New Mexico

The first stop in New Mexico is Silver City.  It is a bit off the usual trail, set in the mountains in the Southwest of NM, elevation about 6,000'.  It lies just east of the continental divide.

Like Bisbee, AZ it has a mining history, largely silver and later copper.  A handy RV Park in town makes seeing the sights easy.  We are enjoying the comfort of a larger RV, nice couch and reclining chair, easy to make queen bed, separate shower and loads of storage. This, coupled with a Mr. Toad, the go anywhere separate tow vehicle, makes slowing down and spending time much easier.  By this time on our last trip we would probably have logged 2-3,000 miles.  Now about 800.  Silver City is a delightful place, many preserved buildings because of the early insistence on brick for fire prevention.  I first heard of the place from an old friend who spent his first four years here with his Mom, living in a small home with grandparents while Dad was off fighting in WWII.  Back then the floor had a dirt floor and there was an outhouse.  Dad returned home and my friend became another incredible American success story, ending his career as an appellate court justice in California.

Silver City was established in the 1870's but had been an Apache camp and before that, home to Anasazi Indians.  The main street was washed out by a series of flash floods, dropping it 55'.  It is now the home of the lovely Big Ditch Park and serves as a flood control channel as well.  Raggie enjoyed a nice walk in the park while Boogs snoozed.  Boogs' limit these days is about a block.

Big Ditch Park

The 17 year old, blind dog's favorite spot in Bella

After a day in the city we took a tour of the nearby countryside.  The terrain is varied, from rocky pine forests to one of the healthiest ponderosa pine forests in the Gila National Forest to the now agricultural Mimbres Valley, home 1000 years ago to the Mimbres Indians and their famous pottery.  The last stop on the tour was the Santa Rita open pit mine.  We thought the Lavender pit mine in Bisbee was large, but Santa Rita is huge.

Mimbres Pottery

Santa Rita Mine

Santa Rita Mine

Of course the big attraction in NM is the food.  Different from CA and AZ
Mexican and I am told,  from TexMex as well.  We found two local places, Mi Casita which were were told was "on the dirt road just before the car wash."  We found it and joined the crowd for a wonderful lunch of Hatch chile rellenos and MN style red enchiladas with an egg on top.  Himself is forever on a search for good rellenos and found these to be among the best.  The next day we planned to have lunch there again but alas, the restaurant was closed.  I suspect that it was in honor of the Easter weekend though only Saturday.  Instead we had lunch at Fidencios where we enjoyed a carnitas burrito and tacos.  Only cooking in lard could make them that good.  We got local info and mining employment stories from the friendly, born in Silver City, Roberto.

Today was a trip in Mr. Toad to a place called the Catwalk.  It is a narrow trail in a box canyon about one hour out of Silver City.  The scenery was fabulous and the 2+ mile walk invigorating and scenic.  There were many families picnicking and hiking on Easter Sunday.  We do find the people here to be extremely friendly.

The catwalk was originally a water pipe bringing water to a town and mining operations.  The mining was no longer taking place when the CCC built the first catwalk for recreational use.  It has been upgraded over the years and now even includes a wheelchair accessible portion.

A nice chicken chile crockpot dinner and relaxing in the delightful 70's weather before we break camp tomorrow and head for Hatch and,  hopefully,  a freezer full of roasted green chiles.

The Catwalk

The Catwalk

Bella and Mr. Toad

Raggie entertaining neighbors, Eric and Rio

Much has happened since the last entry.  The LA RV market proved too hard to resist.  We found a nice, ten year old Bounder 32' motorhome.  The prior owners bought it new and there was little sign of use though there were 42,000 miles on it.  Funny, they had a slight accident and were then unable to match the original decal trim so had it painted in USC colors.  Those USC people sure need to label themselves.  I threatened to make changing it to Bruin colors a condition of sale but in the end, I really like the colors.  I have named the motorhome Bella (Bounder). Himself took the old camper to WA where it was quickly sold and he returned to prepare for the next leg. Seal Beach has a generous provision for newly acquired RV's, allowing them on the street for 2 weeks.  That was handy for outfitting the new rig though we only needed a week.

