Category Archives: New Mexico

Westward Bound – Racing to the Rally (TX to NV)

2016/10/31 davidhobden@mac.com

After a good nights rest at the Amarillo, TX Elks Lodge on Monday the 26th, we continued west on I-40 where we stopped briefly at the Cadillac Ranch (←link). Check out the link to the left or click here for more information from Wikipedia® on this popular roadside attraction that was created in 1974.

We were able to park the Urban Escape Vehicle on the frontage road alongside I-40 and walk out to the cars.

We even added our proverbial “2-cents” worth of spray paint, which is encouraged by the way.

Look at the many layers of paint that have been applied by tourists over the years (below).

There was even a young entrepreneur, who had set up a temporary stand (on his tailgate) by the entrance gate. He was selling chunks of the multiple layers of hardened spray paint that had fallen off the cars. He carved these chunks of multi-colored spray paint into various shapes and made key chains, refrigerator magnets, etc., Pretty cool, but we didn’t buy any. And sorry, I forgot to take pictures of them.

Close up view of the hundreds, if not thousands of layers of spray paint on the old Cadillacs.

We finally made it to the New Mexico border around mid-day on the 27th.

Just after the Texas/New Mexico border we stopped at Russell’s Truck Stop & Museum (←link). Another cool Route 66 themed attraction, but this one was was free 🙂 We took a quick tour:

While at Russell’s Truck Stop & Museum, I noticed a tire service bay around back so I stopped to ask where I might be able to get a front end alignment and/or new tires. I’ve noticed that the Urban Escape Vehicle has been pulling slightly to the right ever since we left Bowling Green, KY and it’s been getting worse. I even wasted an hour or more a few days earlier when we were just outside Memphis because I stopped to check with several tire related businesses there to see if they did RV alignments and to maybe get it checked out. Every place I stopped at either didn’t do RV alignments and/or didn’t have reasonably priced new tires in stock. One shop recommended that I just rotate the tires because I still have plenty of tread depth, just abnormal wear. Anyway, I’ve been on the lookout for an RV service center or other qualified place ever since Memphis. Once again, this place (Russell’s) didn’t do alignments either, but they recommended a place just down the highway, Terry’s Truck Service.

Check out the unusual wear in the pictures below. The driver’s side appears to be wearing more on the inside of the tire whereas the passenger side is wearing more on the outside.

Left front tire as viewed from front of coach. Wheels are turned to the left for photo.

Right front tire as viewed from rear. Wheels are turned to the left for photo.

We found Terry’s Truck Service Center (sorry no website link) with the directions we got from the Russell’s Truck Stop & Museum service guy. Terry’s didn’t have the equipment to do an alignment but the technician checked out my tires and suggested I just rotate the tires and he commented that he’s seen this kind of wear before on some substandard brands of tires. My tires are 11R22.5’s made by Hankook. I had new tires put on a little over 4 years ago (March 2012) and have approximately 30k miles on them. As most RV’ers already know; it’s highly recommended that you replace tires every 5 years, 7 years at the most, regardless of how good the tread may still be.

They (Terry’s Truck Service) charged me $53 to rotate the front tires. It made all the difference in the world… the Coach tracks straight and true once more. It’s like driving a new Coach again. Weird, huh?!? But I’m still going to get an alignment soon along with new tires. I think I’ll just replace the front tires in the very near future and wait until next year to replace the rear ones in order to spread out the financial burden.

We continued on and finally made Albuquerque by the evening of the 27th. Another long travel day – about 290 miles.

We chose to stay at the Enchanted Trails RV Park & Trading Post in Albuquerque and paid $18 with our Passport America discount. The main reason we chose to stay at this park is because some friends and fellow Alpine Coach Owners, Mike & Donna Kuper happened to be there. I follow Mikes blog at FlyingtheKoop.com and was aware of their location which happened to be along our route.

(L to R) Stilla, Donna & Mike Kuper in front of their Alpine Coach.

Mike & Donna graciously invited us to eat with them outside their coach after we got parked and settled. We enjoyed some adult beverages while we caught up with each other’s recent travels since we were last together in Lake Havasu at the Fireworks Rally back in February. Thanks Mike & Donna! It was great seeing you again, and hopefully it won’t be so long to the next time 🙂

On the morning of the 28th, we hit the road again and set our sites on reaching Kingman AZ. We heard of an Elks Lodge there that has dry camping spots available to travelers at no cost. Additionally, we knew that if we reached Kingman, we could easily make the final leg of our trip to Pahrump NV in order to make it to our Alpine SoCal Rally in time for the scheduled Rally kickoff on the 29th.

View of I-40 nearing the New Mexico/Arizona border.

470 miles later, yup! – you heard right – 470 miles later we pulled into the Elks Lodge in Kingman, AZ on the evening of the 28th.

We drove onto their old (no longer used) tennis courts and dropped jacks, put out the slides, and ran up the satellite dish. We went inside the lodge for a couple adult beverages and then went back to the coach for some much needed rest.

On the morning of the 29th, we left Kingman and headed north on Hwy 93 towards Las Vegas. The following pictures are coming up to and crossing the new bridge by Hoover Dam. This was the first time we’ve used the new bridge (←Wikipedia® link), on previous trips we always had to drive across the dam itself.

Hoover Dam as seen from Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge.

After skirting Las Vegas we continued west on NV-160 and made Pahrump by early afternoon… plenty of time to check in and join the Alpine SoCal group for social hour (meet & greet) and pizza.

