Sunsets . . .

You know, if I wasn't careful I could probably post a sunset every day, they are that spectacular here at Rockhound.

We've had a fine couple of days. You're probably sick of hearing that, but it's the truth!

Today we've made some new friends. Norman and Peggy had found us on the Datastorm Users Group, then started reading the blog, emailed us and today they pulled into Rockhound.

For me, this is one of the best parts of this lifestyle, that we can immediately bond with people and make new friends so easily.

Life is Good.

Please, just enjoy the photos. The sunsets here are truly spectacular. The first four are mine, and the last two belong ot Terry. Remember that you can click on them for a larger imaga.

The Lipizzaners!

Last Friday night we went and saw the amazing Lipizzaner Stallions and what a treat it was!

Before I start writing about this, I do have to apologize for the quality of the pictures. The lighting, the movement and the HUGE head of the guy sitting in front of me all seemed to conspire to defeat my best efforts at photography. That said, I am writing this blog so I have a diary of our travels and since these are the best of a pretty bad lot, I wanted to include them here. That way, when I'm too old to remember such events, I'll have this blog to look back on!

All right, enough apologies, on with the story.

In case you don't know about the Lipizzaners, they are an amazing breed of horse. They have been trained in Austria for hundreds of years. I first became aware of them from the 1963 Walt Disney film, the Miracle of the White Stallions and was really excited to finally get to see them in person. I wasn't disappointed at all.

My first surprise came when we arrived and saw the horses being groomed outside the arena. Everything I've ever heard led me to think all the riders would be men, but I saw this woman grooming one of the horses, and in fact when we saw the show, half the riders were women.


Here's one more shot of one of the horses outside the arena.


We had great seats, first row of the second tier. The first rider came into the arena carrying an American Flag, and then galloped the stallion around the ring. While this picture is quite blurry, there's something about it that appealed to me. While many of the pictures are blurred, they serve to remind me of the speed and fluid movement of these beautiful animals.


This next shot is of two of the riders, saluting the audience. I love these uniforms and particularly enjoy the fact that they work equally well on men and women alike.


This next shot is just of a horse and rider posing, but I liked the way the shadows played in all four directions.


The Lipizzaners are famous for many things, one of them being their ability to rear up and walk or hop on their hind legs. This movements is called the Levade. While I didn't catch the horse at the full rise, this should give you an idea.


These horses were originally trained for battle and they have the ability to jump up and kick out with both their front and rear legs. It's truly an amazing thing to see. The movement is called the Capriole, and while this picture is blurred, all four feet are off the ground and it was the best shot I got of this incredible maneuver.


This horse is an Andalusian that performs with the Lipizzaners. He comes out and actually dances to swing music, very beautiful. At the end of the number, he takes a graceful bow.


During World War II, the Lipizzaners were in danger of extinction. The school was closed, the mares were moved by the Nazis into Czechoslovakia and the stallions were in danger of being disbanded. Thanks to General George Patton and the US Army, the horses were saved and reunited. This is a story that's included in the show and it's a moving tribute that everyone in the troop seems proud to share.


In the final part of the show, six horses and riders come out and perform in unison (sort of like the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall!). It's really impressive and I wish my pictures were better, but what can I say?


The evening was so enjoyable, I highly recommend this show. In fact, I just heard that the Spanish troop (we viewed the American arm of the school) will be touring the US in 2008. I have already marked my computer calendar to remind me when the tickets go on sale. It will be in May of 2008, in case you want to mark your calendar as well.

Quail

This morning Terry called me out to look at a quail, and while we see lots of quail here in the desert, this one was sitting on a bush, a pretty rare site.


Usually they are running around on the desert floor, or pecking for food, kind of like chickens. This fellow sat for such a long time, I took another shot.

Then we went for our walk, where I tok these shots. The spring colors are so subtle but at the same time so beautiful, I hope they come through in these shots.

And here's a patch of purple we watch enlarge every day. A few days ago it was non-existebt, but look how it's growing . . .