 A trip to the Mini dealer revealed a need for more work and $ than I was interested in.  Over the last year much thought had been given to the next car, one a bit bigger, weather tolerant, good for the boys and towable.  While himself was gone, I purchased Mr. Toad, a lovely red Subaru.  Both new vehicles were licensed in WA, not without some angst but thanks to the nice gentleman at the franchise license business on the island.  I can't even imagine what it would have been like dealing with the CA DMV from another state.

Boondocking at the El Centro Walmart

Yuma Territorial Prison

The picture above is from our first night out in the El Centro Walmart.  The first of the challenges came in the morning when the bedroom slide would not go in.  Much effort by himself finally allowed a manual retraction, probably risking a stroke or heart attack from the significant exertion.  The next stop was Yuma where a mobile technician replaced two relays which allowed both slides to again work.  Yuma is an amazing place.  If you like RV parks with lots of old people it is the place for you.  Restaurants are filled with gray haired patrons.  A visit to the Territorial prison, in operation from 1876 to 1909, was the highlight.  Each small cell had 6 iron bunks, and the conditions were brutal in the summer.

The RV park where we stayed was clean and without shade.  Like most in Yuma, it is adjacent to the freeway so the road noise is constant.  There were very strict rules for pets, the back half being entirely off limits.  I inadvertently walked the boys in the forbidden section only to be severely chastised by a woman with much time on her hands.  Apparently she is the self appointed pet warden, having called the police on prior offenders.  We were happy to leave Yuma.

The next stop was Tucson where we visited friends and more work was done on Bella and the tow equipment.  Despite buying one of the top end units,  Mr. Toad caused Bella to sway on the road, making driving quite difficult.  Also, some issues again arose with the slide and leveling jacks.  The guys visited RV and towing dealers, asked many questions and then fashioned a "fix" with metal shims, welded in.  They also developed a theory that the slide/leveling problem was attributable to a problem with the safety switch.  So far this theory seems to be correct though there is more to do.  I have no idea what one would do with an RV if not handy.  A friend described RV's as earthquakes going down the road.  While the guys were working, Sherrill and I enjoyed ourselves at the Tucson Botanical Gardens.  It is a wonderful place, once a private home that was donated upon the death of the owner.  Much is in bloom in the desert and the citrus blossoms were so fragrant.

View of the Lavender Pit Mine from the back of Bella

The next stop was Bisbee, AZ.  It is a small, funky mining town now taken over with artists and people with "alternative lifestyles" plus tourists.  We have visited before and it is interesting that it is on the foreign tourist route.  A couple from France was in a rented RV in the small campground, last time we met a British couple. The campground is next to the Copper Queen hard rock mine, no longer in operation but available for tours.  The mining claim for the Copper Queen was filed in 1877 The owners found the ore was 23% copper with silver and gold as byproducts.  Most mines of the era contained only 3-4% copper so the Copper Queen was extraordinary.  Mine operations were shut down in 1975 as the quality of ore declined. 

 The back of the motorhome looks out on the huge Lavender Pit mine, in operation from 1950 to 1974 by the Phelps Dodge Corp.

Copper Queen Hotel

The Bisbee trip was finished with a cocktail on the patio of the Copper Queen Hotel, often mentioned in J.A. Jance mysteries set in Bisbee.


Next stop, New Mexico.

Follow the Sun

A few weeks ago we left the NW by way of Eastern WA and Oregon, Idaho, Utah, NV and finally AZ to California.  The diversion from the usual I-5 run was to see an RV in Southern Utah.  Amazingly, there was little snow on the route, with clear and pretty weather.  We had enjoyed some nice weather in Vashon before leaving.

View from Vashon Island Deck in January

The RV in Hurricane, UT (the town was aptly named) was a bust, himself declaring that he would have added years to his life just driving it to LA and waiting for a breakdown.  The trip was fun however and topped off by a visit to the Valley of Fire state  park about one hour out of Las Vegas.

The scenery there is exquisite.

Valley of Fire State Park

Valley of Fire State Park, NV

Hoover Dam fro the Arizona side

It was a special treat to see petroglyphs at the state park close up.

We traveled on to Boulder Dam and Boulder city, where we learned a bit of the history of the dam and the city that supported it during its construction.  It is still an impressive undertaking and it was interesting to learn what a score it was to be selected for a a construction job during the depression.  We weren't able to take a tour as Nevada and Arizona laws prohibit leaving dogs in the car, even when the temperatures are in the 60's, there is a sun roof open and the parking structure is covered.  Another example of the idiot few prompting laws that are unnecessary for most with basic common sense.