My next post will cover our fun times at the Alpine SoCal Rally in Pahrump, NV. I promise to get caught up soon as I continue to work through the computer and photo issues that I discussed earlier in this post (←link). Stay tuned…

New Mexico

Dinner with Old Friends (Las Cruces, NM)

2016/06/29 davidhobden@mac.com

After a restful evening at the Saguaro SKP park in Benson, AZ we packed up Tuesday morning and slowly continued east on I-10 for ~230 miles to the Elks Lodge in Las Cruces, NM.

Once again we drove through a brief rain shower… just enough to get the Coach and Silverado dirty 🙁

The Elks Lodge 1119 (←link) has three RV spots located on the side of the building. We went inside and paid $15 for the night.

All by ourselves at the Las Cruces Elks Lodge RV parking sites.

We got in touch with old friends John & Eva who live in Las Cruces, NM. We have stayed in contact since the early ’90s when we were in Colorado Springs stationed at Fort Carson. John and I also deployed to Fort Hood, TX together for ~6 months.

Image 1lykf — (L to R) Self, Stilla, Eva & John at LaPosta-de-Mesilla restaurant..

John & Eva drove over to the Elks Lodge to meet us and go out for dinner. Although it was Taco Tuesday at the Elks Lodge, we opted to go elsewhere to dine and catch up. We couldn’t help but notice when we first checked in that the lodge still allows smoking which isn’t something we would enjoy with our meal.

We ended up at historic LaPosta de Mesilla (←link). This was our second time at this very nice restaurant. We dined together here a couple years ago when we passed through Las Cruces and visited John & Eva. The history of this famous Mexican restaurant is long and colorful. For more than a century and a half, these adobe walls have withstood the attack of elements and man, sheltering such personalities as Billy the Kid, Kit Carson, General Douglas MacArthur and Pancho Villa. A roaring Wild West town during the late 1800’s, Mesilla was the largest town in the Southwest between San Diego, California and San Antonio, Texas. During this period, La Posta served as the Corn Exchange Hotel, a favorite stop on the Butterfield Stagecoach Line. Read more of the LaPosta de Mesilla story at the restaurants website.

Image 7hrrs — Entrance to the LaPosta de Mesilla restaurant.

Image 3mvmdkk — Inside colorful LaPosta de Mesilla restaurant.

Bird cages and aquariums greet visitors in the lobby at the restaurant.

Still and Eva browsed the gift shop after our meal. Luckily we made it out of the restaurant with just the price of the meal 🙂

After a great meal ( I recommend the combination plate #1) that we washed down with a couple tasty margarita’s we went over to John & Eva’s beautiful home here in Las Cruces. We continued to catch up on each other’s ‘going-ons’ and reminisced about old times. John was one of the first (of many) great NCO’s that I had the pleasure of working with during my 26 year Army career. I had just finished the Warrant Officer Candidate Course and was a WO1 when I first met John. It’s no secret that any successful Army officer’s career is predicated on the fine NCO’s that he/she learns from and is supported by. I learned early on to try and surround myself with good and capable NCO’s. John was one of the first (and best) that supported my Warrant Officer career. I am honored and humbled to still be able to call him my friend after all these years.

We also got a “treat” while visiting John & Eva’s house… John showed off his beautifully restored ’71 Chevelle to us. Nice job John! Here’s a car show flyer (below) that he made for an upcoming show. His car is pictured on the top left.

John & Eva dropped us back off at the Elks Lodge where we stretched out our farewells. Thanks for the hospitality John & Eva! See you next time we come through the area.

This morning (Wednesday) we’re going to press on (slowly) towards our youngest daughter’s house in Bowling Green, KY. Maybe we can swing by the Fort Hood, TX area and meet up with some more old Army friends. That would be nice. Stay tuned to see if it works out.

Arizona, New Mexico

Travel Day to Lake Powell & New Alpine Friends (Elks Lodge 2498 – Page, AZ)

2015/10/04 davidhobden@mac.com 1 Comment

We left the Farmington, NM Elks Lodge by 11 AM to make our way to Page, AZ for the upcoming Lake Powell Alpine Coach Rally. We made it as far as Shiprock, NM and ended up spending the next two (2) hours in traffic 🙁 Our top speed through Shiprock was 3 mph.

Screen Shot 2015-10-03 at 10.02.51 PM — 229 mile travel day from Farmington NM to Page AZ.

It seems that today was the big parade for the Northern Navajo Nation Fair which is an annual event. According to their website; “The Shiprock Northern Navajo Nation Fair is the the Oldest and Most Traditional of the Navajo Fairs. It is held each fall (1-4 October) in the Navajo Land where the Navajo people of the Four Corners come to celebrate the year’s harvest with a community celebration.”

Now, all this wouldn’t be so bad, except the nice bartender at the Farmington Elks Lodge even warned us about this event when we shared our travel plans the day before, but I figured; “How bad could it be?” And we didn’t try an alternate route. One of these days I’ll learn to listen to people 😐 Oh well, I just kept reminding myself that I was retired and that seemed to make it better 🙂

The traffic moved so slowly, that Stilla was even able to walk the dog while we rolled down the street.

Some of the local kids sold drinks to the grid-locked motorists.

Mural on the wall claiming Shiprock to be the Capital of the World.

We finally made it to the other side of town around 2 PM and were able to clear the traffic and head northwest out of town.

View of Shiprock. (Wikipedia link HERE and more Google Images HERE).

The route we took was simply awesome, with stunning views and rock formations galore. Follow along:

Here’s the view as we got closer to Page, AZ:

Lake Powell in the background (below):

When we finally pulled into Elks Lodge 2498 in Page, AZ we saw another Alpine Coach in the parking lot! Meet Orville McGee & Mary Ann Ratliff 🙂

They’ll be attending the Alpine Coach Rally as well 🙂 I took a picture of them in front of our Coaches after Stilla parked. Yup, that’s what I said – Stilla backed the Urban Escape Vehicle (UEV) into the open spot next to their Coach while I ground-guided. She did a great job! We strategically parked nose to nose so we could maximize the available space with the tight RV sites here.

