Sheryl and I finally had a day off with absolutely nothing to do (well, nothing pressing anyway....lol) and decided to explore the Sacramento Mountains (Lincoln NF) for a the day. We decided to take Mama Jeep (Grand Cherokee) since the day was rainy and cool in Alamogordo, so it would be rainy and COLD in the mountains. First stop was the village of Cloudcroft, a quaint little mountain town (again, more on the town in future posts) and a quick look around as well as lunch before we headed off to parts unknown. We found a nice little cafe with great food and the best Club sandwich I have had in a long long time. The place was Dave's, will get pics on the next trip, but what a great little place, will be back there for sure.

We decided to take the road to the Sunspot Observatory and maybe hit some side roads off of it. We did stop at each scenic overlook and the views if the valley and White Sands were just amazing. of course we had to do the famous "US" picture and of course I snapped it just in time to catch my honey being fresh...lol

We found a side road and the sign said Bluff Springs, so we thought we'd check it out. C17 was your typical unpaved forest service road and the springs were approx 4 miles. We followed the road which had a nice little creek paralleling it the whole way, there were open meadows on the south side of the road with the mountain heading up the north. When we arrived at the springs we were pleasantly surprised to find a waterfall, only about 50 feet high but and unexpected treat never the less. We hiked up to the top of the falls and Sheryl went back down to take a picture of yours truly.

After exploring the falls for a bit, we headed back to the main road and continued on towards the observatory. We came upon Cathey Vista, set back off the main road, so of course we had to see. We drove down the main road to the vista and noticed it continued up the hill, we decide to follow the road, which became pretty rocky and ended at a radio tower (sorry no pics). We drove back down to the Vista, the views again were just amazing of White Sands and Tularosa Basin

We finished at the Sunspot Observatory (pictures next time) and just looked around the gift shop, and decided to leave the tour for another day. It was getting on dinner time, so we set our sights on Alamogordo and a hot meal.

We ran across this guy and 3 more of his friends, just hanging out on the side of the road, I was surprised that even though we stopped, they were not spooked and just went about there business.

We had a great little get away, if only for the day. The weather had cleared in the mountains, but was still cool in the 50's. This but one of many explorations we will be doing in and around the Alamogordo area, so stay tuned for more.

Initial Excusion into the Linclon National Forest

Sheryl just finished a mid shift at the hospital, so I figured I get out of her hair so she could sleep. Decided to take a quick trip into the forest and get a general feel for it. Great thing about the ted forest only being a few minutes away!!! The Lincoln is very diverse in it's geography, from desert foothills to alpine mountains, rolling hills to jagged rock faced mountains and everything in between.

The trip started with leaving the desert floor and heading up.

The foothills give way to more rocky mountains.

The first real roads you can travel off the mainroad are located higher into the tree line, Karr Cyn Rd, is paved for a few miles and then turns to gravel as it enters the NF. The road is several miles long and at about 3/4 in the Aspen tree suddenly begin to appear. Nice change as you gain elevation.

Once off Karr Cyn, it was pavement till Russia Cyn Rd, which would take me close to the village of Cloudcroft at just over 8000 feet, up from 4000 in Alamogordo. Cloudcroft is a nice little mountain village, with all the typical tourist shops and eateries. (more on Cloudcroft in a future post)

On the way back down from Cloudcroft is the historic remains of a once vibrant railroad. The rest of the railroad bed has be taken over by the Rails to Trails organization. The trestle is all that remains today.

In the picture above you can see the White Sands National Park in the distance (more to come on White Sands in a future post also) That's it for the short jaunt to explore just a small section of the forest, much more to see and you'll see it here as we head out on many great adventures.

Were Herrrrre, Alamogordo NM that is

We finally made the move to the great desert southwest, Alamogordo NM. Other than a few loose ends back in Amarillo, we are here to stay for the time being. Why in the middle of "no where NM" you ask, well simply put, Work. Sheryl excepted the position of ER Charge Nurse for the local hospital. We weighed the different options of various other locations and Alamogordo fit our needs both financially and life style. For those of you not familiar with the area, Alamogordo is situated between the Lincoln National Forest at the foot of the Sacramento Mountains and White Sands National Park approximately 1 1/2 hours north of El Paso, TX. and just a few miles from Hollowman AFB.

