El Paso, TX/Ft Bliss

Our next door neighbor,( Scott) here in the park asked me if I could take him down to the El Paso Airport yesterday morning. He is here for a couple of months for school, and was not too keen on the idea (neither was his wife Kelly) on her driving 70 miles back through the desert by herself. So when Scott asked if I would mind driving him down and picking him up a few days later, of course I said yes. The drive down was uneventful, just general chit chat. I dropped him of at the airport and said I'd see him in a couple of days.

El Paso Airport has a really nice Bronze Statue and Clock Tower marking the entrance.

The back entrance to Ft Bliss is just outside the airport, so I thought I'd take a short trip through the base. I took a road I had not been on before and ran across these old adobe buildings, they looked so out of place, I just had to stop to investigate. Turned out to be some of the orginial buildings from when Ft Bliss that was built back in the late 1800s. It appears most the buildings were destroyed from departing US troops, except for the hospital and church which you see standing here.

It is now a museum, but it wasn't open today. So I just walked around and took a few shots.

On the drive down, again I took a new route. I could see what looked like Military Cemetary from the road, so I thought I'd go a see what it was all about, and of course pay my respects to those who were laid to rest there, after serving our Great Nation.

Turned out to be a U.S. National Cemetary (military) One thing I did notice on the headstones. That I wasn't aware of, was on the back of the headstones was the name of the soldiers spouse complete with DOB and year of death. I found that a fitting tribute and a way to keep each other close even though they were parted so suddenly, that after death they are once again close together.

God Bless all who have served our great nation and paid the ultimate price.

New Generator and a Close Call

We finally decided (and had the money) to buy a generator so we can boondock as needed and not have to worry about elec. After alot of research we decided on the Honda 3000 Handi. I know there are less expense generators out there, but we decided to attempt to do it right the first time and buy the best. These little beauties are supposed to run "Most" 13.500 BTU RV A/C units. Well we found out, our A/C unit is not considered "Most", yup plugged her in hit the A/C switch and the poor ole Honda just sputters and dies a slow horrorable death. Darn, Darn, Darn (ok, maybe alittle more colorful, but you get the idea) Wow I think to myself, a $1900.00 paperweight!!! Of course it'll run everything else just fine. Bad part is (well more than one bad part) we had went back and forth on buying two 2000 watt gens or the one 3000 watt, but decided on the one for simplicity, figuring it would do what we needed. Second bad part is, we bought it off a internet site, so very doubful we can return it after it has been ran (can't mail a engine with oil and gas fumes anyway) so were kinda stuck with it.

Now for the close call part, when I decided to test out the generator and see how it would do running the RV, I went out and unplugged from the power post and this it what I saw!!! Not good, not good at all I thought. So instead of sticking that in the new generator, I thought I put it back into the outlet until I could get a new cord. Yea, that didn't work at all, all the post did was sizzle and pop!!! Ok, no power, this isn't good (oh and it's all ready 95 degrees) Ok, just run down to the RV shop, oh wait, it's Sunday everyone is closed!!! Think, Think, Think, ahhhh Camping World is open, it's over and hour drive, but you gotta do what you gotta do, so off we went.

We get to Camping World prepared to buy a whole new cord, but all they have are 30 amp extension cords. I wanted one with a plug and open wires on the other end.....hmmm now what to do. I looked up and saw just a new plug I could replace my old one with............wow save 30 bucks also......sold!!! Of course you can't come away from Camping world with just one item......ok, thats another post in itself....lol Get home, rewire, plug the nice new plug into the post and Snap, Sizzle, Pop!!! pull the plug right away and the metal tabs are already burnt, not bad, just wiped them off, and goonew. Troubleshooting overwith, figure it's a bad 30 amp socket. Well I'll just call and have it fixed.........oops, it's Sunday on a military base, nothing is open......hmmmm made a few calls and was able to get an emergency work order to fix the plug. About 2 hours later the Electrician showed up to fix the post. They were great, even if they were called in from home, they did a bang up job and got the post fixed for us......woooo hoooo we have power again!!! While they were fixing the post they noticed the 30 amp plug was completly shot and the power wire to it were burning up, so it was a close call that we didn't end up with a fire in the post or our RV.

Ahh, back to the gernerator ordeal, we thought about it and decided to keep the 3000 and if needed later, just buy another 3000 and run them in parallel, better to have too much power than not enough.

Well, that crisis was everted, thank goodness. Never a dull moment in this Fulltiming thing, were still loving it and can't wait to actually get out there on the road. Speaking of loving it, since I we haven't said it a while.....Keep Lovin your Life as we do Ours!!! See ya next time.

Saved A Life Today!!!

Ok, it was just a little baby birdies life, but still a life none the less. You may remember from a few posts back, we have a metal awning which covers our little patio. In each corner of the awning there is a birds nest that seems to be reused over and over again by the local bird population. Well, in one of the nests there were three little eggs we had been watching for a while, we watched them hatch and grow big enought to fly the coop. This morning there seemed to be more chirping than normal coming from the nest area, so I thought I'd check out what all the ruckus was about. Well it seems, of the three babies, there was still one in the nest, and the others had already flown and left this little one behind. Thats when I noticed his little leg was tangled up in a string that the nest had been made out of..........poor little guy just couldn't get loose!!! So off inside to get the scissors to cut him loose, as I was trying to get him loose, he was not having any of it (birdie panic I'm sure) but as the string was cut, he was out of there like a shot!!!, no thanks or even a wave goodby, just gone. Ahh well, a good deed needs no thanks, just that feeling of helping out a little one in need was satisfing enough.
Sorry no pictures, the rescue was quick and in the heat of the moment.
Thanks for following along, just had to post and all is well............................