Orville snapped a (rare) picture of the two of us in front of the UEV.

We got set up in our spot, you know – the usual stuff; jacks down, slides out, satellite dish up, rolled out the throw rugs, unfolded the coffee table, put out a couple lawn chairs, etc.,

Then we went into the lodge with Orville and Mary Ann. The Grand Exalted Ruler (GER) “Bill” greeted us at the door and introduced us to all the lodge members. He also presented us with a lodge pin. Pretty cool.

The lodge was having an auction and raffle. Lots of activity going on! We had a couple adult beverages. When we went back to the bar for our second drink, we found out this lodge doesn’t offer a free second drink to visiting members as is customary in most other lodges we’ve visited.

Also, The Elks website says the sites are $15 per night, but when we went to pay, we were told it’s $20 per night. And, oh by-the-way; we’re on 30 Amp, not 50 as the website touted. Oh well, at least it’s good 30 Amp power unlike our last spot at the Farmington Lodge where we had low voltage and couldn’t run one of the air conditioners.

Auction time at the Page AZ Elks Lodge. The picture the auctioneer is holding up is of Antelope Canyon (a local attraction).

Orville & Mary Ann at the Page, AZ Elks Lodge.

Here’s an early morning view of the Elks Lodge I took while walking little “Coach”:

This view (below) shows the RV parking spots next to the lodge:

And here’s our morning view from the (currently) empty spots next to us:

We’ll spend a couple nights here at the Elks Lodge and then move over (Monday) to the Lake Powell Alpine Coach Rally to the Wahweap RV Park & Campground. The Rally officially starts on Wednesday (7 Oct), but we reserved a couple days early so we can help (hosts) David & Nicole Guhse get everything set up.

Stay tuned…

PS The dash air conditioner is still working great. Thanks again Mike! And also, no more squeaks and rattles… it seems I got them all worked out (for now). I blogged about fixing the squeaks and rattles in previous posts; (HERE) and (HERE).

New Mexico

Angel Peak (Elks Lodge 1747 – Farmington, NM)

2015/10/03 davidhobden@mac.com

I said in my last post that we drove around town on Friday and then went south to check out another local scenic attraction; Angel Peak (←click link for google images).

Before we went to Angel Peak, we spent a little time running around downtown Farmington looking for an ATM that didn’t charge fees and scouting out a couple potential dump stations to use on our way out of here. We were successful on the first mission (ATM) but not on the dump station because they all seemed to be in the wrong direction and/or they were not easily accessible. We decided to wait until we get to Page, AZ to dump unless something turns up along our route. Oh, and we also stopped at Burger King for a quick lunch and we went into a local RV supply store to see what they had. I’m running low on slide-out lubricant, but the store didn’t have anything that I liked.

Angel Peak is indicated on the map (below) by the yellow arrow. The turn-off is about 15 miles south of Bloomfield on US-550. We passed this attraction on our way here from Santa Fe last Wednesday but didn’t stop.

The BLM website says the following about Angel Peak Scenic Area: Angel Peak Scenic Area, located about 30 miles southeast of Farmington, offers more than 10,000 acres of rugged terrain recognized for its scenic and scientific wonders. The nearly 7,000-foot Angel Peak, a landmark composed of river deposited sandstone from the San Jose Formation, is visible for miles in any direction. However, the banded colors of the badlands and the deep sculpted fingers of the canyon at the base of Angel Peak are only fully revealed to those who make the short journey along the rim.

It’s only a short drive off US-550 on County Road 7175 on a well-maintained gravel road to the first scenic overlook. But you have to travel another 6 miles to get to the campground.

Here’s the view(s) from one of the viewpoints about halfway to the campground:

We made it to the campground loop. Great views but, wow – was it ever windy! We’ve had great weather every day since we left Colorado Springs… so one day with gusty winds won’t make us complain too much 🙂

We stopped at most of the scenic viewpoints. But sometimes we didn’t even get out of the truck due to the high winds.

This viewpoint is called Castle Rock Overlook…

There’s even a well-placed bench on a trail that can be used to sit and ponder the meaning of life or whatever while you enjoy the scenery… But for us, it was too windy – poor little Coach might get blown away 🙁

Here’s what the Rand McNally RVND™ 7720 GPS displayed after we turned around at the campground loop and headed back out.

We drove back to the Elks Lodge. Here’s a view of the steep entrance to the Farmington Elks Lodge.

And we’re back from another day’s adventure.

We enjoyed another great dinner (filet-mignon) at the well-appointed lodge dining room and then hung out in the bar area to use the free Wi-Fi to upload and edit all the pictures for my last post. My Verizon JetPack MiFi plan is 20GB for $100 and we had used it all up this month a couple days ago. It resets again on the 2nd, but I wanted to get the post done before we headed to Lake Powell so I took advantage of the Elks free WiFi. Thanks Elks Lodge 1747!

Time to close this post out and get packed up for travel to Page, AZ. We have our eye on the Elks Lodge there which is supposed to have 5 RV spots with full hook-ups (50 Amp). Hopefully there’s still one available, we didn’t call ahead yet. Their website says they have plenty of dry camping though. Check back soon… we’re looking forward to the Alpine Coach Rally which starts on the 7th. I’ll post again from Page, AZ 🙂

New Mexico

Salmon Ruins; Aztec Ruins; & Navajo Lake (Elks Lodge 1747 – Farmington, NM)

2015/10/03 davidhobden@mac.com 2 Comments

We left the Santa Fe Elks Lodge on Wednesday morning and headed south on I-25 to catch US-550 north to get ourselves a little closer to the Alpine Coach Rally in Lake Powell which starts on 7 October. So after about 200 miles we arrived without incident at the Elks Lodge in Farmington.