From there we made the run on to Seal Beach.  We saw Henderson, with many vacant shopping centers and stores as evidence of the economic impact.  It was nice to arrive back in Seal Beach.  While it was chilly the first week I did not complain given the snow storm that hit Vashon at the same time.

While we are busy with the many catch up chores here at the house, we are trying to explore the LA area as well.  Our first outing was to the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda.  It and the Reagan library are so close but we had seen neither.  The Nixon library was lovely and included Nixon's birthplace.  The house was a kit built quickly by Nixon's father as Richard's arrival was imminent The home was surrounded by a citrus farm at the time, which never proved economically viable.  The family later moved to Whittier.  Whittier had the advantage of a larger Quaker community.  There was too much to cover in one visit as I have a 2-3 hour information absorption limit.   The Vietnam war, foreign policy as well as Nixon's early career were particularly interesting.

Nixon's Birthplace

A big treat when we come south is seeing friends, most who still live in the area.  Jane is close by so we enjoyed an outing and a couple of lunches with other friends.  Since Jane is a recent iPad owner and now in the Galapagos she needed to figure out how to blog using the device.  The narrative is easy but importing pictures a bit more complicated.  We worked on it together and discovered that her device that imports pictures from the camera or memory card wouldn't work.  We were going shopping near the Apple Store.  After explaining the urgency and discovering that there was a flaw in the iPad they just handed her a brand new one.  The wonderful service is one reason I am so high on Apple.  There are knowledgeable people easily accessible to help us old folks with our tech problems.

I told Jane that I look at these tech challenges as therapy for the aging brain, at least I think that on a good day.

Boogs is doing pretty well here.  The nice weather permits frequent short, slow walks.  His evening agitation is being handled with food bribes and patience.  The local vet prescribed a psychiatric medicine a couple of weeks ago which caused a seizure within two days.  No more such medicine.
A friend suggested beer.  While he liked it he was still agitated, just weaving.  Being blind is not a good

condition when inebriated.

We are also taking advantage of the better RV market here in SoCal to look and learn about the various options.  Today will be a trip to the San Diego area to look at a couple of RV's.  It should be nice as the forecast is 72 degrees, yesterday was in the 80's when your traveled inland from the beach.  It is scheduled to drop about 10 degrees on Saturday, still pleasant however.

View of Catalina (distant) from Seal Beach

Winter Activities

When it is in the 30's and wet, one is relegated to activities that have been put off while the weather was nice.  Organizing recipes, reading the backlog of books, magazines and newspapers, organizing "things," cooking and in my case, mastering some new intimidating task like knitting mittens and, using the iPad to blog as well as migrating from a PC to a Mac. 

 When I got the iPad, I looked forward to a compact device for travel that would allow Internet access and blogging while on the road.  The Internet access worked whenever the wifi or 3G signal was adequate, which surprisingly was often not the case.  Even campgrounds that advertised wifi fell pretty short unless one wanted to sit in the office.  After a day of travel that held little appeal, so the blog entries suffered.  The biggest blog challenge however came in the area of including recently taken pictures on the blog.  It turns out that the various blog platforms don't directly access the pictures on the iPad.  So I have been forced to search for picture and blog apps to serve as a bridge.  Reading google entries about the issue and talking to Apple techies yielded no simple solution so I am forcing myself to learn more that I ever wanted to (or needed to when I had Lorraine, Gorman and Mark) to deal with those annoying problems.  They may not be aware but they are getting their revenge.  Add to that the recent decision to migrate to a Mac from years of PC use and I am busy.  My stubbornness keeps me from giving up and I tell myself that this will keep some agility in the old brain.  If this ever gets posted and has pictures, links etc you will know there is some level of success.  Also, after touting the iPad to Jane for blogging I must figure this out before she takes off for the Galapagos in February

TREES AND VIEWS

The first picture attempt will be the before the wizard tree guy Jim who came to restore our view.  Here in the NW a view can be obliterated in a season as trees, shrubs and ivy grow with enthusiasm.  Winter is the time for such pruning, as the foliage is gone and so much more can be seen.  The obscured view is of the Olympic mountains, often snow covered and majestic on a clear day.

