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1 to 15 March 2017 16 to 31 March 2017

Wednesday March 1, 2017

Our RV Park is behind this motel.

Our site.

I took a little walk around the campground. You never know what you are going to see.
Like this "good looking", older MH.

An RV siding redone...

Some RVer just do not do any preventive maintenance. Look at the left backside of the RV. Check out the grass growing on top of the awning!

An older fifth wheel.

In the afternoon, we went downtown to check out some of the Thrift Shops.

A RVer just came in and told us the I-10 was closed for 7 hours yesterday because of low visibility and high winds.

We got a call from Ford Dealer and our extended warranty does not cover the chassis of the MH!!!
Really?

Thursday March 2, 2017

I decide to call Ford Canada and check on our "ownership" of the chassis.
That is when I discover that the RV dealer (Cité Caravane) did not do its job and register us as the new owner of the chassis.
So, I register the chassis (frame). I also called Cité Caravane to figure out what is going on with our extended warranty? Too late. They are closed. Tomorrow.

The laundry room at the RV Park/motel is not very clean. We decide to go downtown.

With laundry done, we head to the place called Messila.

Mesilla had quite a history over time, specially in the late 1800. At time it belonged to Mexico, then to the USA...
Billy the Kid and Pancho Villa even called this place home.

A nice church is facing the plaza.

Now, this is the first time we see a sign like this in the USA!

All around the plaza you have souvenir boutiques, jewelry and food.

WOW, a Frenchman build it!

Kind of hard to read, but it basically belonged to the same family since 1834.

This building on the corner had quite a history...

Once we got back home and knowing the warranty would not pay for the heater blower motor replacement and installation, I went to Ford and bought the motor and install it myself. Surprise! The motor was built in Canada!

It is a good thing the access to the motor is easy...

The motor is removed and in my hand the new motor with the fan mounted.

The new motor is in place. Time to check and see if it works. Good! It works and makes no noise.

Tomorrow we are going to Ford to get the suspension checked.

Friday March 3, 2017

On our way to the Ford dealer.

We did not hook up the car to the MH because it is not far from the RV Park.
Michele is following me in the car.

We arrived at Ford just before 8 am.

The dealer even has 5 RV spot on its lot.

The mechanic comes and check out the front suspension and find nothing loose. Good.
He suggests we take a drive with the MH so he can hear the noise when we hit bumps. I'll be darned! The city of Las Cruces has beautiful roads, no big bumps. Even going over railroad tracks make no noise! Back to the dealership we go.
On my way to the service manager, I see the mechanic talking to the service manager. When I come up to them, the service manager tells me "we found nothing, you pay nothing!". I just stand there with my mouth open for a second or two. Now, that is service!

So, we hook up the car to the MH and leave to go to Roswell with a smile on our face. Thank you Ford.

We will have many passes to go over in the next two days.

San Augustine's Pass is the first one. In 10 miles, we go from 4430 feet altitude and top up at 5719 feet.
It may not seem like a lot, but in a MH, it is a lot of going up in a short distance.

On the other side of the pass, we enter the "White Sands Missile Range".

It is a beautiful road.

Another "Border Patrol Checkpoint".

Shortly after the checkpoint, we arrive at our first stop.

Luck is on our side. The ranger at the entrance saw our veteran's plate and waved us in without paying. Free things twice in a day! I feel like I should buy a lottery ticket, but then, I would only win a free ticket!

I have to be honest, this photo is the only one with the right colour. With a cloudy sky and the sand from the last sandstorm, the white sand is covered with brown sand.

But, I made some adjustment to the colour and it looks better. We were here in Mars 2012. Good Lord, 5 years ago!

We took a short stroll in the sand and saw those bird tracks. Our car in the parking lot.

Because I corrected the white, now our faces are not so clear...

Man those raven are big, just like in northern Alberta.

You can rent some round disk to slide down the hills. But we noticed that the adults did not slide very well. The kids are lightweight and they sure go down the hill fast.

After about an hour, we head back on the road towards Roswell.

Oh, the things we see on the side of the road...

