HOLBROOK, ARIZONA

We have been here at the Koa Campground since Fri. for the holiday weekend.  Today the 26th, we venture out to the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest.  Never realized something so beautiful existed.  All the mountains were different colors of pink and rose and browns and blacks, with sagebrush and evergreens all around.  The photos I am posting are the desert, an adobe building  which has been there since the early 1900's, and also of the petrified forest.  This area had been excavated many years ago for fossils, it seems many dinosaurs were uncovered here.  This whole landscape had originally been under water.  It is said that the air up here is the most pure.  The altitude takes a few days to get used to.  We are now on Mountain time, 3 hours earlier than Florida.  The sun rises at 5am and doesn't set till after 8pm.  It is 95 degrees during the day and we have the ac on, and at night temp drops to 50 and the heat goes on.  We will be here till tues. morn and then on our way to the grand canyon.  Enjoy the pics.

RUIDOSO, NEW MEXICO, BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

Well, unfortunately I posted our Albuquerque trip completely forgetting about our trip to Ruidoso, so here it is.  Ruidoso is a beautiful New Mexico town in the mountains.  We pulled  into the Circle B rv park in the early afternoon and set up on a gravel and dusty site.  I have pictures of the site and campground which overlooked the beautiful mountains.  The scenery is magnificent, natures wonders.  We have come in during bikefest weekend, but that is not a problem.  Campground is half empty.  We venture out to see the Hubbard Western Museum, a beautiful place with covered wagons, and lots of memorabilia.  I get a dirt t-shirt, actually dyed with the dirt of the mountains.  We have a steak dinner at K Bobs, great service and good food.  The next day we tour the River Museum, smaller venue with western artifacts as well as movie star pieces.  They have a small ufo alien exhibit which has the props from the tv show x files.  We take a long ride into the town of Lincoln where the courthouse is where Billy the Kid was tried.  Also a general store and we stop at a B & B to have coffee and fresh blueberry cake before our ride home.  We learned alot about the old west in Ruidoso.

ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO

Mon.  May 20, 2013 and we have made it to Albuquerque.  Pulled in late due to really lousy directions on Mapquest.  Great rv park, nice site and the best water pressure we have ever had.

Tues.  Went food shopping at Albertsons, finally found frozen bagels, then look around  Camping World and Joel got a 7 ft. ladder which folds into about 4 inches square, fits nicely under the bay.  I got a new folding chair, aluminum, the backrest reclines, I love it.  We renewed our Good Sam membership and got $25 off our bill, now that is wonderful.  We took a look at some of their motorhomes and we like ours better, but the salesman Chuck, a real nice guy, into lots of things, real estate, insurance, call centers, etc.  asked Joel what he does for a living, and the next thing you know Chuck will be one of our agents.  He has lots of potential.  On the way back to the campground we stopped at Freightliner and found out they can help us with the freeplay in our steering, so we are going there on Fri. morning when we leave here. 

Wed.  We went to the zoo.  What a wonderful place, had such a good time, then we went to Old Town which is an original village from so many years ago and we had lunch at the Cafe de Fiesta, and then looked around at all the art galleries and shops.  We bought two t shirts, and then started back to the rig.  Peanut and the birds were glad to see us.

Thurs.  Today we went to the Aerial Tram on Scandia Mountain.  We rode it to the top (awesome ride)  see the photos, temperature below, 95 degrees, on top of mtn. 51 degrees and sunny, what a beautiful place, highly recommend New Mexico, so much to do in a very close area.  Then we went to a sort of healthy Cafe called "Vinegarette" and had salads and sandwiches, wonderful service and food.  Then off to the Museum of Natural History, lots of dinosaurs, and a complete Titantic exhibit, photos werent allowed.  When you go in they give you a boarding pass of someone on the ship and at the end of the exhibit you find out if they survived.  Both of us got passengers that survived, that was uplifting.  Well, back to the rig, Joel is napping while I do the blog.  Tonight we will go to a wonderful chinese buffet called "Hong Kong".

 

2ND DAY AT SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

Well, today we are taking the vette and going to the hill country about  a four or five hour drive through beautiful mountains.  The HILL COUNTRY, Kerrville, etc. is a myriad of ranches and farms high up in the hills.  It was beautiful and we stopped at a Sonic drivethru for ice cream sundaes.  On the way home we went to Saltgrass Steakhouse and had wonderful filet mignons.  End to a perfect day.  Our entire time in San Antonio we had the most beautiful weather, dry and cool.  It was a nice city to visit.  We would recommend going there.


WE ARRIVE IN FORT STOCKTON, TEXAS

Our reservation at Hilltop Rv is useless, they don't even have a spot big enough for us, so we go down the road apiece to Comancheland, where a wonderful site is found with a great manager who gives us lots of great info.  We only pay $18 for the nite and it is well worth it.  We will start tomorrow for Ruidoso, New Mexico.

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS AT LAST

Well, we have arrived at the San Antonio Koa, get nice pull through site, and set up a tour for tomorrow morning at 9 o clock.  We will be going to eight different places so I put on my sneakers for lots of walking.  Well, a good nights sleep, great weather and off we go.  Here is the list of places with photos to follow, the ALAMO, two missions, Buckhorn Saloon and cowboy museum, really liked that one, japanese sunken gardens, ate at the Riverwalk, had mexican food at Paloma's, then a boatride down the riverwalk,etc, a great day.  Lots and lots of walking.

More Photos

The above photo is at Cowboy Museum at the Buckhorn Saloon in San Antonio, that is the original car from Bonnie and Clyde.  The next photo is me at the same place.

These are our pictures

#3  Of course I forgot to put us in.

See our on the road family

#2  Here are some pictures of the Gardbergs and their pets, "Peanut the Cat" and "Kuku & Sam" our cockatiels.

Start of our trip

Well, our first stop on our westward ho trip begins in Milton, Fl, where we pull into a very nice Koa on I10.  People super nice, we just stayed one night but it was enjoyable.  Then off to Lafayette La, to yet another Koa, also nice, with free continental breakfast.  We met real nice couple from Texas in a Prevost, what a vehicle, well when we become millionaires, it is our next motorhome, he told us lots of things about the hill country in Texas and when we get to San Antonio, we will check it our.  Meanwhile, we will start out in the morning for Columbus, Texas, about 5 hours of driving.  Joel has done a great job manuvering our rig and trailer, haven't hit anything yet this year.  We stay at a run down park, very small that used to be a Koa.  It is right next to the train tracks, and thats right, every hour on the hour at night you can hear the loud whistle, the traffic noise isn't too great either, and they charge $38 a night for that.  Nothing really in the town, we stay a couple of days, it is the weekend, and get some groceries.  Then we are off to San Antonio, Texas.  This is a photo of that campground, looks can be deceiving.

#1

Well, here we are at alliance rv getting some stuff taken care of.  We will stay in the campground on their premises and each morning the tech will take our rig into the shop and at the end of the day will put it back on our campsite.  The dealership is really nice and we spend the day either at the courtesy room talking with other travelers, or going out on the road for good eats and fun.  All in all we are there for eight days.  Some of the repairs have been, new satellite switch,  brake controller for our cargo trailer hauling our precious corvette, new tv switch box, water filter, finally our roof leak is fixed, lubricating of slide system, we also got four new tires.  Looking forward to getting on the road.  Here is a photo of the campground, first time blogger, hope this comes out.

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