Tonight we are going to see the Lipazzaner Stallions, I'm really excited, so I'll close with a shot of last nights' sunset.

Spring is Here!

The morning started with a walk and we realized that Spring has definitely arrived in the desert.

This is a shot we took this morning.


We have set up a small dish as a birdbath outside our window and we watch the birds every day. These two are here twenty to thirty times a day, and we feel like, for a while at least, they are "our" birds.

Then we took a look in the corner of our casita and realized that this pair is building a nest.

"Our" birds are building a nest using the small yellow flowers we see all over the park. All the other nests are brown and plain, but our pair is using flowers!

I was so intrigued I set up the tripod and took pictures of these guys all day long. In the end, there were over two hundred and twenty five pictures. Please understand that these shots were taken from about twelve feet away so they are not the clearest, but I wanted to remember this day, so here are the best of the lot. Also, remember that if you click on a picture, you can see a larger image.

This is the male of the pair. He lit on the top of the Lazy Daze and I got this shot.

Here is the female bringing some fluff into the nest.

And here she is with more flowers. Unfortunately most of them fell off before she made it into the nest.

I think this is my favorite shot, the female just seems to have so much attitude!

In this shot, I liked how confortable and happy with herself she looked.


At the end of the day, a green Lazy Daze pulled into the Campground. I went out to meet them and we now have new friends, Lee and Diane, who have a 2004 26IB.

Beautiful flowers, amazing birds, temperatures in the high 70s to low 80s and new friends.

Does it get any better than this?

Birds

We have had a wondeful slow day, temperatures in the 70s and not too much wind. We spent a good amount of the day just sitting around outside, reading, soaking in the scenery and sun and watching the hundreds of birds.

Since I didn't take any pictures of the birds we saw, today, I thought this shot would do just fine.

This photo was taken at the Living Desert outside of Carlsbad, New Mexico. It's an amazing living exhibit of plants and animals. My favorite part was a huge walk through aviary where I shot this photo of this eagle.

Life is good.

Another Fine Day

Not a lot to write about today, but I must say I surely do enjoy my life.

Our good friend Beth and her dog Tasha arrived yesterday, what a treat! Tasha was so excited to see Terry again, it was sweet. Everyone who travels with a dog is amazed at Terry, he's like the dog whisperer or something. Dogs just immediately take to him. It's a nice gift to watch.

We all spent a good amount of time catching up and just jabbering.

Since we've been on the road, we've met so many people who have become close friends, it's like we now have a huge extended family (and we like all of them!).

This afternoon, Miss Beth and I went into Deming for a girls day of shopping.

We hit the health food store (the picture of the prairie dog above is how I've been feeling lately physically, so it's time to make another feeble attempt at getting healthy), the Post Office, the St Vincent de Paul (where we dropped things off instead of buying, which I know is a big surprise to many of you), the RV Supply store (just to look around, you never know), WalMart (Tuesday is DVD day, but no purchases today) and Peppers Grocery Store (the local market with the great produce and outstanding meat). Whew!

Then we meandered back to Rockhound for another unbelievable sunset and a nice cozy dinner.

As I've said before, Life is good.

OOPS!

Yesterday was our seventh wedding anniversary and we both forgot!

In our defense, while March 11, 2000 is the day we were officially wed (in a lovely service performed by our good friend Howard Lowery) for thirty years prior to the wedding, we had celebrated on March 15.

Confusing? Sort of, so we've decided it is all right to be a little loose with the date we actually celebrate.

Anyway, I wanted to mention it, because I feel so lucky to have been with Terry for these last thirty seven years. What a guy!

Below is my favorite picture from the actual ceremony.



Life really is very good.

Ladybug in Sugarite

I'm going to steal an idea from my good friend Susie Batz, who posts a picture a day on her blog.

While I can't always write a lot every day, I have a huge backlog of photos that I'd like to have catalogued online, so I figure this is as good a way as any.

