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1 to 15 April 2019 16 to 30 April 2019

Monday April 1, 2019

Monday was a relaxed day. We did some groceries shopping for the items needed for tomorrow evening when we have Michelle and Gaétan over for a "Raclette". We also went for a dip in the pool in the afternoon.
As I mentioned the other day, the RV Park is getting emptier and emptier.

Tuesday April 2, 2019

The "raclette" with Michelle and Gaétan.

We ate too much, drank a little and laugh all evening.
And for sure, you have to have the good and the not so good photos.

We all had a great time.

Wednesday April 3, 2019

WOW! I sure had a lot of dishes to do this morning!

We are having another very windy day today.
I went around the RV Park with my bike and counted only 50 RVs still occupied out of the 150 sites. Soon, only 5 or 6 will be left for the summer as they are permanent residents.

Michele made the suggestion of having another "raclette" with the left overs.
Good idea, it is so good after all!

Thursday April 4, 2019

As I mentioned, lots of empty sites.

Many people talked about the roadrunner in the Park. I saw it this morning.

I went for a short bike ride over the Interstate 8. This looking west.

We did take a short dip in the pool and like most afternoon, we had Happy Hour with Michelle and Gaétan.
I can tell you, again, we laugh a lot with them.

Friday April 5, 2019

We went visiting our friends Barry, Rose and Betty at the El Prado Estate RV Park this morning.

Once again, it was fun to visit them.

They are getting back on the road tomorrow morning and like us, they had a change of plan. They no longer go to the Grand Canyon, they are going back to Tombstone. They will be stopping in Deming while we will be there. They will be at the truck stop. We should go for a visit.

Saturday April 6, 2019

Our last day in Yuma.
Over the last few days we had many military airplanes flying over our head at all times of the day and nights, we wonder why?

The last happy hour in Yuma is at our place.

It was much prettier in person.

But it gives this pink colour to people.

Later on, we could see a small sliver of the moon in the sky.

Once again, it was a pleasure to spend the last happy hour with our friends Michelle and Gaétan.

Sunday April 7, 2019

Time to move!
Michelle and Gaétan came over to say goodbye. We hope our path will cross again in the future.

Before we left Yuma, we made a pit stop at the Flying J for a top up with gasoline. Next, it is on to the I-8 towards Tucson.

The things we see or smell!
They have a lot of feed lots on the east of Yuma. Lots of beef in a small space with a lot of... Poop.
The wind was blowing the wrong way and we got the whole package!

Spring is here and we see many plants flowering on the side of the road.

Some of the sceneries!

Just before Tucson, in one of the suburbs, they sure made an ordinary overpass look beautiful

Again, just before entering Tucson, we made a quick stop at a Walmart for lunch.

We are in luck, we have very little wind and it makes driving a lot easier.

We went up to over 6,000 feet only to drop down to about 3,523 and go back up again!

Our destination being Willcox, AZ, we left the I-10 to go in the village.

We traveled about 495 km today.

Our new home for the night.

We are only paying $18.50 CAN for water and electric, not bad and the site has 50 amps too!

It is a small RV Park.

The shower house and bathroom.

The painting on the walls are pretty nice.

The RV Park also has a Saloon. Can you see John Wayne?

From a different angle.

Yes, I did go in for a beer. It is a busy place on Saturday night.

Notice the arrows.

This is for the ladies to hang their purses, or maybe for the guy to hang their six shooters?

The campground is nice, quiet on this Sunday evening.

Monday April 8, 2019

We are back on the road this morning. We only have 200 km to go for our next stop.
We dumped our gray water before we leave, why carry this weight when you do not have to.

Goodbye Willcox. We found that Willcox does have a few things to visit, maybe next time we drive by?

I repeat myself, but the scenery!

Shortly after leaving Willcox, we cross into New Mexico.

We also cross the continental divide.

A few hours later, we enter Deming.

The RV Park is on the east side of town, but we entered on the west side just to drive down the main street.

Our new home for a week.

Once we are installed, we head to the visitor center of Deming.
We came out of there with lots of good info.

We took a spin around town, just to see what is here, like this grocery store called Peppers.

Some of the local First Nations art work.

When we got home, we decided to take a dip in the pool. Yes it is an indoor pool. Michele is having fun with me!

This has to be the smallest hot-tub ever.

Tomorrow we will be visiting the "Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument".

Tuesday April 9, 2019

We left the RV Park by 9 am and made a quick stop at the car wash so we could see out the windows.

We are heading north. The scenery changed quickly.
We go from grassland to mountains. We are taking the scenic route to get to the Dwellings.

Once again, the sceneries.

We are not only going up north, but also up in altitude.

Because of the twisting road, it will take us over two hours to get to the Dwellings.
We made bad planing. We have no food with us and we saw no place to buy some.

We did see this nice General Store, but it was closed.

Let's keep going!

With spring, come the flowers.

We drove as high as 7,440 feet in elevation, WOW!