New Crusier Bikes

After years of riding mountain bikes, we have decided they are great for mountain biking, but not so great for greneral pleasure riding. Since we are doing more and more pleasure riding now and less trail rides we decided it was time for a change. We happened to be walking through the Base Exchange (military dept store) the other day and saw a pair of his and hers cruiser bikes on sale. So we looked at them and discussed picking them up, we also noticed they were a bit scratched up, so we asked the manager if he would discount them a little more, low and behold he did. Well as you can see we are now the proud owner of two new Huffy Cruiser Bikes.

We both love how you sit tall in the saddle, no gears to shift, just good ole bike basics and we love them.

The other part we love is the nice large comfy seats, just right for our aging.................well you know.....lol.

It's bee pretty rainy and very cloudy for the past week, so we haven't seen the moon in several days. Last night the skies cleared and the full moon rise over the mountains was just stunning.

Take Care and catch everyone on the next installment.

Life in the Slow Lane at the FamCamp

Another week has gone by here at the FamCamp, some of our long timers have begun to move on, leaving us with several open spaces. As they leave, I make a valid attempt to clean up the sites, but some are so overgrown with weeds and grass, I can only get the big stuff. There has also been a slow down in folks passing through (I guess summertime in southern NM is not the greatest of destinations...lol) most folks are just passing through. Like the RVers the rains continue to come and go. Being here in the desert it is pretty cool to watch the rain storms come cross the valley floor, some times they hit us but most just continue on there merry way.

Saturday, I meet some new folks who wanted me to show them around the local mountains. We headed out around 10:00am and travelled some of the same trails as in our last post, so I won't bore you with another lengthy write up. However, I thought I'd post a couple of my favorite shots from the trip. About half way through the trip, the sky's opened up and the rains came making for some very muddy and slippery roads.

Again, thats was our week, fun, rainy, and always interesting watching folks come and go. So take care until next time.

Sacramento Mountains With New Friends

Saturday morning I met up with Chris and Kim from El Paso, TX to show them the local off road trails here in the Sacramento Mtns and to escape the 100+ temps here on the desert floor.

We started out in the lower mountains where desert plants still thrive, and the temps begin to drop. The NF roads are rocky and steep in these areas, so high clearance 4 wheel drive is a must. However these roads take you to the most amazing overlooks and scenery.

You may look at the road in the pics and say, hmmmmm that dosen't look so bad, thats because on the difficult parts we're to busy driving to take any pics, so don't let the flat areas fool you, it's a bumpy ride up and down the hills.

A little further up the mountains, I took them to see Bridal Veil Falls, a little known, unmarked waterfall tucked back in the mountains. The area used to be privite property, but the Forest service bought the land and opened it to the public. In the foreground you can see the old iron gate. Hard to make out, but it says Harris Hollow, the old gate has since been replaced with your standard green Forest Service Gate. I like the old one better.

It's about a half mile hike back to the falls, they are approx 50' tall and flow year round. They were a popular stop on the old Cloudclimbing RR of the 1900s. The rail road would stop by the falls so the riders could cool themselves in the mist of the falls before continuing on up into Cloudcroft.

After viewing the falls we continued our journey deeper into the forest.

One last overlook, before going up into the high mountains.

The high mountains provide a whole different ecosystem, tall pines, grassy hillsides and of course temps in the 60s and 70s. It was a great day exploring and showing new friends some little known and remote areas.

As you can tell by our little narrative at the top, we prefer to find the roads less traveled, not only when traveling the country with our RV, but also during stops along the way. You may ask how we find all these cool places to explore?? Well just like with RV forums, we frequent some off road forums and are able to connect with people from all over the country, who know all the secret little places in their backyard. A couple of the forums we visit are http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/ this is mainly for folks who enjoy off road adventure and Expedition type travel, http://www.militaryjeepers.com/community/ As the title says, it's active duty and military veterens who own and enjoy their Jeeps, they run the gamet from hard core rock crawling (not me) to adventure travel in their Jeeps (yup, thats more like us). As with the RV forums, these forums alow us to meet and connect with new people where ever we travel.

We look forward to meeting as many folks as we can during our Fulltime adventure and who knows we just run across some of you out on the trail, so get out there and explore some of those little known, hard to get to places, you will be plesently surprised by what you find (please make sure you have the proper vehicle and equipment for it)

Ok, See you out on the roads and trails less travelled.

The Rains Cometh

Monsoon season has come to New Mexico (yes theres a mountain range there somewhere), it has been raining almost every afternoon this week. Of course we went through "Monsoon" season last year here, and I must say (being from FL) I just have to giggle, as they are more like an afternoon shower in Florida. Our other surprize is that it actually rains here in the southern New Mexico desert and how much it actually rains.

It's also been 2 weeks since we started Camp Hosting and life here at the FamCamp has slowed down pretty well, just a couple of folks here and there for a night or two, so it's been pretty easy. The weeding continues as does the day to day cleaning. We have met so many great people, if only for a night, which is making this hosting job worth doing.
Thanks for stopping by......................