McGinn's Pistachio Farm

 This week we have been doing the tourist thing again and hitting up a couple of the pistachio farms in the area. First stop was the McGinn's farm conveniently located across the street from the RV Park, so we just walked over. The big draw for this place is the giant pistachio nut out front, ah la, old school roadside attractions. Of course we had to have our picture taken with it!!

 

The farm has that old country store feel and decor, how ever it is not set up very well. There is one door in and they have the sample pistachios set up right as you walk in, so you have to push your way through all the kids and adults in the way.

 The farm also has a winery and you can sample their wine, and of course buy some if you so desire. Now Sheryl and I are not wine snobs by any means, but it seems as if all their wines had a very acidly taste, just not very pleasant to us. Below are some shots I took from around the farm.

 All in all we were disappointed in the place, too small and too crowded, the wines were not all that good. We wouldn't tell anybody not to stop here for a look, but it just wasn't for us. We did stop by another Pistachio farm down the street and had a much better experience, so stay tuned for that in our next post.

See Ya Then!!!

Found It!!!

You may remember a couple of posts back, we took a trip to Silver City, NM. On the way home we stopped in Demming for dinner at a local Brew Pub. While perusing the beer selection I noticed they had a Green Chili Beer, so I just had to try it. The beer was very good with a truly New Mexico twist. I wanted to talk to the brewmaster and complement him on his beer. Well low and behold, this just happened to be the only beer on the menu he does not brew, he actually buys it from another brewery. We chatted for a bit and he told me the name of the brewery and we left for home. Well as you can imagine, my memory stinks, and I couldn't for the life of me remember the name he told me.....ahhhh whats new. A few days later I was still intrigued with the brew, so I set about on an internet search to find the brewery that crafted this fine cerveza. After a bit of searching I had found my elusive prey.....you gotta love the internet.
The beer was brewed by the Rio Grande Brewing Co. in Moriarty, NM. Now my next task was to find it locally, I didn't set out on a mission to find it, rather I just looked in all the normal places we shop. Well, today while at Walgreens, there it was sitting proudly on the shelf, with all the other specialty beers. Of course I picked up a six and am enjoying a cold Pancho Verde Chile Cerveza.....ahhhhhhhh good stuff. I believe 'll be picking up a case to take on our travels to share with friends and family and let them taste a true New Mexican beverage.
As I enjoy my cold one, don't forget to Love Your Life as we do ours.....Take Care and Cheers!!!

Cloudcroft and a Day in the Mountains

 Thursday was a day to get out of the house for a bit. Since we are going to be here for another 6 weeks, we thought we'd take a look at some of the RV parks up in the mountains. We have givin thought to moving to one of the mountain RV parks for a change of scenery and cooler temps when our time is up here.

On our way up we stopped in at the Old Apple Barn, it's a typical tourist stop which sells all kinds of goodies and trinkets in a old country atmostshere. It was fun looking at all the old stuff and things for sale. We only stayed for a 1/2 hour or so and then it was farther up into the mountains.

 I'll spare you the blow by blow on all the little RV parks up here. Most are pretty tight, small spaces, no TV reception and no WiFi. Great places for a weekend getaway or week long stay, but for any longer it could get old quick. However if you have satellite TV and don't depend on wifi, these mountain RV parks would be a nice getaway from the desert summer heat. So we decided to just stay where were at until it's time to head out, as the temps should start cooling off a bit soon.

One great thing about spending the day in the mountains, was the wild flowers were in full bloom, everywhere you looked it was just beautiful.

The day was getting on and we had planned on being home for dinner, however, our tummies had different plans, as we got pretty hungry staying out later than we planned. We stopped in the small mountain town of Cloudcroft for dinner at one of our favorite places, the Western Bar and Grill. We got into town just after 5:00pm and as you can see the sidewalks roll up pretty early here, but that's the charm, it's not so touristy that is loses its small town roots. Well after filling ourselves with Chicken Fried Steak and Honey Battered Fried Chicken (yes, we chose the healthy heart options.....lol). It was time to head home and back down to the desert heat. One can get used to 70 degree temps pretty quickly after a few months of upper 90s and 100s.

Ok, that was our quick day out, take care and we'll see you back here again in a few days.

Great People

 Like most RV'ers, we have the standard Winguard TV antenna for receiving over the air TV. Since we don't use Dish Network or Direct TV, we rely on our antenna at parks that don't provide cable hook ups. We've also found that when you have 200 channels of nothing to watch, network TV really isn't all that bad, and heck, it beat paying for those 200 channels of nothing.

Ok, on to the reason for today's post, it is to tell you what great folks the owners of the Boot Hill RV Park are. You see, when we pulled into our spot and got all hooked up and settled in, it was time to tune in the TV. Well after the standard channel scan we ended up with 1 channel, when it felt like coming in......what the heck??? Tryed a couple of more times with the same result, even the bedroom TV fared no better??? Ok, figured it was a bad day for TV and tryed again the next day, same results.....darn. Everything worked fine in El Paso so I know it wasn't our system, so I stopped by the office and chatted with the owners. He was stumped also, but he did remember someone a couple of spots down from us had the same issue, so it seems that here along the back fence, the Winguard antennas just have a hard time picking anything up.
 So here's the great part, the owner says, since you guys are going to be here for a month or more, 'll just take down the digital antenna on the office roof and hook it up over at your rig and see if it does any better. Of course I said no, you don't need to go through all that trouble, 'll work something out. He still insisted and said give him about an hour. Well less than an hour later, he was knocking on our door and telling me to try and retune the TV and see what happens. Darned if he didn't come over with a ladder, climb a pole, mount the antenna and hook it up to our rig, before I even knew he was out there. Ok, long story short, the TV comes in great now., What a great person to do that for us, it wasn't like he had an old one laying around, he actually took it down from the office to give to us to use...........We just can't say enough good things about them. So if you are in the southern NM area and need to stop for a visit, we highly recommend this park!!!