As always, you can click on an image to see a larger version.



Last year, we spent a few weeks camped at Sugarite Canyon outside of Raton, New Mixico. It is one of my favorite memories, such a lovely spot. One morning, I got up to see the sunrise and took a hike up the mountainside. I saw this little ladybug sitting on a dappled leaf and was lucky enough to get this shot.

Happy Birthday to Buffy Plus New Plans for Our Music

Ten years ago today, Buffy the Vampire Slayer debuted on television.

Following on the heels of a truly dreadful feature length film of the same name, this series was an amazing accomplishment that changed popular culture and television forever. Okay, I know, you think I'm nuts but I have to tell you, this is incredible theater and literature. The show was the brainchild of a fellow named Joss Whedon, who writes, produces, directs and stays true to his personal vision, achieving amazing results.

I have every intention of going into the whole Joss Whedon phenomenon in a later entry, but I didn't want to let this date pass without some acknowledgement.

And now on to current events.

Are we ever bad at making plans! All week long, we've been intending to go into town today to hear another yodeler who was performing in Deming. There was also an event down at Pancho Villa State Park, celebrating the only invasion of the US by foreign troops (to read more about this historic event, click here). Plans for the event included bands, food, skydivers and all kinds of fun stuff, but we decided to pass, since we were so intent on hearing the yodeler.

Then last night I started a project. I've decided I'm going to make a change in the way we listen to our music. Currently, we have all our music on the computer using iTunes. We either listen on the computer (my new MacBook Pro Core2Duo has surprisingly crisp, clean sound) or we listen to the iPod, which we can either run through the speakers in the rig or attach to small portable speakers.

But Apple has come out with a new Airport Base Station that lets users hook up an external hard drive. With this new wifi station for the rig, I can store all our music on this drive and it will be accessible via wifi all the time. Pretty slick, huh?

Unfortunately the new Airport will only support USB2, not firewire and of course all my music is on an old 200g firewire hard drive. This means I need to move it over to a new 350g hard drive with USB2 so I can make this whole thing work.

While most folks keep all their music on their computer, but I've been such a collector that I have way too much so I have always kept the tunes themselves on an external drive. Since I'll be making this change anyway I've decided to take this opportunity to look at the 6,000 plus songs in my library and maybe doing a little cleanup.

I started last night and got up early this morning to keep on the project. As happens, one thing led to another and there I sat, it was 1:45 and I hadn't even showered!

I knew the show started at 4:30 so thought I had plenty of time when Terry asked me "Are we going to hear the man yodel?" I said "but we have a couple of hours". Then he said he thought it was at 2:30.

Once again, he was right and I was wrong. But here I was, immersed in my project, stinky and unclean, so we talked it over and decided to pass.

Ain't life and retirement grand? I love that we can make plans, then change them and suffer no guilt or recriminations. Living like this sure agrees with me.

But just so you know, we do have tickets to go see the Lipizzaner Stallions in Las Cruces next week, and we have made a pact that we won't miss that one!

I'll report more later, on the Stallions, on the music project and on life in general.

But for now, once again, Life is Good

A small note: these pictures are ones I have in my archives. The hummingbird was shot from inside of Cholula Red (we have a suction cup feeder we put on the window) and the sunset is from Storrie Lake, outside of Las Vegas, New Mexico.

Notes From Around New Mexico

I'm still in the process of catching up here, so these first few photos are actually from when we were staying at Oliver Lee State Park, outside of Alamogordo.

The area around Alamogordo is a giant closed basin called the Tularosa Basin, covering some 6,500 square miles. One morning, we decided to take a day trip to Sierra Blanca, an incredible 12,000 foot peak (actually, it's only 11,973 feet, but who's counting?)

To get up to Sierra Blanca, we had to drive up to Ruidoso, a lovely trip by car. When we were close, we saw a sign for the Inn of the Mountain Gods. Well, this name was too intriguing for us to let it pass, so we took the turn off to explore.

