The Incline

Heading north and avoiding interstates when we can, we took the pass through the mountains on our way to Manitou, Springs (just outside of Colorado Springs, CO).  Beautiful drive through the mountains and following the Arkansas River part of the way.

Manitou Springs is a cute little town and another great walkable place.  


The "springs" are not hot springs like in Pagosa, but mineral springs.  They are located all over town and several right in the middle of downtown.  Known for their healing qualities, they have a sweet taste.

They're Not White

Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.  Swimming.  Zapata Falls  Swimming.  Sandboarding. Swimming. Sand Sledding.

Made it to Colorado

Kept heading north on Hwy 64/84 and entered into Rio Grande National Forest.  Another very pretty drive.  We arrived to our reserved campgrounds and after testing our internet and theirs decided that the connection wasn't strong or consistent enough for the work week, so called down the road and found a spot.  

Crossing the Rio Chama

After leaving Santa Fe/Cochiti Lake area we headed north to Heron Lake State Park near the New Mexico/Colorado border.  The drive up highway 84 was beautiful and just about the right pace for us at 55 mph.  We arrived and felt like the only campers in the park and we had trouble finding the lake at first because it was so far receded. 

The Turquoise Trail

We just left Cochiti Lake which is about 45 minutes SW of Santa Fe.  The campground where we stayed was an Army Corps of Engineers campground and was very nice.

Sunset at Cochiti Lake Campground

The Mother Road

We spent this past week in Albuquerque and it was pretty nice.  Besides the cold snap that hit a few days after we arrived the weather is very nice.  Warm sun with a fresh mountain breeze.  The cold snap was tough though, dropping below freezing one night.  It was 20 degrees warmer in Haddonfield one of the days I checked my phone.  Crazy.

We arrived, did our usual check out of the city after setting up camp.  That checking out includes grocery shopping.........Trader Joe's stop.  YAY!  Big city stops tend to be half for getting to know and visiting the city and half about restocking.  We have been seeing a Target and Trader Joe's about once a month, so we gotta get it while we can.

We took Route 66 to the Museum of Natural History on Monday.  We have become museum experts and the girls love it.  I had several other stops planned that afternoon, but I had what I am pretty sure were altitude issues.  I started to feels nauseous and had a splitting headache.  All plans were derailed, but these girls are so LEGO crazy they might have been glad we were headed home.

Decided to take a tour of the city.

ABQ Trolley Tours

Sand Dunes and Sunsets

Monday, April 6, 2015

We arrived to Alamogordo, NM yesterday evening and are staying at Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, south of the city.  The sunset that was going on during set up was beautiful.  

Star gazing in New Mexico

I have never considered myself a "star gazer" nor have I paid much attention before to the stars and constellations.  However, since we started this journey, we find ourselves surrounded by these beautiful deep dark nights, with millions of amazing bright stars showing off.  It's hard to ignore the magnificence of the galaxy and avoid start getting all cheesy, wondering about those deep questions of our own nature we seldomly ask ourselves.  But I went ahead and ignore the anyway.

Air is so dry, the fire will keep burning without having to mess with it at all.  Thanks Mr. Mac for the wood!!

Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains (National Parks)

Monday, March 30, 2015

We left Marathon, TX and headed northwest to an area between Carlsbad and Artesia, NM.  I'm not even sure what the town is because we are staying on a ranch that has an RV park for members of a club called ESCAPEES.  We happen to be members because when we left NJ we joined two groups.....Passport American and ESCAPEES.  This particular place came up on our app when we were looking for places in the area and we decided to give it a try.  It is very cute here.  I forgot to mention that all members of ESCAPEES are fulltimers, so that puts the majority of them in a age bracket.  So this "ranch" is actually located on a real ranch and is a little community for people who full time travel.  Many of these people live here most of the time, but take off when they can or want I suppose.  We are on someones "plot" who is away on a trip. Everyone is very sweet and we were greeted with the ringing of a bell and a big hug :)  I went to the exercise class this morning.  Happy hour is everyday at 4pm in the main house, as well as bingo and other activities throughout the week. Cute little community in the middle of nowhere.

Today the girls and I went to the Living Zoo State park located in Carlsbad, NM.

Marathon, Texas and More Big Bend

We just left Marathon, TX and while I already posted a little bit about the park I didn't mention Marathon much. This was a very, very small (population 420) town and had it's own little charm.  Ironically, there is a hotel, The Gage Hotel, in the middle of the 2-4 block downtown area that is quite fancy and has a long history in this town.  The hotel has a restaurant with a pricey menu and apparently enough of a clientele to keep it going.  Across the railroad tracks are the Gage Gardens, which are maintained by the hotel and are quite lush and beautiful especially when everything is so parch in the desert.

