Apologies-wi-fi problems

We spent the last 3 days in Sedona, AZ-absolutely breathtaking scenery! The campground where we were staying-only one in Sedona-was having wi-fi problems-and they told us daily that a repair person was going to attempt to fix it-never got fixed before we left this morning. We are now in the Canyon Campground 50 miles south of the Grand Canyon and plan to spend tomorrow exploring the South Rim. Am not going to try to get caught up until we have a better wi-fi connection. We couldn't get on the net inside the camper so came down near the office. We're sitting in the shade and it is actually chilly-and it's difficult to see. So I wouldn't forget everything, I wrote up some notes in Word and will try to copy and paste, but we'll see how successful I am at that. Yesterday, Hank did a great video with his camera, and in the process of importing it into the PC I lost it-felt terrible. I may locate it, but doubt it.

Carlsbad to Albuquerque

Left our campsite South of Carlsbad and drove about 10 miles North of the city and visited the Living Desert which is for beginners like us a great education about desert wildlife and vegetation. Went through a zoo of desert birds including the owls you see in one of the photos I'll attach, a Javelina (wild pig), a bear, wolves, elk, bison, deer, prairie dogs, snakes, and others along with nature walks with the vegetation-mostly cacti-labeled-then there was a whole building devoted to succulents of the world-some beautiful cacti,etc. We have a multitude of photos to show those who might have an interest. In all we spent about 2 hours seeing all the exhibits-mostly outdoors and by 11 am it was getting hot so we decided to get on the road in the air conditioned car and headed North for Roswell, NM. The only aliens we saw were inflatable ones on used car lots-we passed up a variety of UFO museums. Had a slight mishap with a low canopy over a gas bar and it broke the cover over the camper refrigerator-but the gas attendant told us about an RV repair shop a couple of miles away and we got a new cover and Hank installed it in just a few minutes. From there we headed West up into the high desert-past and through some incredibly high mountains-I always pictured NM as being very flat. Beautiful, but barren lands-not many towns-and eventually we came upon the Valley of Fire-5 miles or so of black rock outcroppings in every direction as far as we could see which we stopped to examine. The rocks beside the road looked very porous-have to Google that and see what I can learn! Eventually we made our way to I-25 about 80 mi. South of Albuquerque-made it to the city just in time for rush hour, but made our turn onto I-40 West with no trouble. We had found The Enchanted Trails Campground in our Passport America directory and had no trouble locating the campground itself. It turns out that this campground was originally Hill Top Trading Post on Route 66! Hank has always wanted to drive on what's left of rte 66-tonight he got his wish. We drove the 15 miles to the Route 66 Casino so we could have dinner in their buffet. Casino didn't interest us at all-too smokey and too noisy-but the buffet was inexpensive and very good!

Now settling in for the night we've enjoyed a beautiful desert sunset. Heading West into Arizona tomorrow. Apologies-for whatever reason am unable to attach photos tonight.

Carlsbad Caverns, NM

We spent the majority of the day driving to and enjoying Carlsbad Caverns which is about 30 mi. SW of the city of Carlsbad-then up a narrow winding 7 mile road up into the Guadalupe Mtns. Much to Hank's frustration they were paving that road and we had to wait about 15 min. in a line of cars, buses and large RV's to go up the mountain. The entrance to the caverns is in a small valley in the midst of the mountains. The top left photo shows the huge dark gaping entrance and to get down into the caverns-nearly 1,000 ft deep we walked down paved walkways which were incredibly steep. The right photo shows some of the rock just as we entered that huge gaping hole in the ground. We were warned that it was a very strenuous walk and that there is an elevator which would take us down into the caverns in a minute and that anyone with heart problems, leg problems, etc. should do that. Every evening at dusk millions of bats fly out of the mouth of the cave and I guess it must be quite a spectacle. (There is seating just above the opening where we could have gone to watch the exodus, but we were just too tired to make the trip back up there tonight.) I have a serious problem with heights and was a bit nervous at the beginning of the descent. However, once we got past the light from the opening, the lighting was kept "cave-like" and if I couldn't see a huge drop off the side of the walkway it was fine with me. Prior to our entering the cave we had rented audio gadgets which gave us commentary at various points-50 of them-along the way-so our tour was self-guided. We met a lady going about our speed who was by herself and asked if she could walk with us-she is from Port St Lucie, FL and her husband was meeting her at the bottom of the descent. Had a good time sharing experiences along the way. We saw all kinds of stalagmites and tites, and flowstone, and drapery, and soda straw formations-and water pools so clear it was unbelievable. Most of the formations were made 200 million years ago, but in some areas some of the formations are being added to as water seeps through rock and down through the layers of whatever is in its path mixes with minerals which give the formations some color. Eventually we made it down to what is called the "Big Room"-takes and hour and a half to walk all the way around it-incredible sights. There is even a snack bar, restrooms and gift shop outside the big room-750' below the surface of the ground! We had some nourishment then did the walk around the perimeter of the room-more incredible formations. And this room is 100' high in places! Very hard to be able to describe it! The temperature in the caverns remains at 56 degrees year 'round and we had been warned to bring sweater or jacket and glad we did. When we finally came up -via the elevator-out of the caverns the outside temperature was nearly 100 with a hot wind blowing. Of course we had to explore to bookstore and gift shop and purchased a DVD so any of our readers will be able to get an idea of what we experienced!