I was tempted to go straight north from Santa Fe on US-84 towards the town of Chama and then take US-64 west, but I talked to someone who told me that route might not be the best for a large RV. So at the last moment, we decided to take US-550 which turned out to be an awesome route. Thanks for the tip Biff!

We stopped at the Apache Nugget Travel Center & Casino (near Cuba) along the way to top off the diesel tank with 78 gallons for $188. That’s the best price I can remember paying for diesel since we started full-timing 🙂

So here we are in Farmington, NM! (←click link)

The Elks Lodge in Farmington is at the top of a hill overlooking the police station, and not unlike the lodge in Santa Fe – there were no signs to the RV lot 🙁 We had to pull into a parking lot at the bottom of the hill to unhook the Silverado so we could scout out the best access… the turns were tight and parked cars in the adjacent lots made it difficult.

And here we are… $15 per night for 30 Amp power and water hookups. No sewer though. And the 30 Amp power is a little ‘iffy’… it waivers between 105 and 113 volts and if we turn on one of the air conditioners it drops down to 103 or 104 volts. The Coach’s power monitor displays “Lo Power” and disconnects. I talked to our neighbor, but he says his power is good. Maybe it’s just our pedestal. I don’t want to move. We’ll just have to “rough-it” I guess, and we’ll take little Coach with us in the truck if we go anywhere.

We went into the huge lodge to pay for our site and ended up having tacos and wings for dinner. This is probably the largest lodge we’ve visited to date. Very friendly folks here and our second drinks were free per Elks Lodge custom.

Main entrance of Elks Lodge 1747 as viewed from the inside lobby at the top of the stairs.

Thursday was another full day of sight-seeing and picture taking… We checked out a couple of the pueblo indian sites (ruins) and went over to Navajo Lake. So follow along…

Our first stop on Thursday was Salmon Ruins (←click link). We took our little dog “Coach” along for the day and found out this place is dog-friendly 🙂

We paid an $8 entrance fee for the two of us with military discount.

The visitor center didn’t have a theater but offered a nice interactive video display that described the site.

We were given an illustrated trail guide in paper format to take along with us on our self-guided tour.

We walked out the back door of the visitor center and down the path to Heritage Park which is a series of connected pathways that join reconstructed buildings that represent the different house types of the peoples and cultures of New Mexico from prehistoric through early historic times.

The website describes it so; “The exit near the Gift Shop brings visitors onto a shaded deck, the first of many picnic areas, and the start of a paved trail down the hillside to access the outdoor areas of the site: Heritage Park, the Salmon Family Homestead, and of course, the Chacoan outlier known as Salmon Ruins.”

This is the view back up to the visitor center from the Heritage Park below.

Follow along on our walking tour:

Old homestead ‘relics’ on display in front of the bunkhouse.

After our walk through Heritage Park, we got to the ruins themselves…

The picture (below) from the illustrated guide book we were given at the visitors center depicts how the same building (shown in my picture above) used to look in the early 1900’s.

And this picture (above) is also illustrated once again in the following picture from the guidebook. It describes how the sun lines up on the altar during the solstice which I found interesting.

One of the many Kiva’s:

After our tour of the Salmon Ruins, we drove the 13 miles to the Aztec Ruins.

The Aztec Ruins (←link here) visitors center (below).

We parked in front of the visitors center in what little shade we could find. I also put the cover on the Harley which I try to do often whenever we park for any length of time.

This site (Aztec Ruins) is a national monument, unlike the previous site we just visited (Salmon Ruins) which is owned by the San Juan County government, and managed by the San Juan County Museum Association, an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. What all this means is that they’re not dog-friendly, so we had to leave little Coach in the truck with the windows down. I don’t think we’ve come across a single national park or monument in our travels yet that is dog-friendly 🙁 The one “good” thing about this being a “national” monument is that I was able to use my disabled veteran access pass to get us in at no cost.

We toured the visitors center quickly…

and watched a 16 minute video in the mini-theater…

This visitors center also had an interactive monitor that described the site, just like the one at Salmon Ruins.

We were also given an illustrated guide book (just like at Salmon Ruins) to take along with us on a self-guided walking tour. But this guide was fancier than the one at Salmon Ruins, it was plastic coated and spiral-bound.

The Great Kiva at Aztec West (pic above and below) is the third largest kiva ever excavated. It was reconstructed by archeologist Earl Morris in 1934.

The Park Service website tells us; In places, the walls at Aztec Ruins are three feet thick, making them over twice as thick as Mesa Verde cliff dwelling architecture. Masons used the “core and veneer” style, laying a thick rubble core within a finely shaped stone veneer. This style is typical of Chaco Canyon “great house” sites.

The AmericanSouthwest.net website (←link here) gives the best description of these ruins (in my opinion) and is well worth the read.

This mat of willows sewn with yucca cord (below) is over 800 years old.

The picture (above) is illustrated in the guidebook (below).

This is one of the very few ruin sites that still have intact roofs… we went (hunched over) through quite a few doorways in the dark.

View of the mysterious green stripe of greywacke stone along the western wall of Aztec West.

A couple more views of the plaza and ruins:

View of the visitor center (back-side) as seen from the ruins.

We breezed through the ruins quickly because it was hot and we had little Coach waiting for us. He was happy to be out of the truck. Here he is enjoying some shade.

We continued on our tour of the area… since we were only 27 miles from Navajo Lake State Park, we plugged it into the GPS. I remembered to take the Rand McNally RVND™ 7720 from the Coach this time.

