Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Mark Your Calendar!

Okay, I admit it, I spend WAY too much time on the internet, but I do enjoy poking around online.

This morning, I found something that I wanted to share with all of you. It seems that we are going to have a total lunar eclipse and it will be visible from most of North America! Be sure to mark your calendars!

The eclipse will take place on February 20th starting around 6:30pm here in New Mexico. This will be one of the few times I'm actually awake for an astronomical event, so I'm looking forward to it. Viewing cosmic events seem to tap into some primeval part of me, it makes me feel very connected. Now I'm not sure exactly what it makes me feel connected to, but I like the feeling!

The weather continues to be mild and smooth. It feels wonderful on my skin and in my head. I love how the weather affects my moods. While I'm generally a pretty happy person I feel like I'm blooming when the weather turns mild.

Life is good

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Spring

Today is the first day where I believe Spring might be just around the corner.

I know in my heart it's too early, but it is glorious.

The desert has a beauty that just doesn't translate in photos.

There really is something about this New Mexico light that has to be seen and felt to truly appreciate.

The rig is wide open, the air smells sweet and I'm rediscovering Ian and Sylvia and Gordon Lightfoot, flashbacks to an earlier time in my journey.

I love my life.

Saturday, February 9, 2008

A Little of This and a Little of That . . .

Well, I still haven't completed the Cholula Red site, but I figured I'd better catch up here or who knows how long I could go on not posting?

We moved down to Oliver Lee State Park a week or so ago and have we ever been busy since we got here!

We knew that we would be meeting our good friend Andy here, and also Dave and Marlene, the camp hosts we met last year. So you can imagine our surprise when we got here to find our friends Kae and Cokie and their wonderful yellow Lab Bo were also staying here. And to add to everything, there was another Lazy Daze, which it turns out is owned by a great fellow named John Coxon! Have we been having fun or what?

As always when we get together with Andy, rig improvements just seem to happen. And now, John has joined our group and, boy howdy have we been busy! The other day we all went trooping into Alamogordo to vist Lowes and Home Depot. For us, this is a day on the town, we ALWAYS find something wonderful.

On this day, we discovered some great solar lights. They were created as fence post lights, but they work wonderfully well as a porch light for the rigs. They have a good size solar collector and two amber LED lights which provide a perfect amount of light for the doorway. At just $10.00 each, they were a real find.

And now a bit about our new friend John. He is a truly talented leather artist and cabinet maker, so of course we had to take some time and look at the improvements he's made to his rig (a 1992 mid bath). He has a great website that you might want to check out.

I was immediately taken with his curtains, which were unlike anything I had ever seen. Lots of folks change their window coverings but John has come up with a unique way to hang his curtains.

He manufactured curtain rods from aluminum tubing (with little brass balls for the ends, really attractive). Then he hung these from the bottoms of the cabinets with leather hangers that he manufactured himself. For the curtains, he measured where to put the rod holes so that the curtains would hang perfectly and also be super easy to slide open or closed. When he had the measurements perfect, he cut holes in the curtains with a leather punch. While I'm not describing this well, they are really classy looking. In fact, they were so nice I asked him to make me a set for my kitchen and bathroom curtains.

And he did! What a great improvement!

Besides working on the rigs, we've been enjoying the beautiful vistas of White Sands (which I'm embarrassed to say I haven't photographed in the week plus we've been here).

And cooking, of course. I have a wonderful meatloaf recipe I will be posting soon, but just today, I discovered an exceptional new dish. While shopping locally, I found a bag of "Toasted Dried Sweet Corn", manufactured by John Cope's Food Products. It's 100% dried toasted corn, nothing added, just a blend of different strains of sweet corn. On the back are three recipes, and I decided to make the stewed corn, a really simple recipe.

You take the dried corn, add water, a bit of salt, some butter and milk. Then you stir it all together and microwave it for ten minutes. Then let it sit for fifteen minutes, then cook it again for another fifteen minutes. I really had no idea what to expect from this concoction, but I have to tell you, this is one yummy dish, extra sweet and tasty!

Tomorrow I'm going into town to get more and start experimenting with other ways to use this wondreful product. If I come up with something extra special, Ill share it here.

And I will REALLY try to get some pictures and continue to post here on a regular basis.

Life is Good.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

In Between . . .

While I'm still working on the CholulaRed site, I don't want to get too far behind, so I decided I'd better post!

This is a set of photos from one of our last days in Socorro. We took a drive and found even more areas to discover. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time taking pictures.

One of the great views around the bosque is the cranes that seem to be everywhere at once. Since this is an agricultural area, you'll often see these wonderful birds mixed in with livestock.

I particularly liked this picture of cranes hanging around with this small cow (calf?). Remember that you can click obn any of these photos to see a larger version, which really looks better than these thumbnails!


I liked this photo since it shows both cranes, the lovely fields around Socorro and the mountains we've learned to love while staying here.

This is basically the same shot as above, just zoomed in a bit on the cranes.


The trains run pretty much along the length of the Rio Grande. I'm not sure what appealed to me about this picture, perhaps the clouds?


While I used to think that the desert was all brown, I've learned to look for the myriad colors that abound. These small yellow berries are all over on the ground, but I never saw them on bushes, so maybe they just fell from the sky? In any case, I liked their very bright color.


While San Antonio is now just a wide spot in the road, it was once a booming community. The train station was the center of town and while it has fallen into disrepair, it has been moved to an empty lot and continues to stand duty.


A close up of this lovely old building. Can't you just feel the history?


Here's a shot of our little Tracker, parked by the side of the road while we went exploring. I love this little car, it has taken us to so many places we would have otherwise missed. While many RVers travel with no toad, we wouldn't be without one.

As we traveled the countryside, we discovered fields full of bright red chili. While they had already been picked, I still found the fields bright and lively.


In this photo, you can see a closeup of one of the plants. Aren't they something?


If you drive along the Rio Grande for any period, you'll see these trees. I believe they're cottonwood, but I'm not sure. I do know that they are quite majestic. Each one is worthy of it's own photo.


I still have one more set of photos from Socorro, but we have now moved on to Oliver Lee State Park, outside Alamogordo. This is a lovely park, one of our favorites.

Our good friend Andy is also here, as well as several other friends we've met over the years. It's just like old home week!

Life is good.