When we arrived, we found it to be a large and beautiful convention center/hotel/casino. While we've been in the southwest, we've visited many Indian Casinos, but nothing like this. The Inn of the Mountain Gods is in fact a world class resort, built on a serene lake right at the base of Sierra Blanca.

This photo is taken from their sitting area. If you ever visit this area, the Inn of the Mountain Gods is certainly worth a day trip.


From here, we took a meandering country road into Ruidoso, then over some beautiful mountains into Cloudcroft, a mountain resort above Alamogordo that serves as a ski resort and winter getaway for the folks in the desert.

After leaving Cloudcroft, we took a windy mountain road down to the Tularosa Basin seeping out of the mountains. On the way down, as we were descending the 8,000 feet heights, we saw these incredible icicles. We couldn't pass this up, we had to stop and take a few pictures.


This shot shows a tunnel we had to pass through on our way down the mountain.


Those are the photos I had backlogged of that area, so now we skip forward again to Rockhound State Park. While at Rockhound, it seemed we had finally outrun the snow and bitter cold, but there were several mornings where we woke up to a bit of a frost.

I am constantly curious as to what effect the extreme winter weather exerts here in the desert. I have to admit that before arriving here, it never even occurred to me that there was frost and snow in the desert. How ignorant I was of this vast and rich ecological arena!

This shot is pretty simple, just the fencepost outside our rig. I liked the way the ice sat on the rings of the wood.


As the sun rises, the ice quickly evaporates, but if the morning is cold enough, you can watch it hanging on in the shade until the sun totally melts it for the day. While here at Rockhound, we are constantly picking up various rocks and stones, and we decorate the campsite with our finds.


Here's one more shot of some of our rocks before they lose the last of their morning ice.


Right next to Rockhound State Park is another New Mexico State Park called Spring Canyon, which is for day use only. To get there, you have to travel over an amazingly steep hill, but is it ever worth the trip!

I'm not sure exactly what appeals to me in this photo, perhaps it's the curve of the road?


This is a shot we took of Rockhound State Park Campgrounds as viewed from Spring Canyon. You have to click to enlarge the photo, then pan all the way to the right, and you'll see the tiny campground in the corner. Is this gorgeous country or what??


This shot shows the road, going up the hill as you're leaving Spring Canyon.


This last one is for the folks on the Life With A Lazy Daze RV yahoo group, where we often discuss driving motorhomes on mountain grades. Coming out of Spring Canyon is this sign announcing a 17% grade for 2 miles. I'm posting this picture just for the folks on the board.



We'll be leaving our current position at the LOWs park in Deming in a couple of days. Hopefully we will be going back to Rockhound, so maybe there will be more photos of this amazing park.

Here's one last sunset from Rockhound.

The Aerostat & Yodeling in Deming

How exciting, both Terry and I are feeling better.

Saturday, we went out for a short drive, just needing to get out of the rig for a while.

If you've spent much time in the southwest, you've probably heard of the aerostat. These are huge unmanned blimps that float above the borders, performing radar reconnaissance and who knows what else. They average about half the size of a football field.

What makes them kind of unusual is that they are unmanned and tethered, so once you know where to look, you can pretty much be on the lookout for them. As far as I know, they don't have these in our part of California, and I am fascinated. From our campsite at Rockhound, we were able to see the aerostat that is tethered to the south of Deming. This first picture shows how very tiny it appears in the sky. It's the small white blip above the saddle of the mountains.

Here is another composite I took, blown WAY up, so you can see it a bit better. While these aren't great shots, they are the best I could do from our spot in Deming.


Terry looked at a map and found the location of the Aerostat Station outside of Deming and off we went. We wanted to see if maybe we could get a better look, and a short drive was about all we were up for after our recent bout with the flu.

As we were cruising to the aerostat station, I saw one of the many things that excite me so much about this part of the country. Driving along, I took this shot of the entrance to a ranch (remember to click on the image if you want to see a larger version).