We took scenic Hwy 173 west…

until we arrived at the bottom of the dam.

According to Wikipedia®: “The Navajo Dam is 402 feet (123 m) high and 3,648 feet (1,112 m) long. Its crest is at an elevation of 6,108 feet (1,862 m).[4] The reservoir formed behind the dam, Navajo Lake, is 35 miles (56 km) long and stores 1,708,600 acre feet (2.1075 km3) of water. The dam has one spillway, an ungated concrete chute capable of discharging 34,000 cubic feet per second.”

We drove up to the top of the dam…

and stopped at the top…

to view the spillway…

Spillway at the top of Navajo Dam (looking towards lake)

Views of Navajo Lake:

We drove over to the state park. The Navajo Lake State Park website says; “Navajo Lake is the second largest lake in the state, with multiple campgrounds, two marinas, and two boat docks. Navajo is a haven for boaters of every stripe – motorized boaters, canoers, kayakers, water skiers and sailors.”

We checked out the campground for future reference. Here’s the fees:

And here’s the campground loops:

Most of the sites seemed pretty small. We’d be hard-pressed to fit the Urban Escape Vehicle in here.

The visitors center was closed. A mobile trailer is performing temporary duty.

We drove over the top of the dam…

and continued on back towards Farmington on a different route. We took Hwy 511 towards the town of Blanco.

Just after the dam, we passed the Elks Recreation Area sign. We heard that the Farmington Elks had a recreation area / campground here…

from this sign (below) that was posted on the bulletin board back at the lodge.

Unfortunately, it was getting late and the Elks Recreation area was still a couple miles down a dirt road, so we decided to leave it for another time.

We made it back to the Elks Lodge in time for an excellent prime rib dinner and called it a night.

On Friday, we drove around town some more and then went over to Angel Peak (←link here). But let me update you on that in my next post. We plan on moving to Page, AZ today (Saturday) to get ready for the upcoming Alpine Coach Rally. Stay tuned…

New Mexico

Cliff Dwellings; Atomic Bombs; & Wild Hogs (Elks Lodge 460 – Santa Fe, NM)

2015/09/30 davidhobden@mac.com

Author’s Note: Picture heavy post today – consider viewing on a laptop or desktop instead of your mobile device.

We had quite the busy Tuesday… We took our little dog ‘Coach’ and jumped into the Silverado for a loong drive around the Santa Fe, NM area.

Follow along:

We headed north through Santa Fe from our spot at the Elks Lodge on Old Pecos Trail and got on Bishops Lodge Rd (590) which was a nice scenic drive until it joined US-285 after the town of Tesuque. This very scenic route gave us a little flavor of the area. Nice 🙂

Then we took US-285 to Espanola (#1 on the map below) where we stopped for a quick breakfast at McDonalds. Then we got on Hwy 30 and headed southwest again until we saw signs for Puye Cliff Dwellings.

Puye Cliffs (← link here) was home to 1,500 Pueblo Indians who lived, farmed and hunted game there from the 900s to 1580 A.D. Puye Cliffs’ inhabitants then moved into the Rio Grande River valley. They became the ancestors of today’s Santa Clara people, who now live at Santa Clara Pueblo, 10 miles east of Puye.

We stopped inside the Welcome Center along Hwy 30 which served double-duty as a gas station and convenience store to ask how much and how far. It’s free to drive up to the dwellings; tours are available for a fee upon arrival; and the distance was about 7 miles…

we drove through the entrance and headed west…

until we got to a scenic overlook…

Here’s the informational placard I’m looking at in the pic above:

From the scenic viewpoint we could see a forest fire in the distance.

We drove on to the Cliff Dwellings and parked in front of the visitors center.

Once inside the visitor center…

we viewed the tour prices…

and took into consideration the length of time and distance one of the tours would require; we decided we couldn’t leave little Coach in the pickup for that long.

Notice the “Tour Pass Required” sign:

We read the literature available in the visitor center to gain some knowledge about this neat place. There was no film or documentary available to watch, as in many visitor centers. We went behind the center and took pictures.

You can see some folks on one of the tours climbing the ladder (below).

After leaving the Cliff Dwellings we got back on Hwy 30 south and stopped at White Rock where we saw a huge parking lot and visitor center for Bandelier National Monument (← link here), (#2 on map below).

A nice lady inside the visitor center told us that shuttles are required to get to the Bandelier National Monument and no dogs are allowed 🙁 but we could drive along scenic Hwy 4 right next to the monument and go into Los Alamos from 501 on the west side. Click HERE to see google images of Bandlier National Monument.

We drove along Hwy 4 to the campground at the entrance to the monument.

We toured the campground for future reference. Here are the rates and a map:

Since we couldn’t take little Coach to the monument in a shuttle, we continued west on Hwy 4 and passed our turn for Los Alamos to see the Valle Grande Scenic Viewpoint (#3 on map below) which was prominently marked on the literature and map we got at the visitors center.

It was a steep and windy road and we’re not sure it was worth the extra miles drive just to turn around again, but hey – we were here now.

Click HERE and HERE for more information on Valle Grande aka Valles Caldera.

After checking out the reportedly ‘largest extinct volcanic crater’ from the viewpoint, we turned around and headed to Los Alamos.

In Los Alamos, (#4 on my map above) we stopped first at the Historical Museum. (Don’t forget to click on the links).

Built as an infirmary in 1918 and later used as the guest cottage for Los Alamos Ranch School, the museum is in the oldest continually occupied structure in town. During the Manhattan Project (1943 to 1947), the cottage continued to serve as guest quarters.

After an interesting and informative tour of the Historical Museum we took a walking tour of the nearby sites with little Coach in tow.