Up another pass, this one will go as high as 7591 feet and we are now at 4500 feet...
Yep! We will be going up a lot.

There is a NASA museum here in Alamogordo!

We drive in the Apache Mescalero Indian Reserve.
They sure got a nice church.

We have left the desert landscape to move into mountain landscape.

We are at the top!

We saw some snow on the side of the road!

As we were coming to Ruidoso Downs, we saw this antenna camouflaged as a tree. Not a bad idea.

The alien theme is becoming more apparent.

We are spending the night at Walmart in Ruidoso Downs.

The parking lot is full of cars until after 9 pm.
We have traveled 200 km today.
Our generator has an adjustment on the carburetor to compensate for the altitude. I select the highest, 5000 feet high. The generator starts a lot more easily now.

Saturday March 4, 2017

Michele got a good night of sleep, but not for me. My allergies kicked in and I was up by 4 am.
I start the generator and plug in an extra electric heater on top of the electric fireplace and boom, no more power on half the MH!
I check all the fuses and circuit breakers. Darn, am I missing something... Lack of sleep?
I am back in bed after 5 am. When I woke up again at 6:30 am. The light comes on in my head. I remember that the generator has its own two circuit breakers.
I check the generator and sure enough one of the CB is off.
Now all is good with electric power.

We only have to travel 125 km today.
Again, the things we can see on the side of the roads.

The road is very nice and 4 lanes wide from Las Cruces to Roswell.
We are still high in altitude right now.

This one is for my brother-in-law, Patrice!

The grass grows really weird here.

Hummm. A turkey field?

After we came out of the mountains, we drive in the highlands.

We are getting closer to Roswell, the city is where the "Roswell UFO incident" took place.
Even the McDonald is into the alien theme.

This is why we came here...

We are still pretty high in altitude, 3500 feet.

We are in a world of aliens and other thing out of the ordinary.

I finally found a place to fill our propane tank. It may seem simple to fill or exchange a 20 pounds portable propane tank. When your propane tank is mounted on the frame, you have to find a place that can fill it. It is not as readily available everywhere.
We have been running of propane fumes for about a week.
The young girl is not the most hands-on person, I would go as far a say, not really fast either. Finally, propane start to flow in the MH propane tank after 15 minutes...

An alien...

Two aliens?

Our RV Park is a little out o town. It is in Midway, 12 km away from Roswell.

We have a site with water and electricity, but no sewer. It costs only $14.50 per night.

The park internet is very good, we could even skype for over an hour with Jeremy and grandson Gabriel.
Gabriel does not stop talking and we love it. He knows everything about dinosaurs.

Roswell is the city of aliens and UFO, but mostly aliens.
Even a mailbox disguise as R2D2.

Those two did not stop asking for our photo with them, we had to oblige...
We are now friends on Facebook.

McDonald's flying saucer...

Now that we have a lot of information from the information center, we head home and will read this stuff and decide what we want to see.

Sunday March 5, 2017

Just on the other side of the main road we can see and smell cows and cow's manure. I do not know how many cows are per shelter, let's say 50 to 100, they have 20 of those shelters. You want cows poop! As long as the wind is the right way, it is OK.

When you drive into town you can see this billboard on the side of the road.
We love it. The pickup driver asking for a boost from the alien, notice the boosting cables in the alien's hand.
The family is trying to talk to the other aliens. Very well done.

The city is really into the touristy alien thing.

Our main destination is this UFO Museum in Roswell.
This museum is also a research center in anything regarding Alien and UFO related subject.

Michele found some tickets for only $5 for two people on the website Groupon.
To tell you the truth, we do not expect much. Roswell was simply on our bucket list.
You have a lot of reading to do. We are here because of the "Roswell UFO incident".
So, a lot of reading about the UFO crash. Some display of what aliens would look according to witness.

I never knew this!

The UFO and the aliens were supposedly taken back to the army base.
Again, according to some witness that talked about it many years later, this is what they would have looked like.

This incident created a lot of doubts and fear in the American population.
Hollywood took the idea and made many UFO and aliens movies over the years.