Before we drove back down in the valley, we made a stop at this look-out.

The "Gila Cliff Dwellings N.M." is at 5,705 feet of altitude.
Coming in the National Monument and National Forest.

Lucky for us, at the entrance of the National Monument, a Trading Post (store) is open with limited food available. The sandwiches are only $4.95 each. This makes it very expensive per pound, but hey!

The next stop is at the Gila Visitor Center.
We paid our entrance fee, listened to a short movie about the cliff dwellings.

This is a scale model of the caves and rooms in the cliff dwellings.

Looking from above. You can see all the different rooms.

At the Visitor centre, we can see a memorial for the great Indian Chief Geronimo.
Geronimo was born close to this place.

Let's go to the cliff dwellings.

This is the Gila River.

The trail to get to the dwelling is a loop of one mile. We took the easy one for half a mile to get to the dwelling.

Looking down at the parking lot.

And we keep going up.

Just around a corner, we saw the first part of the Cliff Dwellings.

The caves are huge.

Ready to go in.

The Cliff Dwellings are located in a very narrow valley. When you look out the dwellings, all you can see is the opposite side of the valley.

The rooms are located inside the cliff caves.
In the U.S., the safety features are next to non-existent.
Like the walkway I am on. I guess the idea is that if you fall and hurt yourself, I guess you deserved it!

Different view of the rooms in the cave.

The people that lived here were called the Mogollon. The Mogollon lived here about 700 years ago. Archaeologists believe the Mogollon only lived in the cliff dwellings for about 25 years. We do not know why of what made them moved away. After spending about an hour in the caves, we traveled back down to the parking lot by the other half of the loop.
This was very interesting to see and learn more about the place and the people living in the cliff dwellings.

A view of the cliff dwelling from the bottom of the valley.

The small cliff dweller creek runs in the bottom of the valley.

After the visit, we drove down the road to hike another short trail to another dwelling and some pictographs.
The trail is called, "Trail to the past". In less that a quarter of a mile, we are at a small cliff dwelling.

And half a mile the other way, we come to the wall with pictograph painted by the Mogollon.
Can you see them?

We believe that even if it was a long way off our main route, it was worth it.
To go back home, we take another road. I can tell you that this road was very narrow and twisty for the first 3/4 of an hour. Once we got to Silver City, the roads were very nice. Sliver City is a mining town with many open pit mines around the city.

We made it home by 5 pm. We had a very good day.

Wednesday April 10, 2019

The sky is clear and the sun is shinning.
At least for now! Later on today it will turn very dusty because of the wind.
So, I am taking you on a tour of the Little Vineyard RV Park. No wine or grapes here.

The office.

Two views of the RV Park.

The Rec Hall with the indoor pool.

The pool and hot-tub.

The billiard room.

The game room with exchange books and tv.

A part of the Rec Hall.

The main hall.

The other side of the main hall with the kitchen.

Our site.

The wind came up just before lunch.
After lunch, we decided to check out the thrift shoppes in town.
We saw some old 1942 military hangars.

When I told you the weather would change, here it is.

In southern Arizona, New Mexico and south Texas, when the wind blows, it creates dust storms.

We saw some tumbleweed flying across the road.

That does not keep us from visiting the thrift stores.
One of them had very nice paintings on the walls.

When we got back home, the slide awnings were making quite a racket, so we pull the slides in for a while.
Michele was reading in the bedroom, so I went to the Rec Hall to work on our next update for the blog.
Here I am going back to the Rec Hall with a few beers to help me out in creativity.

The wind died down in the evening and we could finally open our slides.
A MH is not very air tight and with the wind we had, the inside has a lot of dust all over. We will have to do a big clean up when we get back to Ontario.

Thursday April 11, 2019

Before we left Yuma, we made an offer to Gaetan and Michelle to take photos of their 5th wheel as they drove by Deming on the Interstate. They accepted. So, here we are in late morning on the overpass waiting for them to drive by. The wind is still very strong as you can see, but with less dust in the air.

Here they are!
Hello Michelle and Gaetan!

They took a picture of us too!

After lunch, we went in town to visit the Deming Luna Mimbres Museum.
The meaning for those words. Luna is the name of the county. It is in honor of a local politician named Soloman Luna. Mimbres is the name of the main river that runs in the county.
Michele and I with a reproduction of some pottery done by the local Native.

The first room we visited in the museum was the Old Timer Room. Some of the history of the local families who have been here since the beginning.

There is the Doll Room.

A very nice dining set made of silver. The little piece we see on the right, nobody seems to know what it is for.
If you know, could you contact me and let me know please. Email to Silver@michele-denis.com and yes, it is a good email address.

This is also the first time we saw some small shoe ashtray.

But, where is Michele?

That is one huge grand-father clock.

A Chuck Wagon from 1923. This is the kitchen for the cowboys doing the cattle round-up in the spring and fall.

The kitchen side.

A part of the museum is "old shops".

We never saw one like this.