Follow along on our walking tour:

More pics of Fuller Lodge:

More pics of the ruins mentioned in the placard above:

After our energizing walking tour, we drove over to the Bradbury Science Museum.

This was a really neat museum! We could spend hours here, but it was getting late in the day. We watched a very informative documentary film in the theater about the history of Los Alamos.

We left Los Alamos around 4:30 PM and headed back to Santa Fe. When we got close to the Elks Lodge, we remembered that the town of Madrid was nearby. Madrid was made famous by the movie Wild Hogs starring Tim Allen, John Travolta, and others. Click HERE for a link to an informational website provided by several businesses in town. We have to stop by Madrid since we’re this close, right!?!

We plugged Madrid (#5 on map below) into our iPhone GPS and drove the ~25 miles from our camping spot at Elks Lodge 460.

We stopped at the Mine Shaft Tavern (←link) known as one of the ‘last great roadhouses’.

We enjoyed a nice dinner while looking down on the main street of Madrid.

Giant chile pepper archway behind the tavern.

After an enjoyable dinner and an already long day, we stopped in front of Maggie’s Diner for a couple more pics before the sun went down. We found out from the website that the diner was built for the movie and is now a gift shop. Unfortunately it was closed for the day 🙁

Hope you enjoyed the tour today.

We’ll probably start heading towards Lake Powell today, the intermediate destination we have in mind is Farmington, NM. Check back to see if we made it… 🙂

New Mexico

Touring Downtown Santa Fe (Elks Lodge 460 – Santa Fe, NM)

2015/09/29 davidhobden@mac.com

More pictures – less words today… just want to get the blog post done so we can go check out more local attractions today 🙂

On Monday, we drove into Santa Fe to check out some of the downtown attractions. Stilla especially wanted to see more of the churches. (Click on the link above for info on Santa Fe from my friend WIkipedia®).

We parked in one of the downtown parking lots and paid $6 for three hours. Then we walked over to the Cathedral Basilica of St Francis of Assisi. In yesterdays blog, I incorrectly identified this church as the one with the famous spiral staircase.

We found out that the church with the famous spiral staircase was around the corner as evidenced by this sign (below) on the post in front of the Cathedral Basilica of St Francis of Assisi. So we followed the signs and went into nearby Loretta Chapel.

Here’s the Loretto Chapel. (Click the link for history on this attraction).

This is the famous Loretto Chapel staircase. This amazing spiral staircase has two 360 degree turns and no visible means of support. It is said that the staircase was built without nails—only wooden pegs.

More pictures inside the Loretto Chapel…

These banisters and rails were added ~10 years after the staircase was built. (Click HERE for more from Wikipedia®)

This is what the original staircase looked like before the banisters / handrails were installed.

After checking out the chapel with the famous spiral staircase, we walked back over to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi…

The cathedral was built by Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy between 1869 and 1886 on the site of an older adobe church.

After our tours of the local churches, we wandered around the downtown area and soaked in the sights…

We found a nice place to have lunch which included chicken green chili stew and a “world-famous” frito pie. Yumm 🙂

We also did a little shopping. Stilla found a good deal on a couple of earrings and I bought a cool Route-66 Santa Fe T-shirt, (because you can never have too many t-shirts, right?) 🙂

We wanted to take one of the local sightseeing tours (see sign below) but when we showed up 10 minutes early for the tour, we found that they depart early when they get full. Do you see the small print below the departure times in red (below) 🙁 Ten minutes wasn’t early enough…

We should have taken a tour in one of these instead of the trolley tram… but, !$!

We walked through the old town plaza…

and saw the end of the Santa Fe Trail marker…

and then we checked out the chapel gardens on our way back to the parking lot…

When we got back to the Elks Lodge, little Coach was ready for a looong walk. This is the infamous hidden entrance to the lodge with the overhanging trees (below) that I wrote about in my post yesterday.

We closed out the evening with a visit inside the lodge and paid the nice bartender for our camping spot here in the parking lot / field. We paid a $15 (donation) for three nights because we want to spend another night here and leave on Wednesday. This is a very nice lodge with very nice people… our second drinks were free per lodge tradition. Unfortunately they don’t have any food at this lodge so we had to go back to the Coach to make dinner.

Check back tomorrow to see what we get into… There’s a lot of museums here to check out and also we read about some nice driving tours up north of here 🙂

New Mexico

Bad Moon Rising & Trip to Santa Fe (Elks Lodge 460 – Santa Fe, NM)

2015/09/28 davidhobden@mac.com

We left Storrie Lake SP around noon and plugged the Las Vegas, NM KOA into our iPhone for directions… which was mistake # 1.

After we took exit 339 off I-25 just south of Las Vegas, the iPhone said to turn left over the highway and then left again on the frontage road, “your destination is 700 feet” Siri said. Well, the destination was actually to the right along the frontage road!?! And most of you know what it’s like trying to do a U-turn in a big rig 🙁 I had to go at least a couple miles before I could turn around. In hindsight, there was a sign for the KOA after the exit but I didn’t see it in time – darn google maps 🙁 I probably should have used our Rand McNally RVND™ 7720 GPS, but it’s just so darn complicated sometimes to plug in a destination.

And then, mistake # 2 was trusting the iPhone app for dump stations which turned us on to this KOA in the first place. I think I incorrectly stated in yesterday’s blog that it was their website that told us about the dump station, but it was an iPhone app that Stilla has on her phone that we had consulted. The app said the cost for dumping at that particular KOA was only $5. The clerk behind the counter told me it was $15!?! – darn iPhone apps and expensive KOAs 🙁 If I would have known before-hand that it was $15, I wouldn’t have stopped here because we were only 1/4 full on the grey tank and the black tank wasn’t even registering yet. We dumped before we left Colorado Springs only 5 days ago. We have a combined capacity on the tanks of 178 gallons, (100 black and 78 grey). It’s just that we knew we would be dry-camping at the Elks in Santa Fe and wanted to start off empty. At least the clerk gave us a $5 discount when I showed my military ID.