Speaking of Jim, he is super cool among the "boys" here on the island.  He has the biggest Kubota tractor on the island.  While John Deere gets the press, the heavy duty users seem to prefer Kubota.  I got to sit on it the other day.   It makes Richard's Kubota look like a riding mower (sorry Richard).

I don't really like to watch, particularly when the tree sways.  This is Jim's tractor.

Many trees are now down, providing a  northwest view from nearly every room.  Too bad it is cloudy today.

TECHIE STUFF

My experience at the Apple Store Has been generally great.  I make regular use of my $100 year-long one to one sessions.  I try to record questions about my Mac, iPad, iPhone as well as Richard's Apple devices and then cover as much as possible in my 50 minutes.  We have to take the ferry to Tacoma, a trip of about an hour from door to door.  Much prettier and more relaxing than the old work commutes.  I love having a live person to work with and I can see I will be more proficient than I ever was with a PC, some day  I think the Apple store is one place where both little kids and seniors are working on similar things though one group is a lot more capable I suspect.  A class came to visit during one of my sessions.

These kids seemed far ahead of me.

COMFORT FOOD

The fall and winter are such wonderful times to cook.  The fire is going and being inside when it is in the 30's is a must for me.  The season starts with chanterelles-

eat your heart out SoCal cooks.  While I am busy trying new recipes I seem to cut out more and acquire new cookbooks at a much faster rate.  It is nice that Richard is adventurous AND appreciative.

Well, I think this will work.  It is not as easy as on the laptop using blogspot directly but it sure is nice to travel with a small device.

The Acadians

When we left Quebec for New Brunswick, our first Maritime Province, life became easier.  Signs were in both French and English.  The well prepared tourist brochure featured several routes through the province.  We selected the Acadian one, not because we were interested in or knew anything about the Acadians but because it followed the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  We do love water.

It turns out that the Acadian culture and history became the highlight of that part of the trip.  One of the real pleasures of travel is finding these surprises.  All I knew before is that folks in Southern Louisiana came from Nova Scotia and were called Cajuns.  I have since learned that Acadia (present day Nova Scotia) was founded by the French in 1604 and later ceded to Great Britain in 1703.  While the power struggles between the French and Anglos were finally settled by 1763, the Acadians were casualties of that conflict.  From 1755 to 1763, 2/3 of the Acadians or about 10,000 people were deported to the American colonies, Great Britain and France.  Some fled to New Brunswick where they found sanctuary.  This event is modernly referred to as "The Deportation."  During this expulsion, the farms and homes of the Acadians were destroyed.  Not only were the Acadians of French origin but they were Catholic.  The Acadians were not welcome in the colonies and many later moved on to French islands in the Caribbean, as well as a still French island off Newfoundland.  About 1000 of those sent to France subsequently chose to relocate in Louisiana, where the Spanish  welcomed their fellow Catholics. 

It seems that the lives of Acadians were second class in Canada until about 40-50 years ago when Acadian leadership in New Brunswick was able to create the only Province that is officially bilingual.  Parents have the choice to send a child to a French or English school but the child must also learn the second language and become fluent.  We had no difficulty with the language while traveling in the Acadian part of New Brunswick, unlike our experience in Quebec. 

The New Brunswick provincial government runs an Acadian Village with about 40 restored or painstakingly recreated period buildings.  Life is depicted from the mid 1700's (after Deportation) through the 1930's and staff are dressed in period clothes, enthusiastic and very well versed in the history of their particular time.  I have been to Williamsburg in the US and this far surpasses that in size and accuracy.  The staff easily shift from French to English depending upon the visitor's native tongue.

We spent an hour the first day and the whole next day visiting nearly every building and watching demonstrations and asking questions.  The activities featured included:

Fiber Arts such as flax and  preparing, spinning and weaving (the topic of another blog),

An Acadian Home in the mid 1700's

 gardening, shingle making,  lumber milling, blacksmithing, tinsmithing, cooperage (largely for storing salt cod), rigging, milling, food prep and day to day living.  

