and it was pretty obvious, they all lived in harmony. The Native, Hispanic and White population was one – and all in support of an ever-growing lifestyle – blending the ranchers and farmers, educators and business together easily and naturally.

Why did we pick Albuquerque in the first place? and why did we stay there for that length of time? Well, the City is in the middle of the state and, from there, we could take the Jeep for tours anywhere within a 2 hour radius. + I’d never seen anything like this before – except when I was there 25 years ago! As for the length of time? well, the best deal at an RV park is most often the monthly rate so, to get the best bang for our buck it’s great when you can find a place so central.

The next blog entry will be about Sky City just west of Albuquerque where a mesa has been home for a thousand years to that native community. It was an amazing place and I got to go twice – once with John and once with Mary – so valuable each visit. Check back in a week or so - hope you're having a good time when you visit our blog… m.

New Mexico (NM) – 2. Artesia and Roswell

As part of our visit to the Carlsbad area, we headed north a half hour and came to a small town called Artesia (pop 10,000). On the way, we noted the oil rigs in the field just like in TX. What was different were the rigs on the side of the road where you could buy water from wells - guess it's hard to get in those parts.

We arrived in Artesia and the main street is essentially the cross-road of the two county roads. The downtown area was surprisingly busy and well appointed. There were a number of bronze statues on the main street – here’s one of them:


We settled ourselves in the local resto/bar for lunch and learned a lot in that couple of hours by asking questions of the bartender and the patrons. I was very interested in the fact the town is a national federal enforcement training site for US Border Patrol and for US Air Marshalls. Based on the expected length of their training, I guessed the facility provided residential services as well.

And in the middle of what seemed to be nowhere, it was also very interesting that Artesia had built an underground elementary school back in the early 1960’s. Keeping in mind that the 1st experimental atomic bomb was released just west of there at White Sands, we concluded the town council felt more confident once there was a fallout shelter in case of nuclear warfare!

We had no plan other than to have lunch that day but we learned a whole lot more than we ever dreamed. We returned to our campsite for our last night in Carlsbad and shook our heads at what we discovered about Artesia.

We left the next morning fairly early because we wanted to arrive in Albuquerque in the early afternoon. The road to Albuquerque took us north through Roswell, NM. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of this place but a drive-thru was all we needed. This is the place where, in June 1947, people from the area reported seeing a ‘flying disc’ and, the next day, a ranch hand discovered unknown metal debris in his field. Within a few days, everyone in Roswell was completely confident there had been an extra-terrestrial visit and 'someone' actually saw the aliens. At the time, the nearby US Air Force Base claimed the debris and determined it to be a ‘weather balloon’. A series of investigations, old and new, keep the town alive with memories of what might have been.

As we drove down Roswell's main street, the local movie theatre of days gone by had been turned into an alien museum. There were alien figures everywhere urging travelers to stop at local motels. Even Ronald McDonald had a buddy at the curb side – a balding large-eyed green creature with four fingers on each hand and three toes on each foot! Sorry – no photos – I was in awe and forgot to take some!

Alas, we continued our travels north and didn’t stop. Neither did we detour to the supposed grave of Billy the Kid near Fort Sumner – after all, Billy is now old, alive and well and living in Alberta, right?

Next stop is Albuquerque – 250 miles north and a bit west… join me in a few days… m.

New Mexico (NM) - 1. The Carlsbad Caverns

John has a MAJOR fascination with caverns full of fossils. For me, the view is similar to the rock and reef formations that you see when you snorkel – except for the fact it’s under the ground. Someone told us, “If you’re going to New Mexico, then you HAVE to see the caverns at Carlsbad – there’s no other place like it.” It’s for this reason that we planned to spend a few days in the southeast corner of NM.

The Guadalupe Mountain National Park straddles the 25 miles stretch of the TX-NM border and, once we crossed into NM, the drive was only about 50 miles to the city of Carlsbad (pop 26,000). The city has its base at another National Park called the Carlsbad Caverns National Park. There, we parked ourselves at the KOA just north of town and got ourselves oriented to the area. Both Parks are situated in the Chihuahuan Desert so just know this – this was definitely cowboy country!