Sheryl found us a great house to rent, here at the foot of the mountains.

View from the driveway.

View from the back patio.

Thats all for now, as we get settled in. Take care and see ya next time.

A Wedding to Behold

Last week we took a trip to Orlando, FL. for my daughters wedding. Of course being the Father of the bride, I had to give my baby girl away to the new (ok not so new...but) man in her life. I actually didn't mind as I know Chris is a good man and he will take care of her and love her dearly. She feels the same for him, so I know they will be happy together. Her is just a sampling of shots from the wedding, I didn't get to many as I was caught up in the moment and just enjoying the day.

Kayla and Chris's first dance

Our Father Daughter Dance
The Bride and her groomsmen (what a luck girl!!!!)

And the wedding party at play.

Will post a few more of the ceremony later, as they come in.

We (Sheryl and I attempted to squeeze in alittle vacation time along with the wedding, it wasn't much but we did manage a little. Before the wedding we of course helped as best we could. Took Sheryl to Big Tree county park in Seminole county FL, this park boast the largest Cypress tree in the southeast. Didn't get a great pic of the tree, but did get a shot of Sheryl looking Beautiful as always.
We also went Canoeing down the Wekiva river in Central Fl. The Wekiva is one of the few designated Wild and Scenic rivers. The water is crystal clear and ice cold!! As it turned out we had quite a group come with us, about 15 or so total for our adventure. We saw a 6 foot alligator and I was able to get Sheryl within 10 feet before it thrashed into the weed bed, quite a sight for her. And to clarify, we floated slow up to the area of the gator, we did not scare or provoke it in any way. Of course I left the camera in the car so no pic's this time, but here is a shot from last time we did the Wekiva.
Ok, that's it for now, the wedding was great, and the river trip was fun as always. So as we begin to love our life again, you do the same!!!

As you can tell from the previous post, we took a trip to Virginia for Sheryl's new travel assignment, well, due to the economic down turn she was layed off after one month. Sheryl returned home to begin a new travel assignment search and found, no one was hiring travel nurses, of course this process took a few weeks to realize. So after a couple of months things began to look bleaker and bleaker in the travel nursing field. The decision was made to begin looking for a full time permanent nursing job. Sheryl was contacted right away by a nurse recruiting firm who had several positions available across the country. Long story short, we accepted a job in Alamogordo NM, the hospital administration fell in love with Sheryl (who wouldn't!!!) and offered her the job pretty much on the spot. However 4 months with no income has really put a damper on our finances, my two jobs has helped to keep us barely treading water, but still in rough seas.

Things are beginning to look up, and we can see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, when our house in Amarillo sells (I know great time to try and sell a house) things will be much better.

In this economy it is difficult to love your life sometimes, the key is to look at what you do have, and I have a wonderful loving wife and a great family. We have learned, like most of America, to begin living with in our means and not at the top of the budget, it is so easy to fall into the credit trap. So learning from our mistakes will make us better.

As we begin to love our life again, hope you folks can do the same, until next time.................well, you know!!!

Virginia Here We Come!!!