The government denied everything about UFO and aliens. They even "invented" the story of the experimental dummy to create more confusion in the American population. Don't forget, we were in 1947.

A military dentist who took an imprint of the lower jaw of an alien was told to destroy the mold after it was taken, he did. Once the people left his office, he went back in the garbage and glued back together the mold. He later gave it to the museum.

The term foo fighter was used by Allied aircraft pilots in World War II to describe various UFOs or mysterious aerial phenomena seen in the skies over both the European and Pacific theaters of operations.

The museum is very lucky to have this cover/lid from a tomb of the Mayan people of Mexico.
The cover/lid was of K'inich Janaab' Pakal I^er tomb.
The carving on the lid is called "The Palenque Astronaut". It was carved in 400-500 A.D. I guess seeing aliens is not new!

It turned out we enjoyed our visit at the UFO museum of Roswell. If you happen to be nearby, why don't you stop for a visit.

A short visit at the museum gift shop.
Hummm, not!

After the visite in the museum, we walk the nearby streets with all the tacky shops with UFO/Alien theme.
Michele's new friends.

Aliens?

From a distance, it looks real.

As I mentioned, the whole city is into aliens/UFO, even this furniture store.

We had a good day in Roswell.

Monday March 6, 2015

Today we are looking for caches in Roswell.
Our first cache took us by a pecan plantation.

Of course, one cache had to be near the UFO giving a boost to the old pickup truck...

The is the cache container near the UFO. It is a fake "D" battery. This is the first time we saw one like this, pretty neat.

We had not stopped in this restaurant since a long time, Wienerschnitzel.
We had the $4.99 special, one chili covered hot dog, one chili covered hamburger and one chili covered fries. It was good, but we had to hold on to everything because the wind was blowing pretty hard.

Another new type of cache for us today. It looks like an ordinary lock on a door. It is not, it is fake and the log is in the lock itself.

The cherry tree are blooming, spring is in the air...

We had a good day caching with 20 found and 2 not found.

Tuesday March 7, 2017

We are leaving Roswell for Fort Stockton, Texas. The weather forecast is for smoke in the air when we will get near the Texas border, about one hour and half.

Yep, it sure got very smoky. The smoke is coming from bush fire from the panhandle of Texas. We are also in "Oil Country". It looks like northern Alberta with all the big truck.

We must have seen 20 or 30 of those big drilling rigs.

That is one big wash (dry riverbed).

Our first stop is in Pecos, TX.
We will be fueling up at the Flying J truck stop.

Shortly after we left Pecos, the smoke disappeared.
So did all the oil rig traffic.

Here is a feed lot for calves. They only stay in this feedlot until they are big enough and another farmer will take them and finish fattening them up for meat.

More pecan farms.

After 4 hours on the road, we arrive in Fort Stockton.

Hummm! Our RV Park...

The RV Park is an old mobile home park. The sites are long and level. Because it is a Passport America park, we pay only $14 a night.

It is not very busy...

We will be here for 3 nights. Our plan is to do nothing or as close as possible to nothing.

Wednesday March 8, 2017

I washed the MH this morning, it had not been wash since Yuma, back in December if we remember right.

It is hot, +28°C and I have to wait for the windows to be in the shade before I can wash the water spot on them.

Michele enjoying her book.

I was a very good day, warm, light wing and a lot of reading.

Thursday March 9, 2017

I am waiting for my towels to wash. I am talking about my windows washing towels, I had a few waiting to be washed.

After that, we decided to hit Fort Stockton for a quick tour and do some geocaching. One thing we have never been able to do is find all the caches in a city or town. We should be OK here. Fort Stockton only has 6 caches in the whole town!
First, a stop at the visitor information center.

At one time Fort Stockton was the railroad hub of the southwest.

Comanche Spring, at one time it was the largest spring in Texas, but du to irrigation and tapping of the underground waster, it is now reduced to some flow during the winter months and nothing in the summer. This spring was very important for the traveler in this arid landscape.

I always get a kick when I see a cigarette and beer drive-thru. Trust me, it is a busy place.

