PART 2 - REPAIRS

Denis made it back safe and sound from Phoenix after picking up the AC compressor from the dealer.  He is a driving machine maniac and drove 670 miles round trip without incident.  Thanks be to God.

The nights are cool and the campground is quiet so we both had a good night's sleep.  We located a Catholic church less than five miles away, St. Anne's, and attended the 9:30 mass.  What a beautiful, little parish and the people (primarily Spanish) were warm and welcoming.  They recognized us as visitors and gave each of us a blessed St. Anne metal. 

We enjoyed a quiet day of reading, walking and watching our beautiful baby granddaughters on Facebook video.  I love hearing Kiev say "grammie" and get all excited.  The baby, Kloe, is eight months and daringly trying to stand on her own.   We look forward to seeing them soon.

Denis got up at 6:00 this morning to call the warranty company (2 hour time difference) to provide them with all the information they needed to file the claim for service provided by Big Sky Tire & Repair in Deming, New Mexico.  That's all set.

Sam, the service tech, showed up at 8:30 this morning to install the new compressor and belt.  Less than two hours later he was finished and we were able to drive safely to the repair shop.

If it appears to be out in the middle of no where,  that's because it is

These are the old parts

They are charging the dash AC and things seem to be going well.  We ate lunch while we've been waiting and hope to get out of here soon.  Denis would like to put in at least 3-4 hours which would get us out of New Mexico and into El Paso, Texas.

I know some of you were waiting for Part 2 of this blog and I wanted to get it out fast.  We're not off to a great start for our return trip to New England and hopefully, this will be the only glitch along the way.  Fingers crossed. 

Thanks for stopping in to say hi and God bless you.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN BUT OOPS ... NOT FOR LONG

Anyone who travels by coach knows that travel plans can never be laid in cement because the unexpected can happen at any time.  We left Yuma Wednesday morning bright and early. We noticed that our dash air conditioning wasn't working during the drive and we had to run the generator for the coach AC.  Denis figured it was a blown fuse or something simple and would check it out at our next stop.  So we drove about six hours to a Walmart for a bit of grocery shopping and an overnight stay.  The next morning, we pulled out of Walmart and heard someone honking like crazy behind us but didn't think much of it (on hindsight, we should have pulled over).  We drove a bit more and Denis noticed the engine light was on and we were overheating.  We pulled over safely and sure enough the radiator fluid was blown out all over our tow vehicle. 

We called for mobile road service and carefully drove to the next exit to find a safe place to park while we waited an hour for the mobile service guy to arrive.  The service tech found the water pump belt split in half.  Okay, you'd think, simple solution, order a new belt and install it.  Well, of course, you'd be wrong.  You can't get to the belt from underneath the rig, oh no, you've got to go through the rear bathroom under the sink.  Our tech is not a little guy and it's a pretty tight squeeze but he gets in there and finds out that the belt he has is too short.  Time to order a new belt.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that we drove another mile to Little Vineyard RV Park in Deming, New Mexico for an overnight stay because we couldn't stay in the public parking lot while we were being serviced.  Driving there was fun because we're not only overheating but draining the battery.  We had to stop two times during that one mile drive to let the engine cool and battery charge. 

Had a good nights sleep and the next morning, Sam, our tech guy called, he has the new belt and is on his way over.   Now Denis has had all night to think about this and he's thinking "why did the dash air conditioning die right before the engine overheated?"  Could it be that the AC compression froze and that caused the water pump belt to break?  So when Sam gets here, Denis asks him to check the AC for movement .... NONE it's frozen.  Sam says "oh, maybe I should have thought to check that yesterday because obviously that's the problem which caused the other problem."

Sam doesn't want to install the belt because we need a new AC compressor and calls his boss to see if there's one to be found in the area.  Time passes and they tell us the part can be delivered on Thursday (now remember today is Saturday).  This puts Denis into action mode and he's on the phone and on-line doing a search for the part.  He's like a pit-bull and finally finds that Phoenix has the part.  A normal person would just over night the part but not my husband.  He tells me he'd driving to Phoenix to pick it up, kisses me goodbye and says he'll see me in about eight hours (I hate when he does that because I worry).  Now I just checked the mileage from Deming, NM to Phoenix and Google says its 4 hours and 42 minutes in light traffic. 