Is that as beautiful a piece of functional artwork as you've ever seen? I sure love New Mexico!

So we ended up making the drive to the Aerostat Station, and sure enough, there it was, right above us, shining in the blue New Mexico sky. Quite a site.

When we woke up on Sunday, we finally knew that we were feeling better. I spent some time posting to the blog, then we took a look through the myriad papers we seem to collect in every location we visit.

Lo and behold, we saw that we were just in time for a free concert we had hoped to attend. The Deming Arts Council was sponsoring a concert by "International Virtuoso Performer Kerry Christensen, Vocalist, Instrumentalist and MASTER YODELER"!!!

Well, I LOVE yodeling and couldn't believe that we had almost missed this treat!

Since this was a free event, the flyer advised that we arrive early for a good seat. Excited to once again be feeling fine and off on an adventure, we left over an hour early, arriving to find the venue locked. We decided to take the hour and go get an ice cream (pretty silly what gets you happy after a couple of days in bed). We returned in plenty of time to get great seats.

I have to tell you, this was quite a show.

This gentleman is exceptionally talented, a true professional. In show business today, it seems that actual entertainers are in pretty short supply, but Kerry Christensen certainly fills the bill. I've seen so many show people who may be able to do one thing well, but I sometimes feel that the era of the all around performer is over.

But there is hope!

This talented fellow sings, plays the accordion, the zither and the Alpine Horn, also known as the Alphorn (yes, one of THOSE horns, the ones you see in the Ricola ads). He also yodels in every imaginable style including western, alpine, Hawaiian, Cajun, jazz, classical. Jewish and even Latin! And to top it all off, he also performs on what he calls the mouth trumpet. With this, he uses his mouth in some kind of buzzing motion and you would swear that there is a trumpet on stage (he does a mean Louis Armstrong).

I hate to sound gushy but this was just such a great show! Kerry has a wonderful voice and is a fine instrumentalist; however for me, his most impressive skill is blending the various elements of his talent into an engaging stage show.

I have never heard anyone actually attempt to play the alphorn before, but I can tell you that when he plays Amazing Grace on this astounding instrument, it is a deeply moving experience. In addition to playing the horn, he accompanies himself on his accordion, which in this song took on the guise of a massive pipe organ. It was a lovely experience.

He related a wonderful story about how he acquired his horn.

Kerry had just given a concert and an elderly gentleman came up to him and told him he wished to sell Kerry his own personal alphorn. Since these are expensive instruments, Kerry politely declined. The man then told him that his horn was worth $7,000 but he wanted to sell it to Kerry for $1,200. Kerry took a look at the instrument and realized that this horn had been carved (apparently all alphorns are handmade) by a trio of fellows who are the acknowledged Masters of this craft. The elderly gent went on to explain that he had hoped to pass his horn on to his children, but he had finally understood that they had no interest.

Then he heard Kerry Christensen play, and the old man knew who he wanted to have his horn. He had only one stipulation, and that was that he wished Kerry to pass it on to his own children. Please, he requested, never sell it.

And as Kerry tells it, he purchased it on the spot and only told his wife about the purchase after he returned from his trip! Isn't that a great story?

He also plays the zither, an lovely instrument we rarely hear these days. My favorite of this part of the show was when he played the theme from the 1949 classic film, the Third Man. It was this haunting tune that first brought the zither to national attention here in America. I tell you, this show just got better and better.

The afternoon literally sped by, I just couldn't believe how lucky we felt to have happened upon this event. And while I have always loved western yodeling, who would have thought I loved other kinds as well? Not only was the afternoon a grand time but it was educational as well.

After the show, there was a reception and everyone got the chance to talk with Kerry. Up close and personal, he is every bit as engaging as on stage. I told him how much I had enjoyed the show and that I would be writing it up on this blog. He kindly pointed me to his website, which I recommend to everyone.