Eventually made our way back to our campground just south of Carlsbad City-fixed some supper then did a week's worth of wash. We live such an exciting life, right? Not quite sure from where the next piece of the blog will be sent from as we're not sure exactly where we're headed tomorrow!

San Antonio, TX to Carlsbad, NM

Left photo shows nothing-that's what we saw nearly all day.

Center " shows part of a wind mill farm-take my word for it!

Right shows an operating drilling oil well along the highway

Leaving San Antonio at 8:15am on a Sunday was a good decision as we encountered little traffic as we made our way West on I-10. Am at a loss for words to describe the vastness, emptiness, and strange land formations we saw along the 473 miles we traveled today. And no towns for more than 50 miles at times. We were trying to gage when to purchase gasoline-at one point we got off the highway-drove a mile into a town which advertised gas (on the highway) but when we got to the town, it was almost a ghost town-there was no gas. And it was about 30 miles from the next town-which we hoped had gas! Got back on the highway-made it to Sonora-on fumes only-where everyone within 50 miles was waiting to fill up at $2.99 per gallon! As we had seen many what we believed to be oil drilling operations we wondered why we were paying more in Texas for gas than anywhere else? (Also saw many wind farms with hundreds of wind turbines.) Back on the highway with a full tank was a very good feeling and at Ft. Stockton, TX we left the Interstate to take US rte 285 through more desolate countryside and very sad towns-like Pecos-on into New Mexico to Carlsbad where we had to change to Mountain time-now we're 2 hours behind you! ( Have to keep that in mind if I make any phone calls to any of you! ) Found a campground from our Passport Directory and 2 minutes after we got the camper set up with electricity, water, etc. we got hit with a thunderstorm which gave us small hail beating on the roof, but the worst part of that was that it took out the electricity-no A/C-and the temp. had been 101 degrees before the storm and the camper was HOT! Hank talked with the maint. person at the campground and we were told the power would not be restored for 2-3 hours! So when the storm abated a bit we got back in the car and decided to see what the city of Carlsbad had to offer. On first look not much as it looks pretty dreary in the rain-the streets were flooded in some intersections and there doesn't seem to be any mechanism to deal with the water-no culverts or whatever. Thought we might find a place to have some dinner, but the only thing open was Chilli's and the line was long. So we rode around for a while and finally came back to the camper where Hank made us Western Omeletes (sp?) which were great! And to our great delight the power was on and we have A/C! Hank said I should explain that tho we are camping we are not sitting around a campfire toasting marshmallows! We have cable TV, a supply of beer and wine and evenings are pleasant-indoors!

El Mercado & Natural Bridge Caverns

We began our adventures today by finding our way to El Mercado-otherwise known as Market Square. We had envisioned a lot of outdoor stalls, but the majority of it was in two huge old warehouse buildings on the westside of SA. There was supposed to be a Farmer's Market, but that must be other than on Saturday, 'cause we sure didn't find anything that you might find at a Faarmer's Market! What we did find were shop after shop selling Mexican souvenirs (much of it made in China!) lots of it nothing we either wanted or needed, but just to help the local economy we did pick up a couple of gifts for some folks who will remain un-named! My favorite item was a Mexican Santa for my collection-complete with beard and sombrero. Crossing the street there were outdoor stalls selling fajitas, etc. and musicians playing pan flutes, etc. After listening to a pan flutist for awhile we decided to move on to our next adventure. No photos of El Mercado because the photographer was too busy looking at all the colorful stuff that we didn't need!

The next adventure involved driving north of San Antonio for about 30 miles in order to visit the Natural Bridge Caverns which we had seen billboards and other ads for and decided we'd give it a try-having no real idea of what we might be seeing. When we got there and purchased the tickets we were told that our tour would begin in an hour and 10 minutes and we could pass the time in their convenient gift shop which was also full of a lot of stuff we neither wanted or needed. After what seemed an interminable wait our tour-along with at least 35 other folks-was called. Our guide, Trevor, (probably a college student majoring in geology) took us down 180' into the caverns. The temperature outside was in the high 90's-the temperature in the caverns was 70 degrees with 99 % humidity-so the passageways and stairs and ramps were wet and slippery, but after a while we were relatively comfortable in the dim lighting and damp surroundings. Also had to get used to frequent wet droplets on our head, etc. and I wondered if the minerals in the water would give me streaky hair, but no-didn't happen. The caverns with their incredible formations were beautiful and strange while Trevor explained how the cavern formations were "actively" growing about an inch every hundred years. In Texas there is a statute prohibiting any guests in the caverns touching any of the formations due to oils on our hands, etc. This particular set of caverns was only made accessible to the public in the mid-60's-however it's existence was known about since the early 1900's. The caverns showed evidence of having had bat residents at one time, but for whatever reason, bats don't live there any longer. In all we were down in the caverns about 75 minutes and were sorry when the tour ended. The photos are of various parts of the tour.