• The Long Beach assignment is now a memory (bad memory...lol) for Sheryl, she left Long Beach Thursday night and drove into Amarillo Friday evening. We packed our stuff and headed for Richmond VA, bright and early Saturday morning, our goal was Nashville TN. We did stop in at OKC and had breakfast with her son Joseph and then we were on the road again. Once we started getting into eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas, the drive started to become a thing of beauty. With the rolling Ozark mountains and the fall leaves turning it was just a beautiful drive. We made it into Memphis TN. around dinner time and decided we would try some world famous Memphis BBQ. So off the 40 and into downtown Memphis and the visitor center, where we learned of 2 famous BBQ joints, Neely's and The Rendezvous (both have been featured on Food Network.) Since Neely's was on the other side of town and The Rendezvous was right down the street, well............................off to the Rendezvous we went. We arrived pretty early as dinner standards go(4:30) so we were pretty much one of the few dinners. Ok enough of the build up, how was the dinner you ask??? We had the ribs and I hate to say we were a bit disappointed, they had good flavor, however were kinda dry, not the juicy, succulent fall off the bone ribs we were expecting. We hope we just got a bad batch, but next time we'll give the Neely's a whirl.
• On a side note, Best ribs to date: Ellis Island Casino, Las Vegas, NV. After leaving the Rendezvous we were on the search for desert, mainly cheesecake. Our waiter suggested a place about a mile away, good thing was you could take the trolley and it would drop you right next to the place. The trolley was pretty cool, as both Sheryl and I had never rode one before. Well, what better place to try some cheesecake, than a place called The Cheesecake Corner. I must say, what a great place, around 20 different kinds of cheesecake, we stuck with the classic plain with a strawberry glaze. The cheesecake was very good and the presentation was great and we recommend it to anyone passing through Memphis. As mentioned before, the drive was beautiful, probably the prettiest interstate drive we have ever taken, mainly due to the time of year. We made it to Virginia, yeaaaaaaa, now only a mear 5 or so hours to go. Of course we did the tourist thing and picked up all the pamphlets we could. We arrived in the early evening, about will be Sheryl's new home for the next 13 weeks. The room is nice, how ever like any hotel kinda noisy, especially with her working mids.
  

The following day we decided to go exploring, we picked a park down by the river, so off we went. The park is on a island in the middle of the river, you have to take a foot bridge to get there, and of course we had to do it the hard way (ok we got lost) but ended up finding the back way in and a cool little canoe/kayak put in area on the other side of the river. At the trail head there is the makings of a old dugout canoe, sponsored by one of the local collages. Sheryl just had to jump in and take her turn at shaping the canoe.

The James River runs right along downtown Richmond, in the springtime it has class IV/V whitewater, one of the only urban whitewater areas in the country.

Once on the island, history abounds, the island was home to factories, civil war prisons, Indian villages and numerous others throughout history.

The James river is pretty low this time of year and you can almost walk across it

The island has a beautiful hiking trail which skirts the shoreline, about a mile long.

A couple of days later, we visited the American Civil War Center (part of the National Park Service) It was a very interesting tour and we learned alot about Richmond's role during the war and how the war help to shape our country today. Richmond also offers a riverside pathway, the path is a couple of miles long and has many historic sights. Above is an old factory wheel (part of a display) I thought it would make a good picture depicting the old with the new building.

Speaking of old and new, there is the old R.J. Reynolds Tobacco building (long since abandoned) with more of the new Richmond skyline.

A look at downtown Richmond from the footbridge to the island (yes, the one we were looking for originally...lol)

I was off on my own today, so I hit the hiking trails on the island again. Along with the main trail there are several other that wind there way around and through the island.

Another shot of Downtown.

Well, my trip was over and time to head home, but not until we visited and old friend who lives in Norfolk VA. We had dinner with her and a all around good visit. The first leg of my return home was to Washington DC and a 1 1/2 hour layover.

Since it was lunch time, and I had time to kill, food would be the order of the day. As luck would have it, I found this little burger place tucked away in the corner of the airport, and I must say they had the best burgers at any airport I have ever been to, again, give 5 Brothers Burgers a try if you ever find yourself at the DC airport and hungry.

The next leg of my journey home brought me to Dallas and an almost 6 hour layover. This layover was planned so I could meet up with my daughter Kayla and her future hubby Chris. They showed me there new place (very nice) and feed me some really good pulled pork which they had made, Great Job kids!!!! It was good to see Kayla and Chris again, even if it was only for a short time. Good news is, they'll be headed for Amarillo to join us for Thanksgiving, so we get to see them again soon.

Well that was the VA trip in a nutshell, tried to post at the hotel but the connection was wayyyyyyyyy to slow. Ok, that's it for now, take care and drop in again as we love our life.