We are with our new friend, the largest roadrunner in Texas.

The Historic Fort Stockton. We will drive there in a few minutes...

Fort Stockton is in Pecos County. It is Oil and Gas country...

We are looking for two caches in the old part of town.
One is in the Fort Cemetery.

Why are there no names on the cross? Because they were moved to San Antonio!

Here lies Sheriff A.J. Royal. During his two year term as the sheriff of Fort Stockton, he was either loved or hated.
He was very controversial and he died from gun shot wounds.

The historic Fort Stockton is trying to become hip again, but it takes time...

One more cache took us to the west end of town and we saw this by the side of I-10. They must be big for us to see all the details...

On our way back home, we made a quick stop at Walmart. I found this portable camp table on the clearance table as we were leaving the store. After a price check, we bought it for $20. It is worth $60 usually.

Another good day.

Friday March 10, 2017

We have moved our clock ahead one hour when we came to Texas. So when I woke up this morning at 6:30, the sun was just peeking above the horizon.

We left the RV Park a few minutes before 8 am. Would we come back to this park, yes, even if it has nothing other than your site. The price is right, clean and quiet.

Not smoke again?

Not sure if it is smoke of fog. It should be easy to tell, but we can't.

I will leave this one to your imagination...

Every time we cross a river, we have to go down to it and come back up to the plateau.

Most of the I-10 is very nice. We made a quick stop in Junction to fuel up again.

Shortly after Junction, we left I-10 to get on US-290. We are now in the "Hills Country".

This is also hunting country.

We are going to Johnson City before we change road again.

Most trees are green, but this one sure look scary. Imagine in a fog?

We have been in Fredericksburg before, in January 2012.

It is a German town full of tourists.

As we continue our drive east, we see more and more sheep...

We turned on US-281 south to Blanco.

This is also wine country with a lot of wineries, B & B like these one.

Black vultures having a roadside snack.

This dip on the road even has a measuring bar to let you know how deep is the water on the road...

After a little more than 6 hours on the road, we made it to River Oaks RV Park.

It is in the middle of nowhere, but our goal for this week is to do as little as possible.

I took a walk to the Blanco River at the end of the property.
Homemade stairs.

The view from near the water.

The Blanco River. It is low right now, but clear.

It is warm today with a +28°C. Forecast for tomorrow, rain and +18°C.

Saturday March 11, 2017

We are having a rainy day, all day it was raining on and off. The temperature was 18°C, but the humidity was very high.
The guy in the camouflage jumpsuit is the "manager" and he is very cold right now.

Hard to tell, but it was raining, a very light rain. The type of soil on the road makes it very sticky, like clay and it makes a mess when you get in the car or in the MH.

I spent most of my day catching up on the update for our web page. By the end of the day, I am all caught up. I am even starting the one for this past week!

Sunday March 12, 2017

We woke up to a cold day, +8 this morning. The high for today is going to be 13°C.
We bought some hash brown potatoes a few days back. I am using them for our brunch.
That was a good breakfast.

After lunch, we decided to go and have a look in town (Blanco).
An old truck advertising a restaurant.

The state flower, the bluebonnet, is starting to bloom.

The center of town is a square with the courthouse in the middle.
All around the square you have old buildings that are renovated and most are either boutiques or Cafe.

We liked this bench, so is the sign.

There is a brewing company here in Blanco, the Real Ale Brewing Co. Why not go for a taste.

We don't know if they offer tour, but we do not really care about tours as they just show you big stainless steel tanks and pipes.
The tap room is open!

So many types of beer! They offer "flights", which is a piece of wood with four 4oz glass of your choice of beer to taste.

I take four and Michele takes four different. Do I look happy or what!

Here are Michele's four beers, the Emporium, the Helles, the Fireman #4 and the Devil's Backbone.

Now my choices, the Scotch Ale, the Axis, the Rio Blanco and the Pinsetter.