Exploring San Antionio

Day 9 got a late start as we had projects around the Tin Tent, and the campground staff asked us to move to another site as they were going to be paving the street we were on. That means disconnecting water, sewer, electricity and cable-hitching the Envoy to the Tin Tent-moving it about 40 feet onto another street and hooking everything up again! We left the awning up and did it ever look strange! Then when we finally headed into San Antonio we had to find a Walmart and we had good directions from the campground staff. When we got off the highway we were trapped in a road const. project-30 min. later we were freed up and found the store for provisions and a light bulb for a a tail light on the camper. Then we had to find a bike shop as we had had a crisis of sorts on our way into Mississippi last week. We were on a very-very-very bumpy bridge and the rubber strap holding the bikes on the bike rack on the back of the camper broke-the bikes were pushed back and down onto the highway-a passing motorist indicated we had a problem and that was what we found when we got stopped. It ruined a tire on each bike, tore the cover on my bike seat and we thought one of the wheels was damaged-thus the search for the bike shop! After much frustration we found one-thanks to our GPS! The proprietor said he thought the wheel was not beyond salvaging and he thinks he fixed it-won't know until Hank replaces the tubes and tires and tries to blow up the tire. Once that was dealt with, we found our parking garage and proceeded to do the tourist thing. The Alamo is certainly worth a visit-we enjoyed touring it and listening to one of the volunteers explain the siege of the Alamo! Learned so much more than from history books-'course I was raised in VT-what do they care about Texas? By then the temp. was hovering around 95 degrees in the bright sun so we headed down onto the Riverwalk-much cooler. We walked the whole circuit of the 2.5 mi. walkway, stopped for some late lunch, explored La Villita-an artsy/craftsy area with lots of shops-much Mexican influence. The middle photo shows me enjoying my pecan pie with ice cream! The top photo is of the 750' Tower of the Americas at the Hemisfair Park-apparently in 1968 a World's Fair took place here and this park is what remains. For a less than nominal fee we could take a ride up an exterior elevator to the observation deck which was enclosed-thank goodness! I almost didn't go up, but I probably won't get here again so I had to do it. I was at the back of the elevator and didn't look down while it was going up! It was an incredible view of San Antonio and once up there was glad I did it! We went back down into Riverwalk and made our way back to the parking garage, drove back to our home on the road, and dinner in the Tin Tent awaits-perhaps after a cooling swim in the pool!

Beaumont to San Antonio

Today we traveled I-10 west from Beaumont to San Antonio about 310 miles through bayou country, then through some incredibly flat land as far as the eye coulld see in any direction, then into the rolling hills of central southern Texas. Had to go through the middle of Houston-huge and spread out for miles. This photo was taken-again through the vehicle window) of the skyline of the city as we drove through. As we headed out of Houston we started to see signs (as intriguing as South of the Border signs!) for Buc-ees with a picture of a beaver-telling us we had to stop and try Buc-ee Nuggets, and Buc-ee Jerky, etc. When we finally came to Buc-ees it was a large truck stop /tourist trap with every kind of Texas souvenir you could imagine-as well as fast food, snacks, clothing and some unusual (??) gift ideas. And yes, of course, we went in to check it out. Hank found some Texas beer he felt was calling his name so we had to have a 6-pack.

Arrived at Braunig Lake RV Resort about 10 miles SE of San Antonio around 3 PM and when we got set up decided that we'd take a trip into the city to get the lay of the land. We easily found the Alamo, but were unable to fully explore as the doors were being locked just as we walked up. So we went down on the Riverwalk-ever so much larger and more to explore than I had envisioned. Bev, you would love this place!!! After walking around for an hour or so we decided to go into one of the Mexican cafes along the river and have a light supper. Lauren, you would have liked the Mariachi Band-they were actually good! When we came out of the cafe, the Riverwalk was mobbed with folks out to enjoy the evening and as we were tired decided to return to the Tin Tent, get a good night's sleep and tackle this tourist thing again tomorrow. Hank wants to take a boatride along the Riverwalk, and I want to take a Trolley ride around the city, and we have to explore the Alamo. The photo at the top is the Alamo-much smaller than we had pictured.