Pot for dyeing wool with natural plant called Tansy

Bread Oven

Homes always had a root cellar

The Acadian Flag flying over a recreated hotel

While in the Acadian area we noticed that the Acadian Flag (not Canadian or the provincial flags) hung everywhere.  Homes were often painted with red, white and blue trim.  Clearly the Acadian identity is strong.  The flag resembles the French flag with an added yellow star, yellow we were told because that is the color for the Pope.

Eating Well #1

Poutine

The trip across the US as far as Michigan did not provide lifetime culinary memories.  The highlight was McDonald's senior coffee for himself and lattes for me.  The UP pasty was interesting, a meat pie made like a turnover.  I am told it comes from Wales and is what a coal miner would take for lunch.  Once we hit Quebec, I figured it would be a better world.

Our first Quebec adventure was to order the ubiquitous "poutine."  This makes our junk food look healthy.  It is a large serving of french fries, topped with gravy and then slightly melted cheese curds. It is a one time experience for me.

Things improved as we continued east, with very nice french bread, a Basque cheese shop with wonderful smoked cheddar and some delightful french onion soup.  The markets had quite a different selection of food, fresh duck legs and breast, duck fat, sausages made from various game including wild boar, lots of veal and of course, croissants.  It was looking much better than the North Dakota Walmart.  Fortunately, the stores laid in while still in Washington lasted about 2 weeks (and much longer for the pantry and frozen things) so we did not starve. 

My first lobster roll

PEI Mussels

Conditions are very much improved now that we are in the Maritimes.  My first (and definitely not my last) lobster roll was lovely.  A homemade hot dog bun with lettuce and a homemade tartar sauce plus loads of lobster meat.  The PEI (Prince Edward Island) mussels were the best every.  We love our Penn Cove Mussels in WA,  but the PEI fresh caught mussels on a deck in the sun with blueberry ale were memorable.  They are large and succulent, prepared with lots of garlic and wine as well as shavings of carrot and celery.  Yum.  We have also had outstanding fresh fried clams and lots of fresh caught haddock and cod, prepared either deep fried or sauteed and served on a bun.  Unfortunately we don't like oysters as they are pretty common here too.  Yesterday's lunch was a seafood chowder,  not cream based, but thickened I suspect with the generous amount of potato and loads of seafood (fish, shrimp, crab and lobster).  I am inspired.  We eat the local fare at every opportunity and I know this availability will continue for some time as we head into New England in a week or so. 

The final food related treat was a trip to the Paderno cookware factory store in PEI.  I love bargains and I love cookware.  I found a great little omelet pan which it now occurs to me will be a perfect size for the RV kitchen.  A seafood omelet will be a nice campground supper one of these days.

Quebecois (People of Quebec)

After surviving the notorious Montreal traffic, we headed east and found a lovely RV park just east of Quebec City. 

The park itself was lovely, immaculate and populated largely by people who owned their spot.  Most spoke only limited English but I dredged up the school French and got by.  Not only were there no Americans but all the license plates were from Quebec.  The site owners all fussed over their lawns and their flowers and it was truly delightful.

View of the pond side sites

You could tell that you were in another culture.  The women were stylishly dressed, the park residents were all sitting out in gliders, conversing with other park residents.  The dogs and children were well behaved, many people smoked and nearly all flew the Quebec flag-not the Canadian flag.  How many times have we seen someone flying the California or Washington State flag?


We planned to spend just one night but with the reports of Irene, decided to hunker down and not head to the Maritimes, as it seemed the closer one got to the Atlantic, the worse it would be.  Wrong.  We ended up staying three nights and the storm weakened to a tropical storm but headed our way.  We put the rig nose into the wind and prepared for the night.  The biggest challenge was taking the boys out-they did not like it at all.

There were hundreds of downed trees

 

Typical village Catholic Church

All official street signs were in French only.  Even the KFC was changed to PFK-Poulet Frite.  Most villages along the St. Lawrence Seaway had a lovely Catholic church dominating the landscape as you drove in.  In our last stop in Quebec Province we encountered a woman whose English was excellent.  She explained that she was from New Brunswick but had a Quebecois boyfriend.  She said she tries to teach him English but it is very difficult.  An Acadian in New Brunswick (more about them later) explained that people in Quebec (outside of Montreal) are afraid of losing their French culture and purposely avoid English.