This post is part one of two parts.  To be continued ............................

HEADING BACK EAST VIA FLORIDA

We had planned on going to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area with Christi and Phil on Friday but they were so exhausted from their bus tour from Vegas to the Grand Canyon on Thursday, that they just didn't have the juice. They decided to spend time at the Mandalay and relax.  We met them for a quick goodbye.  They had a plane to catch back to Montreal on Saturday morning.   It was fun spending time with them and hope we'll be able to do it again.

Saturday morning we got an early start and drove about 500 miles to a Walmart in Gallup, New Mexico.  The parking lot was packed with semi tractor trailers and a few other travelers like us.  It was not a quiet night with the semi's running all night and generators going off and on.  Then at around 3:00 a.m. I heard someone knocking on our door, not that we were going to answer it, but we did peek out but by the time we got there, they were gone.

This morning we drove 5-minutes to St. Francis Church for mass.  You could tell we were in Navajo country.  It's so nice to see young couples with a baby and two or three other children in attendance.

St. Francis Church

Luckily we found a vacant parking lot
near the church because there wasn't any
parking in the church lot

After a quick breakfast in the parking lot, we drove about 160-miles to Hidden Valley RV Park in Tijeras, New Mexico for a one-night stay.  The park has a lot of potential but they do not enforce the rules and allow the seasonal renters to trash their sites.  Too bad.

We needed our jeans and sweat shirts today because it's much cooler here than we're used to due to the higher altitude.  However, the sun was shining and we walked the park a couple of times to get the blood pumping.

We saw about eight cottontails during
our after dinner walk

It's nice a quiet here and we're hoping for a good night's sleep and hit the road tomorrow bright eyed and bushy tailed.    Thanks for stopping in to say hi.

EL MALPAIS NATIONAL MONUMENT - NEW MEXICO

I forgot to tell you about our visit to El Malpais in New Mexico.  El Malpais means "the badlands" in Spanish.  Its volcanic features include cinder cones, a lava tube cave system extending 17 miles and fragile ice caves.  Some 2,000 to 3,000 years ago lava poured out of McCartys Crater and created a new land surface.
We walked the ancient trade route on the Zuni-Acoma Trail which crosses four major lava flows. The hike is 7.5 strenuous miles one-way over rugged lava.  I'd like to tell you that we walked the entire trail but that would be a lie.

It's not every day you get to hold a chunk of lava

These tiny yellow flowers somehow managed to grow here

When we pulled into the turnout to view the La Ventana Natural Arch, it began to rain, thunder and hail.  We got some decent photos through the windshield.  The arch dates back to the time of the dinosaurs and is one of New Mexico's largest natural arches.

La Ventana Natural Arch

Thanks for stopping in.

TOO BUSY HAVING FUN

We had a wonderful time visiting Albuquerque with our friends Kurt and Diane.  Seven months ago we splurged and bought 3-night's VIP tickets for the 42nd Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. With the help of Sharon and Dave who introduced us to Fred and Fran, who just so happened to be RV greeters at the Fiesta, we had the high ground overlooking the launching area and the view was the best in the park.  Thank you Sharon for hooking us up with Fred and Fran.

Fred and Fran Hammer - Fran showing off her "gift" for volunteering

Did you know this is the world's largest ballooning event?  This year they had 548 balloon teams, 106 special shapes, 280 pilots competed in flying competitions and 32 countries were represented. 

Glowdeo

The lunar eclipse made the Fiesta even more special

View from our VIP RV site

The pictures will only give you a sneak preview of just how overwhelming it was

One of the many special shapes - isn't it beautiful?

Yes, we were awake at 5:45 for dawn patrol, the 6:30 morning glow and the 7:00 mass ascension. We saw the special shape Glowdeo at dusk and the fireworks show we were able to watch sitting outside our coach.

We visited the Balloon Museum and saw exhibits ranging from the first successful flying machine to the largest flying ships.  We saw balloons that crossed the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, that went around the world, that flew into the stratosphere and crossed the English Channel.  Amazing!

Having fun at the Balloon Museum

We visited Old Town and Madrid (Madrid is where they filmed Wild Hogs - so we watched the movie the night before).

Remember Maggie's Diner in the movie?

