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Sunday, December 7, 2014

Here and There and Boondocking Chores

Saturday we decided rather late in the morning to take a jeep road trip to Ruidoso, NM—beautiful country, mountainous and chilly with water running in the creeks—unusual for New Mexico.  Ruidoso was the cowboy’s nightmare and my idea of a fun afternoon—it was late in the day when we drove through the little bustling town, lots of cute shops and restaurants.  Packed with people it appeared a holiday function of some sort such as a parade was about to happen. 

We drove through Lincoln, NM—where Billy The Kid made his famous escape from jail.  A lot of the historical buildings are intact and operated as museums.  Driving on into the mountains we stumbled upon Fort Stanton established in 1855 as a military fort to protect the residents of Rio Bonita in the Apache wars.  “In 1899, President William McKinley transferred Fort Stanton property from the War Department to the Marine Hospital Service, converting the military reservation to America's first federal tuberculosis sanatorium,” Wikipedia 

Officers Quarters Fort Stanton New Mexico.jpgPhoto courtesy of Wikipedia 

It appeared most of the original buildings are still standing and there is a conservation effort under way—the fort now belongs to the state of New Mexico.  We stopped to stretch our legs at the cemetery:

IMG_0139IMG_0141There were several tombstones with coins covering the entire headstone, we had neither one heard the “story of the coins.” 

Back on the road it was getting late and we still needed generator gas and water—we had looked throughout the afternoon for outdoor water spigots without success.  In Roswell Michael said, “there is usually an outside water faucet at Wal Mart.”  I gave him “the look” as if to say, “are you nuts or what???”  Well, danged if we didn’t find a water hydrant, the non-freeze variety in of all places, the parking lot right outside the gardening center.  We carry several collapsible 5 gallon containers with us to supplement the holding tank—we arrived at our current boondocking spot without a full 100 gallon holding tank and needed to supplement it as Emmi is getting a bath in this special shampoo twice weekly!   Last stop, the gas station.  We run our little Honda generator about two hours per day to recharge the coach batteries, seldom running our big generator unless I need to use the convection oven.

Each morning we are getting out and taking Emmi for a walk, she is still “honking” (that’s what her cough sounds like, a honking goose) but the cough seems to be getting better, we think, we hope???  This afternoon late we took the ATVs out for a spin and she went with us, riding in her basket and getting very excited when we would see a rabbit tearing through the low lying creosote bushes. 

IMG_0131Judging by the appearance of the rocks I would say this guy had friends to visit??  Judy—what is he, it was a large bird!

IMG_0147IMG_0148My $4 Dollar Store little Christmas tree.  It is lighted with battery operated, tiny LED lights.  Life is good.

12 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks Judy--if I would use the bird book up in the cabinet I might become better at identifying birds, you think??? :))

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  2. Nice Red-tailed hawk photo. And very cute Christmas tree!

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  3. Your Jeep trip took you along the highway between Roswell & Ruidoso & that is the route we favored coming & going to southeastern Arizona in our earlier RV days. The Apache Pass to the west is an easy & scenic drive over the mountains & down into Alamogordo NM.

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    1. Al, we are taking your route from here over to Texarkana--going to Arkansas to spend Christmas with my family.

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  4. Ahhhh... you're in an area we love. The variety of habitats and scenery in NM has always amazed me. I'd never heard the story about leaving coins but have seen pennies on some headstones. Kind of an interesting way to communicate, huh?

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    1. Ahhh-you are back! We are moving today to different scenery--we've never been to Carlsbad Caverns.

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  5. We are headed to Ruidoso for a family reunion the end of March. In fact we leave the first day of Bill's retirement, and it will likely be our shakedown run for the rig! I loved the area just driving through a couple years ago. and am so looking forward to having a few days to explore. That hawk is definitely giving you the eye - great pic! We have them in our neighborhood, and they are often sighted being "chased" by a couple ravens whose food source they just made off with.......always entertaining :-).
    Not sure I would ever doubt the cowboy's ability to find water......

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  6. How exciting...I knew the bird!! Yes, it looks like several visitors came by:)

    We are thinking of NM for late spring/summer. Thanks for these ideas:)

    Good to hear Emmi is out enjoying the adventures:)

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  7. How interesting! On the Blackfoot reservation in Idaho, Sacaweja's grave has coins all over it (so does her son's).

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