14 March 2021 Albuquerque to Kirtland, NM

 We took our time getting things ready to hit the road this morning. One reason was that we knew it was only a four hour drive, the other reason was there was a big storm blowing through and the weather predictions showed it was suppose to clear up by the early afternoon. We hit the road about noon. The wind was still blowing hard (20-30MPH with gusts up to 50MPH) and it looked like we might hit some snow showers around Cuba NM. Once we were on US550, the wind, although gusty, was primarily a head wind so it really was not a big issue for David. We climbed from 5500ft altitude to 7500 feet altitude near Cuba NM and crossed the Continental Divide for the first time since 2019. We drove into a pretty strong snowstorm as we climbed toward Cuba and the temperature dropped. Leslie played like she was asleep so she didn’t have to see the snow. The snow was accumulating to a couple of inches on the roadsides, but the main lanes were only wet. As we dropped in Altitude the snow turned to rain and finally stopped. We pulled into the Homestead RV Park ($32 per night with GSC) in Kirtland around 2:30. The office was closed, but when we called the owner came by to check us in. It’s not a fancy place, just a big gravel lot. Only 8 sites were open for transients, the rest of the sites were filled with work campers. But it is easy to get our big rig into and out of from the highway and it is centrally located for the places we want to visit.

Ice building up on the nose cone of the Wanderer

9-13 March 2021 Albuquerque

 David ended up working Tuesday through Friday without much time to do much else. Friday evening we got out to Church Street Café for our first dose of NM Food. We thoroughly enjoyed it. Saturday we had hoped to go hiking at Tent Rocks NM but found out it was completely closed due to COVID restrictions. So we decided to get some running done to stock up on our favorite brands since the next two months we will be in the boonies. We then went to Gruet Winery to do a tasting and walked out with a case of our favorite wines. Following Gruet, we went to Trombino’s Bistro for dinner. It had been recommended to us by a colleague of David’s and we were very happy with the food and service. We will need to return next time we are in town. After dinner we went over to David’s colleague, Andy and his wife Debbie’s home. Andy started his tour in his garage where he and his daughter (who is an engineer at Sandia) put together models for a mini car racetrack and an elaborate train set also beset with a total living village around it.  Also inside the garage were two Cadillac sport cars. Awesome!  They showed us Andy’s audio room, which was AMAZING. The room was designed to be acoustically perfect. Combined with the wonderful high-end audio and video equipment and we were overwhelmed by the incredible sound. We could have stayed there for days! But we needed to get back to the Wanderer to take care of Etta. We walked in to find garbage strewn all over the floor! She has never done this before and we were very surprised that she had been able to open the garbage drawer and pull the garbage bag out of the container. She ate an absorption pad that had been under a salmon filet and another that had been under some tenderloins. Leslie called the pet emergency room to see if we needed to bring her in, but they could not give us a recommendation one way or the other. We decided to ride it out, knowing we could get her to the vet if needed.  If she showed signs of sickness we could move quickly. Etta had spent months on the street before we got her, so David figured she would probably pass it without too much trouble. Leslie stayed up late to keep an eye on her, just in case.

Amazing New Mexico Cuisine

Tasting wonderful Reds at Gruet

Native statue

8 March 2021 Amarillo, TX to Albuquerque, NM

 We departed Texas today on our way to Albuquerque. Once again, the wind was blowing hard from the west/southwest. Fortunately the Wanderer is heavy enough that it does not blow around very much but the head wind really cut into our fuel mileage (6.2 MPG). End result was we pulled into the American RV Resort ($58.00 per night no discount) with only 5 gallons left in the tank. The drive west is also a climb. We have gained 5600 feet in altitude since the time we left Spring Texas. Everything was brown and there was barely a tree in sight most of the way. But you could see a long ways! David has work for the next four days, so our fun time will have to wait until Friday afternoon.

