County Road J: May 2012

Monday, May 28, 2012

Poised To Strike

During our first month here in Albuquerque, Trevor and I were having a blast walking in the desert behind the RV Park. There’s about a 2 mile dirt loop out there; pretty convenient for a little exercise. It doesn’t look like much as you look out across the mesa, just a bunch of dirt and brush with mountains on the horizon. But it was a fun walk.

It was cool to see the cacti produce their buds and bloom, to watch little lizards run out in front of us and then down the road as if beckoning us to chase them and to wonder what lay beneath the many large holes that line the path. We’ve seen large insects, Yuccas, many species of small wildflowers, what appeared to be the ruins of an old ranch, and something that looked eerily familiar to pictures we saw at the UFO museum in Roswell, New Mexico.

Then the snakes came out! Most of the snakes we’ve seen slithered along the ground like a good snake should. But the first one we saw, looked as though it was poised to strike. We were taking our usual walk, enjoying the beautiful cactus flowers, and not paying too much attention to the path. I just happened to look down for a second and saw that if I were to take two more steps, I’d be right in line with the mouth of a snake. This one’s head was up! We don’t know what kind of snake it was or if it had any intentions for harm, maybe he just wanted to say hello. If that was the case, I have to admit I was a little rude to the poor little guy! We saw another snake that same evening. It was about 5 or 6 feet long. We think it came from underneath our motorhome. It crawled across the road, went underneath the fence, and then slithered into one of the holes we’d often wondered about. Not too far into the next day’s walk, another snake blocked the path where Trevor walked. After that we made the decision not to walk out there anymore. From now on we’re going to walk in the RV Park on weekdays and continue to hike in the Sandia Mountains and Petroglyph National Park on weekends. At least there are people in those places. Hopefully, they’ll scare the snakes away before we get there!

It was so cool to be here for the Annular Eclipse. Albuquerque was one of the best places to be for viewing and photographing it. The local visitor’s center was handing out free eye protection, so thanks to them, we got to do both! The sun continues to be of interest to photographers in the area this weekend. Smoke from the Arizona fires has reached us, creating another interesting view of the sun.

We’ve had a lot of fun here, even with all the sand storms that frequent this area. We will continue to clean what looks like the beach out of our house for two more weeks, then we’ll be off to see new places we’ve yet to explore.

We hope all is well with all of you. We love you! Love, Trevor & Roni

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Getting Our Kicks On Route 66

At one time I thought it’d be cool to follow the famous Route 66 sometime to see what that was all about. When I researched it on the internet, I was disappointed to learn the old route doesn’t exist anymore. There are signs that point to segments of the old historic route, but the original’s been replaced by the Interstate. When we pulled into New Mexico 2 weeks ago, we were amused to find that we’d actually be camping on a portion of the old route! The drive here was certainly exciting. I don’t remember driving through such heavy winds before! The whole time, I wondered how much more wind it’d take to completely blow us over. Trevor’s an amazing driver though and we arrived here safe and sound.

We’ve experienced some pretty heavy sand storms here that have included dust devils the likes of which we’ve never seen before, but most of the time it’s been pretty nice. You would not believe how much hiking there is to do in this area. We hike out in the desert just about every day, and then on weekends our hikes tend to take on higher elevations. So far, we’ve hiked in two different areas of Petroglyph National Monument and a little at Sandia Crest. I say a little, because we haven’t adjusted to the 10,678’ elevation quite yet. But we will!

We also spent a day in Santa Fe where there’s plenty of shopping, but man, you need a big bank account to shop there! I spied a pair of the cutest shoes while window shopping and just had to go in to take a closer look. Being that there are plenty of more important things (like diesel) I could purchase, I thought I’d pass on the $440 shoes!!!