That's it for today, so keep on lovin your life as we do ours!!! See you next time.

Boot Hill RV Park, Alamogordo, NM

 Saturday, we decided to leave El Paso (we really needed a change of scenery) and head back to Alamogordo. We had planned on going back to Holloman AFB Campground, but they were full, so plan "B" it was. We remembered a nice RV park on the north side of town, so that was our destination. The Park had plenty of spaces and you just can't beat their prices at 225.00 per month (metered elec extra). The park also has an old west theme and feel to it.

 We chose a site on the back row, away from the highway and with great views of the mountains to the east. This park is out in the country away from town, so it's pretty quiet, There are no trees to speak of, but the sites aren't bad and the owners are great.

As you can see, the owners also have a bit of a sense of humor to go along with the parks name "Boot Hill" We also chose this park over the ones in town and around the area as there are no homesteaders with trashy trailers and junked up sites as most of the others have. We're glad we made the move as things have changed once again, so with a long story, looks like we'll be postponing our travels for about 6 weeks. Being here on the north side of town and close to the mountains again, we'll be getting out and sight seeing some of the sights we never got around to before, so stay tuned for those.
  Ok, adios from Boot Hill, New Mexico and see you here next time!!!

City of Rocks State Park, New Mexico

 Yesterday, we had to take a ride to Silver City, NM. to correct some paperwork on our old trailer so the new owners could register it in their name. On the way back, we thought we'd stop by the City of Rocks State Park, just north of Demming, NM. The City of Rocks is a large outcropping of rocks and boulders in the middle of an otherwise barren area of the desert. The rocks were formed from a volcanic eruption, as the lava and ash cooled, it split, along with years of erosion, this interesting formation came to be. In the photo above, you can see the formations just above the sign and the park is approx 1 square mile in size.

 It was named the City of Rocks for the wide areas between the rocks which resemble streets and walk ways through a rock city.

 There are several balanced rocks throughout the park, however we really liked the one being held up by the small rock underneath.

 There is also a nice drive up to a lookout area with great views of the surrounding desert and mountains. We visited the park for a couple of hours and just had a great time scrambling around the formations. However time was getting on and we needed to start heading towards home.

 When we got into Demming, it was 5:00 and our tummies were growling from our adventure, so we decided dinner was in order. Since we had never actually stopped in Demming before, we settled on just grabbing some fast food. However when we got into town, this little place on a downtown corner caught our eye. It's a local brewpub, which of course brews it's own beer right on the premises, which of course I had to try!!! They also serve only local New Mexico wines. We split a sandwich and Sheryl had a glass of chocolate infused wine. We also shared a desert of fresh mini apple turnovers drizzled with caramel and topped with fresh whipped cream. Sheryl was in heaven as her eyes rolled back in her head with every bite!!! yes she liked them that much!!!

I in turn, spied something on the brewers list that was uniquely New Mexican. Green Chili Lager beer, the waitress served me up a sample and I was hooked. Wow, I was surprised at just how good it was, it had a hint of green chili aroma and background flavor. Just an all around good beer. After filling our tummies and enjoying the atmostsphere, we were off toward the house.
What started as a chore (3 hour drive each way) turned out to be a really great day spent out exploring and experiencing new delights.

Thats was our day out, we had a good time and are looking forward to many more as we hit the road again soon. Ok, take care and Love Your Life as we do Ours!!!

New Pillows and a Camera

 Along with redoing the valances in the trailer, Sheryl had some fabric left over. The new couch we picked up came with a couple of pillows, which of course didn't mach our new decor. So Sheryl broke out her sewing machine and went to work. She recycled the old pillow stuffing and zippers and created three new pillows, so now the rig looks even better and more put together. I think she did a pretty darn good job and we are very happy with the results.

Many moon ago when I was in my late teens/early twenties, I decided I wanted to get into photography and picked up a very nice 35mm camera. Of course this was back in the days of film and all the setting were manually adjusted on the camera lens. I got pretty good at it until one day in Florida, when a large wave crashed over the rocks and soaked the camera and thus sent it to an early grave. Well at that time a couldn't afford another one, so my hobby kinda went by the wayside. Then the age of digital came along, and all the pictures you could take for free!!! I still wanted a nice camera again, but just never seemed to find the money for it as life just kept happening, so again it just went by the wayside. Ok, getting to the point, I started longing after a nice camera again, so we pryed open our bank account and picked one up. We found this Nikon D3000 at the Base Exchange for a good price (compared to in town) and with no tax, just sweetened the deal. Now I know it's not the top of the line model or the latest in camera tech, but it's a big jump over the point and shoots I have been using for some time now.  It will also allow me to (hopefully) be a little more creative in my shots. First I have to figure this thig out, it's pretty user friendly, just have to get used to all the controls being in the camera and not on the lens (old habits are hard to break, even after 30 years!!!)

That's it for this episode, looking forward to creating some good pictures during our travels and just Lovin Our Life. Take Care and see you here next time.