I really like to try new types of beer, of course, some I like and some I don't care for.
Out of the eight different beers we got, three were OK for me and one for Michele. The other four were not, absolutely not to our taste. We are not saying they were bad tasting beer, just that they were not in our palette of taste. Michele was looking at me like I was sick. I usually like beer, but this experience left me very unsatisfied.

On our way back home, we saw this Texas Longhorn cow.

A good day even if the beer was not that good and the weather is not that warm. here is always tomorrow.

Monday March 13, 2015

It was still cloudy when I woke up this morning.

Now, look at the sky, it is blue. Sometimes I take photos from another days to make the blog flow a little better. Also one day is not too heavy with too many photos and the other day with no photos. Now you know my secret!

The RV Park.

Another secret, when I take the garbage out to the dumpster, I take a look in there, you never know what you may find.
I would not do dumpster diving, no way.
So, I see this sewer hose and it does not look too bad, it actually looks darn good except for a hole in the hose.
I take it home and fix it in about 10 minutes and we are now owner of a sewer hose that would have cost us $45.

A good day!

Tuesday March 14, 2017

I took a walk to the river this morning.
I even scared a few deer.

We are visiting Blanco today.
The Blanco courthouse was built in 1885. Some scenes from the movie "True Grit" (2010) were filmed in this courthouse.

They are doing a lot of work in the old courthouse. The walls are covered with old photos from Blanco and the area.

The courthouse is also home of the Blanco information center.
They recommended we visit the Buggy Barn Museum.

They told us it was full of old buggies.
It is also a western village for movies.

Inside the gift shop, we saw this very nice painting.

Since we are in Texas, we have to have Longhorns.

We are the only two person in the museum.
It is wall-to-wall with buggies. Here are a few.

A cab!

We were a little disappointed because many of the buggies had stands in front of them, but no signs to let us know anything about the particular boggy.

I remember seeing one like that in movies.

You want buggies, you got buggies!

A hearse from Europe.

They even have a Dutch Wagon.

I guess you can call it a hand brake!

My pretty Michele.

One room was for anything horse/buggy related.

We all have seen those in movies before.

Like I said, many had no information about them. The museum looks a little "tired".

Next, we tour the "Pine-Moore" set.

Michele trying out a coffin.

It is not as nice as the Gammon's Gulch near Benson, Arizona.

A new distillery just opened its door in Blanco.
Why not go and check it out.

This is the Ben Milam Whiskey.
Why Ben Milam? Simply that he is related to the owner of the distillery and she wanted to honor him. He was a leading figure in the Texas Revolution.

Darn, I forgot the name of the man who explained everything to us. He is also the master brewer at Ben Milam.
The first tasting was of the Bourbon Whiskey. What is a bourbon?
"Bourbon whiskey is a type of American whiskey: a barrel-aged distilled spirit made primarily from at least 51% corn."

I enjoyed the bourbon, but not enough to buy a bottle.

Next tasting, American Rye Whiskey.
What is an American Rye Whiskey?
"In the United States, "rye whiskey" is, by law, made from a mash of at least 51 percent rye. (The other ingredients of the mash are usually corn and malted barley.) It is distilled to no more than 160 U.S. proof(80% abv), and agedin charred, new oak barrels."

I am not a Rye drinker, but this one was pretty good.

While I was tasting, (Michele does not like hard liquor) Rick (?) explained all about Ben Milam. We even learned how he became a brewer at Ben Milam. He was very good. You could tell he was passionate about whiskey.

We really enjoyed our visit at Ben Milam.
I like the ceiling, it is made with tin from an old roof. Looks good!

After the tasting, we head out for some geocaching.
A nice gate.

The Blanco river.

I hope not on the road...

We drove by an exotic animal hunting ranch.
We just had the time to take a photo of the bum of a Scimitar onyx and a young Chital.

We found 6 caches today, saw some exotic animals, drank some whiskey and visited a museum. A good day!

Wednesday March 15, 2017

I am out walking to the river again this morning.
I scared some deers again.

After lunch, we go out geocaching again.
The things we get to see when we geocache.
We saw some goats with a dog guarding them. Guarding is a big word, he barked, but did not get up...