Fun place to eat

Mine Shaft Tavern - the bar is made from lodge poles and it was originally a stand up bar for the miners because they were stooped in the mines all day 

Sitting on old tractor seats just outside Tinker Town Museum

Tinker Town Museum - some of the miniature sets were once displayed at Knottsberry Farm in CA

Musicians playing on the green

Because we spent time in Tijeras, I have to mention "The Singing Road".  The National Geographic Channel along with the NMDOT installed metal plates under the pavement that play "America the Beautiful" for motorists on a stretch of Route 66.  You can see and hear a video of the Singing Road by clicking here: America the Beautiful

Thanks for stopping in.

DISCOVERING BANDELIER

Access to the visitor's center is by shuttle bus only

We had the opportunity to visit one of the National Park Service's oldest sites (1916), Bandelier National Monument.  We walked the 1.2 mile loop in Frijoles Canyon and saw the remains of the small carved rooms (cavates) of the Pueblo people.  We've seen cliff dwellings before but the day was sunny and the walk up stairs and ladders was invigorating.

Bandelier is located on 23,000 acres of designated wilderness and has over 70 miles of trails.  We only had time for the loop because we wanted to include in our day trip a visit to Los Alamos and the Bradbury Science Museum.

This little guy was down in one of the Ancestral Pueblo people's cisterns

Actually he was one of the longest snakes I've seen

Remains of ancient Pueblo homes

Climbing up to one of the cavates

They built homes in a natural recess in the cliff face

The 1.2 mile loop was fun

The rooms were nice and cool

It was a full day but we enjoyed ourselves very much.

Admission is  free and the museum provides information into the history of the institution, it's national security, mission and technology research.  The two 16-minute films tell the stories of the race to build the first atomic bomb the Manhattan Project and the work the Lab does today

One of the many beautiful views while driving to Los Alamos

Thanks for stopping in.

A DAY WITH NEW FRIENDS

We met Glenn and Lynn Schultz on a walk around the campground.  We hit it off and made plans for the next day to visit the National Museum of Nuclear Science and Old Town Albuquerque. We learned that they are fellow bloggers and new to full-timing.  They're blog link is: http://lifepart2glennlynn.blogspot.com/

Fat Man and Little Boy (we know them from Hiroshima and Nagasaki)
Little Boy was the uranium atomic bomb and Fat Man was the plutonium implosion-type bomb

The museum was a lot larger than we imagined and we worked up a good appetite.  We went for lunch in Old Town Albuquerque

San Felipe de Neri Parish  - Listed on the National Register of Historic Places

Constructed in 1793

Our choice for lunch

The restaurant had a wonderful courtyard and gave us a chance to get to know our new friends better

 Another wonderful day of full-time Rving.  Thanks for stopping in.

VISIT TO PETROGLYPH NATIONAL MONUMENT

Spent a lovely afternoon at the National Monument.  This was our second time there but the first time we didn't have our National Park book and we wanted to stamp it.  This time we went to both the Boca Negra and the Piedras Marcadas Canyons.

In 1986, the entire 17-mile escarpment was placed in the National Register of Historic Places and in 1990 Congress established the Petroglyph National Monument.  To American Indians the monument is a sacred landscape.  Archeologists estimate that most of the images were made 400 to 700 years ago, however, some may be 2,000 to 3,000 years old.

You can tell by our smiles that it was a beautiful day

Images of birds, spirals, faces, crosses

We can only speculate what the images represent

This little emerald green beetle was fast but we got a picture

Think about it ... I'm holding a 200,000 year old piece of lava rock

Thank you for stopping in.

A DAY IN SANTA FE WITH FRIENDS

Feeling much better, thank you all for your good wishes.  In my last post, I mentioned our friends Kurt and Diane but didn't share with you what we did with them in Santa Fe.

Kurt, Diane and me standing in front of the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi

We did a walking tour of old Sante Fe

We shared a lunch together at a Mexican restaurant that Diane said got excellent reviews on Yelp. We were not disappointed but I forgot to take pictures.

Outside the Basilica

The colors were a pleasant surprise

We Catholics get into the statues and gold leaf

This display case had relics of many saints

Diane and I browsed a few of the stores.  One of them had fur coats which were beautiful if you don't mind the slaughter of innocent fox and lynx for the bargain price of $16,000.  Didn't take a photo of that either.

The day wouldn't be complete without a snack

Aaaaahhhh

Thanks for stopping in.