After dumping our tanks, we continued on to our next adventure of the day…

We headed south towards Santa Fe and passed a lot of smoke from a nearby forest fire on the north side of I-25. We followed the iPhone map (I know, I just don’t learn) to the Elks Lodge and took the first exit into Santa Fe, NM along Old Pecos Trail.

We found the Elks Lodge easily enough – sitting on top of a hill, but we weren’t sure how to get there.

Once again, the iPhone google maps feature didn’t show enough detail to tell us where the entrance was, and unfortunately the lodge didn’t have any signs posted. 🙁 We passed one small road that looked like it might go up the hill to the lodge but it winded through some overhanging trees and looked too narrow… then we passed a second small road but it was a sharp right turn that we couldn’t make while towing the Silverado. Then we passed a third road after we went past the lodge but it clearly went into a residential area and the iPhone map showed a lot of cul-de-sacs, I definitely didn’t want to get stuck in there. Along came a fourth road that had signs for Museum Hill, and I thought, hey – museums usually have room for RVs so let’s turn here and maybe we can unhook the Silverado and go scout out the entrance to the lodge. Well, that didn’t work out too well because the museum(s) were clearly farther away as more signs indicated. So, we were finally able to make a few left-hand turns in a residential area and got back on Old Pecos Trail. We went past the lodge again on the divided road and the two roads that looked the ‘most-likely’ to be the entrances to the lodge parking area taunted me as we drove past.

We ended up going all the way back to the highway to find a wide enough spot to unhook the Silverado and turn around again. This time, Stilla led the way back in the Silverado with her phone in hand. She turned at the first narrow entrance road that had all the trees around it and called to let me know this was it. I barely maneuvered through the trees without scratching the sides of the Coach and drove up the hill on the narrow entrance road to a large field; (let’s call it a parking area).

We picked a nice spot in the corner after our 70 mile trip for the day.

Parked at Elks Lodge 60 in Santa Fe, NM.

View towards Elks Lodge from in front of our Coach.

After getting set up, we walked around the lodge…

A lady peeked out the back door to tell us that the lodge was closed for the day (Sunday) and that they (a small group) had it reserved for a baby shower. So we’ll just have to wait until Monday to go inside and pay for our spot.

We downloaded the bicycles off the back of the Silverado and headed into town to check things out.

We stopped at San Miguel Church, reportedly the oldest church in the USA. (don’t forget to click on the link to learn more from Wikipedia®)

And we checked out the oldest house, the De Vargas Street House.

Then we had pizza and salad at Upper Crust Pizza, right next to the mission church.

We then drove further into town to get oriented.

We’ll stop at this church later (maybe on Monday). It’s supposed to have a really cool spiral staircase that was handmade without using any nails.

On the way back to the lodge we drove back up to Museum Hill (near the Elks Lodge). The museums were already closed for the day but we stopped at this sculpture to take a few pics…

Then we returned to the Coach and ran the generator for a while to charge the batteries while we watched some TV and took pictures of the ‘super blood moon’ eclipse…

Pretty cool pics, eh?

Gotta run now… check back to see what we did on Monday 🙂

New Mexico

Getting Rid of the Squeaks (Storrie Lake State Park, Las Vegas NM)

2015/09/27 davidhobden@mac.com

I spent a lot of our Saturday here at Storrie Lake SP working on the Urban Escape Vehicle. I mentioned in my last post that I had a rattle coming from the dash and a squeaking noise coming from the TV area. I think I fixed the dash rattle, (see yesterday’s blog), now I had to tackle the squeak coming from the TV.

First, I had to remove the metal cover on the bottom of the TV so I could access all things hidden…

here’s what it looks like under there…

lots of spaghetti…

The last time I was under here was when we first got the Coach (3-4 yrs. ago) and I had to hook up the satellite receiver/DVR and a new surround sound Blu-Ray DVD system to replace the old stuff.

The small diameter bolts on each end of the TV wouldn’t tighten much, I think they’re stripped (see arrows in pic below).

Luckily these larger bolts located near the middle of the TV (see arrows below), are doing most of the holding…

All the bolts holding the TV were slightly loose (probably from vibration) – I’m sure the fine Colorado streets had nothing to do with it 😐 Or, could it have been those silky smooth California highways near Pomona earlier this year!?! Hmmm…

With Stilla’s help pushing up on the TV; I was able to tighten everything down except for the smaller bolts on the outside edges of the TV, because they seemed to be stripped. I tightened them as best I could. All the metal brackets seemed fine, it was just the bolts going into the back of the TV itself that were loose.

All back together again… ready for a test-drive 🙂

Now, I didn’t spend all day on this, but with lots of breaks – it did take most of it. We managed to find time for another nice walk around the campground and Stilla made an awesome shrimp dinner for us.

I also mounted a key holder ‘shelf’ at the entrance steps, which took some drilling through the metal step wall. And of course, as luck would have it, one of the holes I drilled just-happened to come out exactly on a metal brace on the other side, which didn’t make it easy on my screws… good thing I had extra 🙂

And I finally mounted this coat / hat rack- hook thingy on the living room slide that I’ve been carrying around for a couple months…

Now we just have to test it all out on a drive into Santa Fe today. We plan on heading for the Elks Lodge there, the Elks website says they have plenty of RV parking but no hookups. From there, we’ll see what else is in the area. We checked our online resources, but all the parks in town seem rather pricey except for a couple casinos a little farther out along the highway.