Neither have we ever seen a portable AC in a car (1950?).

I do not know if we ever used railroad date nails in Canada.

At one time, this was cutting edge technology.

The second floor of the museum is just as nice. We can see the third floor, but the 3rd floor is not accessible to the public.

That is one big collection of bells.

Those TV sure bring back memories.

Got to have a hospital room in the museum.

We must have spent over two hours in this museum.

With the visit over, we went across the street to the Old Custom House. Back at the end of the 19th century, the frontier between the US and Mexico was in Deming. The US wanting to expend the southern railroad in the south bought some land from the Mexican government. The Mexican also knew that if they did not sell the land, the US were going to take it from them one way or the other. With the purchase of the land, the frontier is now 35 miles to the south of Deming.

The old custom house is the house of the tax collector, Mr. Field.
One of the rooms has a collection of little baby hats. You can also see a left hand wood stove, which is rare.

Oouppsss! Sorry about that!

The two museums took most of the afternoon to tour. We loved them.

Friday April 12, 2019

We are back on the road visiting this morning. We are going to the City of Rocks State Park.
We can see it in the distance.

The information center was built in a way to makes it blend in the background. Really well done.

As usual, inside they have a small exhibit about the park and its history. They even have a table where you can actually touch old bones and other items found in the park.

My pretty Michele.

In the rock formation, they have a campground.
Here are some example of campsites in the Park.

Can you see the face? It has a pirate's hat.

Because of erosion, some rocks ended up in pretty weird position.

The erosion also created some holes in the rocks. The birds love them. It attracts many species of birds.

It is a nice campground, far from light and noise pollution.
Many of the campsite cannot accommodate RV as long as ours, but a few could.

On one of the surrounding hills, a look out allows you to see the whole State Park.

Different views of the Sate Park.

We really enjoyed this park. Maybe we will come back and camp here?

With the visit of this Rock City State Park over, we head in the opposite direction to another State Park.
The mountain seems to be close, but it is still about 5 miles away.
You have to be on the look-out for cattle on the road...

Next to the State Park is a conservation area which is part of the State Park. We have to go up this hill, a 17% climb.

Spring Canyon is part of the Rockhound State Park. It has some kind of exotic deer given to the US by Libia I think.
We did not see any.

I can also tell you that 17% going down is steep!

Rockhound State Park. It has a nice welcome center.

The campground is located just on the edge of the mountain.
This State Park allows you to pick up and keep rock for your collection. All of the rock are natural geodes and quartz.

We are not into rocks, so this park left us a little disappointed.

As we are driving back home, we could see some angry clouds.

Deming.

This is the first time we see a caution sign with ducks and rabbit.

Since the sky is all clouded over, I take this time to clean the windshield of the MH. It really needed it.

We went to play bingo at our RV Park before supper. We were about 10 peoples playing. It was a very basic bingo.
I won a flashlight and some wet-ones for the computer.

Saturday April 13, 2019

This morning, the city has a city wide yard sale at one of the parks in town. We got there at 8 am to make sure we would not miss anything.
It is a cool morning at only +8° C. Well, in less that 10 minutes we were done.
When we got back home, the RV Park had coffee and donuts this morning. Michele declined to come, but I did go only to be alone with myself. I had my coffee and talked to myself for a bit and went home.

Since we are not visiting anything, we went looking for some geocaches in Deming.
This cache's instruction was asking us what year was the great fire on Deming. We needed the year as it is the combination to open the lock and open the box and sign the logbook.

Another style of cache.

Oh the things we see while geocaching. Like dinosaurs!

We also picked up a traveling bug in one of the caches. What is a traveling bug (trackable) ?

Trackable FAQs.

- What are trackables?
- Trackables are physical game pieces that move from geocache to geocache. Types of trackables include: geocoins, tags, t-shirts, and more!
- Can I keep them?
- In most cases, trackables want to travel. Use the tracking code on the trackable to look up its goal. Log trackables in order to move them along.

This is the one we picked up. We will leave it somewhere in the north-east of the US so it can continue to travel.

We found 13 caches today. We even got a little bit of rain on us.

Sunday April 14, 2019

Not much today, a quick trip to Walmart. I worked on our next blog update.
Just slowly getting ready to travel tomorrow.

Monday April 15, 2019

A few clouds and no winds, that is the forecast for today.
We are leaving Deming, New Mexico, and driving east towards Las Cruces.

After only about an hour of driving, we are in Las Cruces, but we are not stopping. We carry on east.

This area, between Las Cruces and El Paso has many feed lots. I can tell you the light breeze is no towards us, or it would smell really bad.

Just before Texas we stopped to fill up the MH. Gasoline is actually cheaper in New Mexico than Texas!
Next we drive into Texas and we will be in Texas for a while.

Texas has 801 deaths on the road so far this year. With a population of about 28,000,000, it is a lot.
Canada has a population of 37,000,000 and we already have 700 deaths on our roads. Not good!