Unfortunately, the lighting was a bit dim during the concert and my pictures didn't come out.

If you ever need an entertainer, this man seems to tour tirelessly and is certainly an engaging stage presence. After the show, they were selling Kerry's CDs and I bought TEN of them, including one titled U2 can Yodel.

Watch out folks, when next you see me, I may be a yodeling fool!.

Please, take a look at his website, and check his schedule. If he is ever performing near you, make sure to attend, you will not be disappointed.

Assorted Musings on the Wind & Appreciating Your Health. . .

I'd like to say that when I started this blog, my intentions were (and still are) to post at least twice a week. Right now, I'm not entirely sure what direction these writings will take. While the title states it is to be about traveling in our motor home, I find I want to write about a variety of subjects, so it will probably evolve into something else entirely.

That said, it's been a strange week. I've started four entries and posted none of them, but hopefully you'll understand why as you read on.

The New Mexico winds have been out in full force. Unless you've experienced them personally, I don't believe you can grasp their power. Racing along at thirty to sixty miles an hour, they are quite a phenomenon. With little out in the desert to break their stride, they rumble on for miles, gathering seemingly unlimited strength.

They remind me of the cartoons I saw on television as a child. Remember, you would see the wind depicted as a large cloudy face with huge puffed up cheeks that could clear a landscape with a single breath? An accurate depiction, it seems.

Sitting in the rig, rocking away is a unique experience, not all bad. I like the way it makes me remember things seemingly forgotten and puts me in touch with places inside me where I don't seem to go often enough. I do find it hard to sleep through the night when the winds are up, but Terry sleeps through anything.

That's probably why my thoughts tend to wander so much.

Years ago, I read a short story of a pioneer woman who was left alone in her cabin on the prairie when her husband went off to do business. The wind started and continued, non stop for days, never letting up. The story followed her lonely fears and thoughts to the tragic conclusion of her descent into insanity and finally suicide; however it never struck home like these last couple of days, when the wind was so much like that described in the story. I listen to the power of nature and am amazed. It is certainly awe inspiring, but certainly not as vicious as in the story (but then I'm not alone in a wooden shack, miles from anywhere with no relief in sight).

I wish could remember the name, it struck me when I read it as a teenager and has stayed with me ever since.

The endless moans also remind me of a 1928 silent film called the Wind. This movie stars Lillian Gish (one of my favorite actresses, but that's another entry). Without going into the story too deeply, suffice it to say that the wind is not only the title character, but the force that drives the whole story. An amazing experience and a treasure of early Hollywood. If you haven't seen this film, it sometimes shows up on Turner Classic Movies and is well worth your time.

This might also be the time to mention a book that seems to pop into my mind more and more frequently. Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey is a compilation of writings of the amazing women who made the journey west during the 1800s. Spending so much time in the southwest has made me think of it often and appreciate my life and the women who came before me. They were an incredible breed and we would all do well to remember them.

All right, enough ramblings, back to the present.

So there we were, in the rig for several days with the New Mexico winds howling. Then in the middle of last week, I woke up at 3:00AM and was suddenly, violently sick. This continued for about eighteen hours, with Terry waking in the morning with a similar ailment. It seems we had contracted some kind of stomach bug and it totally incapacitated us for three long days.

On the third day, still feeling poorly, we had to leave Rockhound State Park. With our Annual Passes, we can only stay for twenty one days, then we must leave for six days to another park. They had already let us stay an additional day due to our illness, but we felt it was time to move on.

So we came down to the LOW Park here in Deming, a short seven miles away. Technically a park for singles, they will allow us in since they also honor Passport America. It's fairly isolated and quiet so we hope to spend our six days here then go back to Rockhound. There are several interesting events happening in Deming during the month of March so we've decided to stay in the area for a while.

Just let me close by saying that I am currently in a position to fully appreciate my health. It's true that while we are feeling well, we rarely value this gift. Maybe we have to experience illness every once in a while to fully recognize the bounty of our daily lives?