The story of the caverns began millions of years ago with underground river passages. Over the years, the water from the river disappeared except for beads of water that drop from within the caverns. Eventually, the beads develop the ground into strange-looking columns that either rest like a rock or hang like an icicle - like this one:


The caverns create places for bats to rest during the day and there is one natural entrance to the caves where the bats come and go. Many are migratory and I gather most bats call this ‘home, sweet home’ in the summer and fall months. It was in the very late 1800’s when a local guy named Jim White followed a dark cloud of fluttering wings into the side of the mountain and discovered the caves. Being the entrepreneur that he was, he eventually mined the bat ‘guano’ and sold it as fertilizer! Imagine!

It wasn’t long after that Jim decided he could make even more money by making the cave a tourist site. By the early 1900’s, the story goes that Jim was lowering two people at a time via a bucket down into the cave entrance. I can only guess that the smell on the ride down as well as the tour must have been really bad – I mean how much bat guano could a tourist take? Thankfully on our trip, there were four elevators at the surface at the Visitor Center. The elevator took us down 750’ to the cave floor in just shy of a minute – luckily, far, far away from the original and still-existing bat entrance! Not long after you step off the elevator, you proceed to a chamber (room) that is 8.5 acres in size – can you believe it? 8.5 acres underground – amazing!

There are 8 different tours you can take at the Caverns – only two are self-guided. The other six tours are guided by Park Rangers and vary in degree of physical range. How about I give you an overview and then you guess which tour we took? (remember that I’m with a guy who favours both feet on solid ground at all times)…

So here are your choices:

1. the paved one mile walking path to four chambers that includes a (planned) blackout experience followed by an 8-story walk back to the Visitor Center?
2. the lantern-lit tour (lanterns provided) of the formations on a dirt trail with slippery slopes?
3. the ‘moderately strenuous’ event where you lower yourself by knotted ropes followed by a 50’ series of three ladders where you need to bring your own gloves, batteries and kneepads?
4. the tour where it’s mandatory that you bring a heavy duty C-cell battery flashlight and wear a headlamp and special footwear since the route is muddy (which really means slippery) and notes that one path requires a 15’ climb using a knotted rope?
5. the tour to a remote cave deep in the Caverns where it’s mandatory to wear gloves, kneepads, helmets and headlamps (supplied by the Parks Service) and you bring the aforementioned flashlight? or,
6. last but not least, the Spider Cave Tour where you can expect ‘tight crawls’ through small passages to see ‘bizarre’ formations?

OK, OK – so it isn’t that hard to guess which tour we took – it was the first one! Every tour guide worked for the National Park Service and our guide was VERY informative and proud of his tour-guide responsibilities. It was a bit chilly because no matter where you go in the caves, the temperature is 56 degrees. It was very difficult to take photos because of lighting underground so I don’t have many to show you.


But here’s a pic of one of the (shaky) stairways on our tour:















There was a lot of scientific stuff to learn about the rocks and the fossil formations. I was too much in awe of the view to catch all of the detail but I did note the science-type guys and gals didn’t say “awesome” as much as I did. Instead, they used the proper descriptive words like: stalactites, stalagmite, soda straws, draperies, flowstone, column, lily pads, cave pearls, helictites, aragonite crystals, rimstone dams and popcorn. I said, ‘There’s popcorn?” and a gaggle of those scientific-types looked around at me and I’m sure they were creating a blonde joke of some kind. John pretended he didn’t know me.

It was a great day and we spent many more hours there than we ever planned. There are about 100 caves in total with the deepest chamber being 1037’ below the surface. We only visited a few and only went 2/3 of the way down. At the surface, you would never know the caverns existed. The Carlsbad National Park itself is 46,766 acres and it’s amazing to know Jim White just happened to see those bats flying in and out back in the late 1800’s. He’d be proud today to know the Caverns were designated a World Heritage Site in 1995.

Well, I’ve rambled on enough about Carlsbad. What follows next is a wee story about Artesia and Roswell… m.