6 March 2021 Palo Duro Disappointment

 Our plan for today was to go into Palo Duro Canyon State Park and hike the Lighthouse Trail for our first hike of the year. Unfortunately, we forgot that due to COVID-19, you have to have a reservation to get into a park due to occupancy restrictions. We pulled up to the park gate and could see a sign saying they were sold out before we remembered our experience with trying to visit Lost Maples State Park last fall. The ranger informed us they were sold out and they were sold out for Sunday as well. But he said the private ranch next door had trails that we might be able to hike. So we had to turn around and exit the park. We decided to check out the ranch next door. They do jeep and horseback tours into the canyon. So we stopped in to learn we could hike their jeep trail (about 2 hours round trip) for $20 per person. Since we did not know what we would be able to see, combined with having to share the trails with jeeps and horses, we opted out. Instead we drove into the small town of Canyon and walked around the town square and explore the shops on the square. On the way out of town we noticed signs for a vineyard. A vineyard in the Texas panhandle? Intrigued, we pulled into Creek House Honey Farm. First stop was the gift shop where Leslie picked up so local honey. Then we went to the tasting room. We learned they don’t sell their own wines, but are a Mead brewing house. We learned that Mead is fermented honey. They sold a variety of flavors, which are added in the final stages of the fermentation process. So we got a flight of four flavors. One of the flavors was straight Mead (Queens Revenge), next was a mixture with Merlot wine, the third was a blackberry flavor and last was a lemon flavor. Neither one of us could remember ever trying Mead before. We did not enjoy the straight Mead but really liked the other three. So we we relaxed and enjoyed our Mead before heading for home. 

Canyon Town Square

4 March 2021 DFW to Amarillo Texas

 The drive from DFW to Amarillo is long (367 miles, 7.5 hours) and BORING. Everything is brown this time of the year, and the terrain is flat with really no scenery to enjoy. The only exciting part was we were down to 5 gallons in the fuel tank when we pulled in to the Oasis RV Park ($53.00 a night with GSC). The Oasis is our go to place for Amarillo. Lot’s of room, big sites and wide roads. The wind was blowing really hard the whole drive. So by the time we got set up all we wanted to do was plop down and relax. 

Sunset in Amarillo

1 March 2021 On the road Again!

 We pulled out of Spring Texas today after a four-month stay. Our first stop was Terry Vaughn RV to get the Wanderer’s state safety inspection accomplished. We had to wait for the only guy that could do the inspection to finish up with another customer (45 minutes) to get the inspection. In the meantime David talked with one of the repair technicians and found out they were inspecting new trailers coming in and rejecting almost half of their deliveries because of factory defects in workmanship. Even with their custom orders! Surprising! After completing the safety inspection we drove to Arlington Texas. We are staying at the Treetop RV Resort ($83.00 per night, no discount) near the Parks Mall. It’s a nice park but there are a lot of obstacles close to the roads. While following directions of the park employee into our site, the back end swung out and hit a post close to the road. The Wanderer was damaged on the rear drivers side, back around the electrical cable reel. Fortunately, only some cosmetic  paint and body damage, but David was kicking himself for hours. We won’t have an opportunity to get it fixed for months, but it won’t slow our trip down. We got setup and got ready for two very busy days.

14-19 Feb 2021 Texas Freeze

 Last week we were in Fort Worth for some business meetings and doctors appointments. The morning we headed back to Spring, we were in an ice storm with the bridges mostly iced over. Arriving back in Spring we started hearing the warnings of a series of three winter storms that were going to make it all the way down to Spring with historically low temperatures. The RV Park management warned us that they would be turning the park water off at 11AM on Sunday. So we filled up our fresh water tank on Friday to give it a chance to get warm. We also topped off the propane tanks and bought plenty of food. Cynthia and Felix came over for Valentines day dinner (Gil and April’s Beef Wellington recipe). At that point we were working off our fresh water tank and we probably used more water cleaning up than we should have. But we only expected the water to be off for a couple of days. Our temperature on Tuesday morning was 7 degrees. Definitely lower than we have ever had the Wanderer endure. But it did great and we had no issues with frozen water pipes. We were nice and warm and cozy. Power went out Tuesday night, so we ran off batteries with no issues. Wednesday there was no sun, so the batteries did not get a significant change off the solar panels. But the power came back on Wednesday night. So our only concern was the water level. Thursday morning, we were down to 18% left in the fresh water tank. So David took a bucket down to the lake to get water for flushing the toilet. We also had to switch over to the backup propane tank on Thursday. We went through 10 gallons of propane over five days. But never had any issues. The RV Park tried to bring the water system back up on Thursday but had so many leaks from 

frozen water pipes in the buildings and frozen faucets at the RV sites, they had to turn the water back off. They also had big issues with the well pump system. Friday they got the water system turned back on at the RV Sites for 5 hours before having to turn it off for more freezing temperatures overnight. But it gave us time to fill up our fresh water tank, do a load of laundry, dishwasher cycle of dishes and grab David’s first shower in 6 days. But the water cut off just as Leslie got wet in the shower, so we switched back over to our tank and she finished her hot shower with glee. Saturday the water system was finally turned back on full time and things slowly got back to normal. The Wanderer lived up to its guarantee for temperatures down to -10F. 

Beef Wellington Valentines Dinner

Texas Freeze

Etta staying warm