We also need to dump soon. Stilla’s been doing some loads of laundry. The dump station here at Storrie Lake SP is closed… maybe we can stop at the nearby KOA – their website says it costs $5 to dump.

Check back to see how things turn out…

New Mexico

Lakes, Rattles, and Squeaks (Storrie Lake State Park, Las Vegas NM)

2015/09/26 davidhobden@mac.com 3 Comments

Our second day (Thursday) at the Las Vegas NM Elks Lodge started with a morning walk around the block. We passed by a local farmer/street vendor and bought some plums and a few fresh vegetables. Then we jumped into the Silverado and drove two blocks north to stock up on groceries at the local Super Walmart.

After our shopping trip, we unloaded our groceries, and drove around town to check out the sights. (Link HERE for more info on Las Vegas, NM from my friend Wikipedia®. Sorry, but I forgot to take pics. This is a really nice, scenic town with over 900 buildings on the Historic Register. We drove over historic bridge street and around old town plaza.

I also found some interesting movie trivia while researching Las Vegas on the Wikipedia website:

In the 1969 movie Easy Rider, Las Vegas, NM, is the town where the two bikers ride behind a parade, are arrested for “parading without a permit,” and meet Jack Nicholson’s character in jail. The name of the town can be viewed in the background on one scene during this part of the movie.

In the 2007 film Wild Hogs starring John Travolta included scenes filmed around Las Vegas.

And, most of the 2007 Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men was filmed here.

We’ve driven by Las Vegas, NM many times in the past while traveling along I-25 but never stopped until now except maybe for fuel. This town is definitely worth stopping at if you ever get the chance.

We closed out the evening inside the Elks Lodge with some more southwestern style dinner while we watched the locals in a pool tournament as a football game played out on one of the many TVs around the bar area. We also contributed a little more to their gaming room 🙂

While driving around town in the SIlverado to get a feel for the area; we initially drove north out of town a couple miles to Storrie Lake State Park. We did a drive-thru the campsites, liked what we saw, and decided to bring the Coach here Friday.

So here’s the Urban Escape Vehicle parked at Storrie Lake State Park on Friday:

Only $14 per night for 30 Amp electric and water. The dump station is already closed for the season however 🙁

Here’s a few pics of our walk around the campground side (southeast) of the lake on Friday:

Some campers pulled up right next to the lake late Friday evening.

Then I spent a lot of time on Friday trying to find out where a new rattle was coming from that we’ve noticed while driving the Coach recently. The noise was coming from the passenger-side dash area, so I pulled the dash panels off to investigate.

I found that the underlayment between the plastic dash and the metal firewall was loose. This board and foam ‘underlayment’ (below) had a gap between the bottom of the plastic dash and the top of the metal firewall.

As far as I could determine, the board and foam ‘underlayment’ was probably initially glued to the bottom of the plastic dash, but that was 10 years ago when the Coach was new. Also, a wooden brace (probably used to fill the empty space) had a gap at the bottom. I could lift up on the board from underneath and it would move an inch or so at the front, (front of dash as viewed from the seats).

My solution was to stuff some foam between the 2X2 bracing board and the top of the metal firewall. I also stuffed a foam “noodle” along the right side edge to firm up the sagging board.

I also found out that a brace (below) at the lower edge of the dash front panel along the floor had come loose. It was originally glued to the tiles.

I cleaned and re-glued the brace using Weldwood® Contact Cement.

I then used the opportunity to vacuum and clean all the dust under the dash and the pull-out tray. I also used a small socket and tiny wrenches to give all the nuts and screws that I could find a tighten.

All finished! I just have to wait for the glue I put on the brace to harden so I can put my front panels back on.

While I was under the dash, I tried to identify what this pink connector (below) goes to. I’ve noticed it before, but couldn’t determine what it goes to… this time was no exception, I still couldn’t find out where the wire goes because it disappears behind the gauges and drivers dash panel. It appears to have been added as an afterthought, by the previous owner probably, because of the way it’s routed and it has a bunch of excess cable that is bunched up, zip-tied, and stuffed under the dash next to that 2X2 brace I mentioned earlier. Reward for anyone who can tell me what it is… I don’t think it has anything to do with the radio or XM satellite, all that works and I can see all the connections on the back of the radio. It’s also not the rearview camera, or trailer surge brake. Hmmm…

Now I just have to find out about a squeaking noise we’ve also developed near or around the front TV. I’ll have to pull off some more panels behind the TV. Maybe I’ll do that later today.

We paid for another night here at Storrie Lake SP ($14). We’ll probably head over to the Elks Lodge in Santa Fe on Sunday. We know they only have dry-camping (no electric or water), but that’s OK for one night or so. Maybe we’ll find something else in the area once we get there.

Urban Escape Vehicle .com

Category Archives: New Mexico

Westward Bound – Racing to the Rally (TX to NV)

Dinner with Old Friends (Las Cruces, NM)

Travel Day to Lake Powell & New Alpine Friends (Elks Lodge 2498 – Page, AZ)

Angel Peak (Elks Lodge 1747 – Farmington, NM)

Salmon Ruins; Aztec Ruins; & Navajo Lake (Elks Lodge 1747 – Farmington, NM)

Cliff Dwellings; Atomic Bombs; & Wild Hogs (Elks Lodge 460 – Santa Fe, NM)

Touring Downtown Santa Fe (Elks Lodge 460 – Santa Fe, NM)

Bad Moon Rising & Trip to Santa Fe (Elks Lodge 460 – Santa Fe, NM)

Getting Rid of the Squeaks (Storrie Lake State Park, Las Vegas NM)

Lakes, Rattles, and Squeaks (Storrie Lake State Park, Las Vegas NM)

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