Big Bend National Park

Today the girls and I went to Big Bend National Park. We are staying in Mararthon, TX so we had about a 45 minute drive to the park entrance. It is such a big park there is a lot of driving involved.

Dallas with Toño and Neelima

After leaving Austin we headed north to visit Toño and Neelima in Dallas.  Yeehaw!  It had been at least 3 or 4 years since we had seen each other and we finally got to meet Arjun :)  Such a cutie!

The girls had a great time carrying him around all over the place.

Artsy Austin

Austin was a fun city!  We arrived on a Sunday and stayed for a week.  We stayed at McKinney State Park just outside of the city and once we arrived we set up camp and then took off to explore.  We had our bike rack clips on hold at REI and wanted to get a feel for the city before our work week started. It was rainy that night though, so mostly we just did some errands and spent a good few hours in a book store called Book People.  It's always great when we find a good bookstore because we leave with a new list of things to check out at the library on their nooks.  It is so cool that they can check out books through their nook just like they were at home.  Thank you Jordan!!

Stephen Austin State Park

We left New Orleans on a Friday afternoon and headed out not really know where we would stay that night.  Our only point of reference was that we had a reservation in Austin, TX on Sunday.  We drove for a bit and reached Baton Rouge.  Stopped for a Trader Joe's fill up and made some dinner in the RV before heading back out.  

We made a plan to reach the Texas Welcome Center rest area.  This would be our first rest stop sleep over and went pretty well.  There were several other RV types there and of course truckers.  

We slipped in beside another RV and slept like babies.  

Flying through New Orleans

We spent one day in New Orleans because of our delay in Pensacola.  That was okay because we know that city, at least the french quarter, pretty well.
We stayed with family friends, the Lively's, who live in Slidell and commuted into the city during the day.

Back Home

We made it back to Pensacola!

We spent 3 1/2 weeks in Gulf Breeze and Pensacola and just left a couple of days ago.  A lot happened over those days, so I'm gonna do my best to remember.

St. George Island State Park

St. George Island State Park is in the Panhandle of Florida and after a longer than expected drive, we made it.  The park was on the far eastern side of the island and pretty far removed from the community.

Fort Wilderness Disney

We met a family back in Savannah, GA that assured us that the Disney Fort Wilderness was worth the stop so we decided to make a reservation for a few days.

Lake Louisa and the Magic Kingdom

We planned our time at this particular state park because our good friends the LaPointes were going to be in Orlando.  We met them for their last day at the Magic Kingdom and it was so great to see them!

Highlands Hammock State Park

I have some catching up to do.  I haven't written on here in a few weeks and there have been a few relocations since then.  Last time I wrote we had just the south part of Florida and it seemed like there was an imaginary line that we crossed over around Lake Okeechobee that went from warm weather to less warm weather.  It was still warm, but not shorts and tees anymore.

Glade Evers

Alligators and Anhingas filled our days last week.  We spent a couple of days in the Everglades National Park.  We decided to enter one day at the north entrance (Shark Valley) and a different day we hit the southern entrance (Ernest Coe) and made the hour long drive through the Glades to the southernmost visitors center (Flamingo).

We saw tons of gators, took tours, spent over an hour with one ranger learning about all the different types of birds and how to more easily identify them.  While on one of the tours, we had to walk around a huge gator that was sunbathing on the sidewalk.  My heart was racing as I passed with my little appetizers.

Yes and No

It seems we are moving fast these days.  It has been tough to find places to stay in Florida this time of year, so we've just been taking the spots we can get.  We are working on our boondocking skills, but not quite there.

We spent the last 5 days or so at Jonathan Dickinson State Park.  It was just north of West Palm Beach in a great spot along the coast.  It was very windy out there, but the breeze was welcomed most days because the temps were pretty warm.  It's great that we were able to get a spot there because it was so close to my brother and sister in laws place and we were able to visit with them everyday of our visit.

Wild Horse

We spent the last 5 or so days in Payne's Prairie Preserve State Park, Florida. 

The not so cool things about RVs

There is so much to learn about the world of RVs, it's crazy.  And since we have a fifth wheel, there is even more things to worry about, from the truck that tows it, to the hitch, to the king pin, I have to know about the car's gross vehicle weight, front axle, rear axle, pin vertical weight, the fifth wheel base weight and carrying capacity, total tow capacity and gross combined vehicle weight!  I am probably even forgetting some other things.

Spanish Moss and Sudoku

We have had a nice week in Savannah, GA.