New Mexico - Intro

Twenty-five years ago, I went to Albuquerque for a weekend and vowed to return and explore ‘some time soon’! And so we left South Padre Island, TX on February 17, 2011 and traveled yet another 1500 miles north and west to the beautiful state of New Mexico where we spent five weeks. It is a place of diversity in matters of history, culture, geography, tourism and opportunity. The state license plate says everything - the “State of Enchantment”.

I can’t short-change the drive from South Padre Island in southeast Texas to the west end of the state. The drive was easy – all interstate. But the drive is similar to driving from Ottawa to Thunder Bay as it takes two full days to get across Texas. On Day One, we drove 360 miles north to Bandero County, referred to as “Hill Country”, just west of San Antonio. There, we connected with I-40 and headed directly west to Van Horn. Once we turned onto the I-40 on Day Two, we still had 350 miles to go before we actually reached Van Horn.

Once Hill Country was behind us, it wasn’t long before we saw our first mesa in the distance. John told me to quickly grab the camera and take a picture and so I did – as if it would disappear after thousands years! The front windows of the rig are big and wide and photos often surprise us in that they turn out OK – even through the window. The country side was everything you’d think – we were looking for John Wayne behind every bush!

After an hour, I had taken at least 10 (useless) pictures and the mesa was, well… somewhat closer. And then finally, it was there to our right and it still looked far away! Unbelievable that it took so long for us to get close enough so the mesa took up the full photo frame (without zoom)! Even so, you can see it was still a distance away:

Not long after, we turned right and headed north into New Mexico. The final landmark in the “Lone Star State” is the Guadalupe Mountains – at 8750 feet, the highest point in TX. We travelled along the Pecos River and all John could talk about were the old westerns when one of the cowboys described their camp site as, “just west of the Pecos!”

Just on the other side of the Guadalupes is the southeast section of New Mexico and the city of Carlsbad where our adventures with the state began. I have to split the news of this adventure into a few chapters – there’s a lot to share. All to say, I’ll start with Carlsbad and the Caverns and will follow with a few words on the very interesting little town of Artesia and the infamous Roswell. Albuquerque itself will scoop a chapter and our tours on the Turquoise Trail, to Sante Fe, to the Acoma Pueblo and Los Alamos may take a few more.

Early into the five weeks we spent in this beautiful state, John traveled home to Kingston for a week – he had a previous commitment to a local Home Show. During that week, my long-time gal-pal Mary joined me for a visit. So, as you read the following chapters and I talk about where ‘we’ went, my co-explorer was either John or Mary. There were even a few places that I even got to go twice – once with Mary and once with John! I was lucky.

Hang in there with me as I hope to keep you entertained… m.

Asleep at the Wheel

This is just a short note to let you know I’ve been asleep at the wheel on writing about our travels. It’s been awhile since I’ve focused on the blog. I apologize for that and note there are a few adventures I want to share. It just means that I haven’t been in the right place at the right time with the laptop before me with time to think and write. Well… the weather is the pits this week. So I plan to get ‘at it’ and share a few smiles with you – even if the stories are from February and March of 2011. After all, I need to share those before we get onto 2012, right?

In short, I got busy when we got home this spring through the summer and into the fall. Many of you know we ended up completely renovating the ‘lower level’ of the house as a result of a water tank leak in March. Through April, May and June, I re-newed old friendships at my fav local paint store and made new friends with carpet installers and restoration specialists. July and August were packed with boating, visitors and family events.

Plus we had two new babies arrive in the scene – our nephew’s wife Janet had a babe in August and John’s daughter Bonnie had her first baby in October. Plus, my God-daughter Amanda was pregnant and, despite the fact she didn’t deliver until after we had left for TX, I managed to get into Ottawa a couple of times to see her! All this wasn’t enough – no, no, no! In late September, Johnnie fell off his motorized bicycle and was in a neck brace for 3 months till just before Xmas!

Here are two pics of Johnnie – the first with his new bike (before the accident):


and the second as a proud G-pa with our wee Baby Ava – taken only 3 weeks after the accident and 2 weeks after her arrival:

Alas, after 4 years of retirement, I have concluded that the following saying is accurate – “Work? Never! When would I ever have time?”

Just after my last entry a year ago – the one about special get-together dinner events such as the Fish Fry – we traveled to New Mexico for five weeks and, on our way home, visited Oklahoma City and Little Rock Arkansas. Lots to tell you about those places. And enough excuses… on with the stories about our travels to New Mexico, etc… enjoy… m.

Special Get-togethers - Dinners in South Padre

We eat out in restaurants often - birthdays, anniversaries, Valentines, Sunday football, after golf, after fishing, on our way back from shopping or just any old reason. I must say though that some of the best meals we’ve had with our friends have been when a group gets together at one of our sites, selects a theme and the rest becomes history!

We engaged in three of these dinners together in the three months we were in South Padre Island (SPI). We were able to have the first two dinners outside close to our rigs and, when the weather refused to cooperate for the third event, we moved it inside to the Commons – an area provided by the KOA for parties.

The whole idea reminds John and me of when we were boating. No single boat was ever big enough to invite more than two or three people in for dinner and it seemed we were ALWAYS more anyway! With or without the kids with us, it was just easier to get organized for dinner on the picnic tables on the dock. We would gather early in the afternoon and start to have a few cocktails and prep dinner. Afterwards, we’d end up sitting around the campfire and enjoying the rest of the evening! So, the venue may be different but, believe me, the depth of friendship is the same.

In early December, the idea for the Rib Fest began with a few gals just talking about and wanting to try out each others’ recipes. We picked a day to ‘just do it’ and the meal came together as easy as pie. Each rig brought their own rib recipe and appetizers, corn bread, slaw and other salads and desserts were added to complement the meal. We were about 16 in total for dinner and the vino and beer flowed nicely. The precedent was set. It was effortless. There was nothing left over and we had fun!



Here’s a picture of the table setting before we dug in!






Once we managed to get through New Year’s and a couple of other notable official events, Barb introduced the idea of a Pasta Party! Since she had a special recipe for Chicken Alfredo and offered to make it for all of us, we chimed in with all the stuff to support such a meal. The numbers in the park had increased by then and so we were about 24 for that meal! Again, there was little left over and we certainly did not leave the table hungry!

From the time of our arrival in SPI, Johnnie talked about having another Fish Fry. We had one in February 2010 and about 40 people attended. So, if we did another one this February, naturally, it would have to be bigger and better than the first! So, John and his buddy Ray proceeded to stock up each of their freezers with the fish that they caught.


Here’s a photo of Ray and Johnnie coming off the boat with one such catch.














As the winter proceeded, John engaged other buddies in his adventure and the number of pounds of fish needed for the fish fry started to grow. Before we knew it, Bob, Tia, Bob's father, Doug, Captain Bob and others were offering their fish for the event. However, it was just ‘all talk’ until our friends Stu and Lori presented John with his birthday present – five 10-pound bags of russet potatoes!

Then, we were off! It was clear – the menu was all about French fries and fish! Healthy? Well, not so much. I kept thinking that my Zumba classes would help me make it through… there were conversations amongst all rigs almost every day about chef responsibilities, roles of the chefettes (a new word), blackened fish recipes, fryers, roasters, potato slicers, utensils, chilli, condiments, appies, desserts et al. Sam’s Club certainly benefited in advance of our event. The date was set, the invitation prepped and copied, the guests invited and Larry and the Larryettes agreed to supply the tunes.

But the weather in February this year was not great. We had days of either 30 mph winds and/or temps below 35 at night. As the day of the Fish Fry approached, we confirmed the KOA’s approval to hold the event in the common area just in case. We would have preferred to have it outside on our cul-de-sac but it was not to be.

The KOA Commons has a full kitchen and offered plenty of room for our guests. When the day of the Fish Fry arrived, there was no doubt we needed to move it inside. We were worried that some would think it had been postponed. We relied on the 'word of mouth' in the park and it proved to be reliable! We had about 60 campers turn out! Many came at 2:00 and stayed through to 7:00! Everybody sure enjoyed it!

Let me introduce the major contributors:

Chefs Mike, Mike, Stu and Larry (left to right)!!!!



Chef Bob on fries!



Chef Ray slicing the fish (clearly, a job he took seriously!)














Lori’s specially-made condiments!















the Dessert table (thanx to our guests)!


and Johnnie overseeing the bevvies!


Looks like it was a good time, right?

After our last guest left, we started to clean up with major help from Cia and Gail and finished around 8:00 pm. We headed back to our rigs and then all of us stopped to hang out around Stu and Lori’s camp fire for an hour or so. Yes, we were tired. Yes, we had a great time doing it. Yes, everyone came to us the next day saying how much they enjoyed it. And yes, we will probably try to pull it off next year on a sunnier day!

Not long after the Fish Fry, John and I packed up after our three month stay on SPI. It was not an easy thing to do with so many friends and good memories in such a short time. We pushed on though, took two days to get to west Texas and are now in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We’ll be here for another month or so – drop back when you get a chance and maybe I’ll have a few stories about the state called the “Land of Enchantment”!

My very own Pilot – Part Two of Two

A few weeks later in February, Greg mentioned he wanted to fly to Port Mansfield, a small town about 20 miles north on the mainland. Population? small. Did I want to go for the ride? you bet! For the second time, I was ready in minutes.

Away we rode back to Cameron County Airport and, when we lifted off this time, we followed the shipping channel over the Laguna Madre.

I was amazed to see these fishing houses on stilts lining the channel on either side all the way to Port Mansfield.


It's a fishing port with a very small airport with no hangar or tower (just the Sheriff’s house nearby). Here’s the approach to the port:


Happily for me, the airport had recently paved its runway. There is one private hangar there for a Texan who flies in and out of Houston to go fishing out of the marina at Port Mansfield. We walked the short way to town and talked to the Captain of that Texan's boat who said the owner arrives each and every weekend and they attend fishing derbies all over the Gulf. At the marina, we also located the single place to have lunch. Unfortunately, the sign in the window said “Closed” so we returned to the wee airport and re-boarded the plane.

On take-off, we passed a group of about eight deer right next to the runway and headed off eastward.



Here’s how close one of them was to the aircraft - I could see his eyes!





We followed the man-made channel out to the jetty that cuts Padre Island and provides boaters and fishermen access to the Gulf. We had a strong headwind that day so the pace was a bit slower than before – that was good for me though ‘cause then my ride lasted longer! We flew slower and lower than normal as well and people waved at us from the beach.

Greg asked if I wanted to try flying and I said, “Sure!” – again not really knowing what was involved except that I had to get my camera out of the way to take the controls! And so I got the chance to fly this machine for about 10 minutes – I’ve never felt so free! It was probably only 5 minutes and every single second was exhilarating! Greg didn’t seem too worried – I must say I was too way too occupied to even look at him! And I doubt he ever took his feet off the foot controls – I couldn’t even reach them!

I asked if we could go out about 5 miles into the Gulf to see the two oil rigs that had been hauled there back in December. Greg said we could as long as we didn’t get too close – he just needed to respect the restrictions related to our distance from them. Even though the wind was strong, out we went and circled them a few times with me clicking my camera the whole time. We didn’t see a single person on either rig but Greg and I are fairly confident there was at least one person there watching us!


We returned towards the south end of South Padre Island, swooped twice over the RV Park and then headed back over the Causeway to Port Isabel. We flew over the town of Laguna Vista, over the Resaca that gives birth to the grapefruit and orange groves and returned to Cameron County Airport. We didn’t practice any "touch ‘n go’s” on this round as the afternoon winds were getting even stronger. We landed, approached the hangar and disembarked. We then followed Greg’s standard operating procedures for tying down the aircraft and protecting the shell with its' own the special blankie – off to sleep till another day!


I took one last look at the ‘leaping Cheetah’ on the tail fin as we drove off the tarmac to the airport exit.

Greg asked a number of fellow campers to join him for their ‘day in the sky’. I know Doug got to go as did Mike. I also know they were each as thrilled as I was when they got back. It may have been an every day thing for Greg but for us, it was just the best. And despite the fact others got to go, I will forever think of Greg as ‘my very own pilot’.


Here he is with his new favourite toy – an aeronautical GPS for use while either driving or flying!



And a final thank you to you Reo for giving up your seat on these two days so I could go instead…


The events around the Fish Fry will follow – hope you come back to check it out… m.