On The Road - Part 3

Street lamps on Main Street in Roswell, NM.

We’re staying at the Trailer Village RV Park in Roswell, New Mexico.  This is a really nice park.  Even though they have gotten 7 inches of rain in the last couple of days, the pads are nice and dry.  

We're in Area 51 (I mean Site 51).

I think we actually had a night without it raining! 

We headed out to play disc golf.  The course was a muddy mess!

 That shiny area is wet, slimy, mud.

 It’s the kind of slimy mud that sticks to your shoes.

 I took a picture of my own shoes.

 Mark was constantly having to wash off his muddy disc.

There was plenty of water in that “mostly dry” creek!

Even the baskets had not escaped the rains: 

Branches and grass caught up in the basket.

The other end of the disc golf course was higher, and had a lot more grass.  It is a really pretty park.

After playing 18 holes at the Enchanted Lands Disc Golf Course, we drove over to Eastern New Mexico University where they have a 9 hole course.  It’s a pretty course that didn’t take Mark very long to play a couple of times.

It was nice to get outside and see blue skys!

The next day we drove from Roswell, NM to S. Llano River State Park in Junction, TX (400 miles).  The rain followed us.  We stayed a couple of nights at the state park, and played disc golf when the rains let up.

We're home!  We have some friends coming for a visit this week then we will be leaving on "vacation" on October 1st.  I'm going to be posting clues to where we are throughout that time.  Hope everyone will try to guess our destination.

Teri

On The Road - Part 2

We stayed at the Bosque Birdwatchers RV Park in San Antonio, New Mexico, outside of Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge.  The first evening we were here we drove into the Refuge.  There is a nice boardwalk were we walked for a little while then drove around the Refuge.  The roads were quite muddy from all the rain and we were surprised that they were still open.

That really is the color of the sky!

It rained all night and was still raining when we got up.  We decided to go to the “famous” Owl Cafe in San Antonio for breakfast.  I don’t get the attraction to this cafe.  It’s very dark (it’s also a bar), there is only one breakfast item, about 6 lunch items (all hamburgers/chicken burgers) and about 6 dinner items.  Their claim-to-fame is a green chili burger.  Since I don’t like green chili, I guess this place won’t be on our return list. 

Owl Cafe through a very wet windshield.

Since it was still raining, after breakfast, we headed into Socorro.  We stopped at the Walmart, which looked very small from the outside.  But, surprise, they had the best selection of yarn I have found at any Wallyworld!

I can always use yarn and was happy to pick up a few skeins.

We headed back out to the Refuge visitor center and were told that road had been closed due to heavy rain.  So, back to the RV where we watched it rain all afternoon.

The next morning, after it finally quit raining, we wiped off the slides, hooked up and headed for Capitan.  We found an RV park, pulled in and were directed to a site only to get stuck in the mud.  While we were waiting for the owner to pull us out, we decided once we got out, we would just keep on going to Roswell and look for an RV park there.

Next Time - Roswell, New Mexico

Teri 

On the Road - Part 1

We’ve finished our volunteer assignment in Colorado.  We enjoyed a wonderful, busy summer, and our list of finished projects is pretty amazing.  We are making our way back to Texas.  

Our first stop was only about 150 miles down the road in a little town called Eagle’s Nest, New Mexico.  It rained (hard) all the way there.  We wanted to stay a couple of days here so Mark could try out a couple of disc golf courses.  He has really gotten good at this sport in only one year and even played in three tournaments while we were in Colorado (winning his class in two of them and winning over-all in the three combined!).  I don’t play but enjoy getting some exercise walking around the course.  We played one course, talked to the nice folks who own the place (bought a few discs and other, much needed, disc related items) then headed out to the second course. 

Some of the tee pads were in interesting places

Up a tree

This one got a little wet.  Luckily it didn’t float on down the stream!

 At the second course we got caught in a pouring rain at the second hole and got soaked running to the truck.  That worked out okay because by the time we got back home and changed into dry clothes, it was time to head into Angel Fire for pizza.

Can you tell this is a ski lift area?

 Just before the rains came!

 The next morning we were lucky, it quit raining long enough to get hooked up and on the road.  We had about 250 miles travel and it rained the entire time.

Next time: Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge.

Teri

A few afghans

While spending almost 5 months in Colorado, I had plenty of time to crochet.

I finished 3 full size afghans: 

Eleven preemie afghans (here are just a few): 

I found a cute pattern for a crocheted preemie hat and started crocheting matching hats for all my preemie afghans: 

When we get back to Texas, I’ll donate all these afghans to The Linus Connection.  The preemie afghans will be donated to Heart of Texas Threads of Love, through The Linus Connection.

Teri

Final Days in Colorado (Part II)

Our last blog covered the first part of our final week at Alamosa NWR.  We had intended for the last day to be a slow one, but it turned out to be just as busy as all of the others.

The refuge manager's house has an old TV antenna on top, and she wanted it removed while we had the rental lift. So we got that old antenna off of the roof, and while I was up there I tightened up a bunch of loose screws.

Getting Antenna off of the Roof

Time to Lower this to the Ground

Tighten a Few Screws

I thought that we were done with the lift, but Gabe decided to remove a portion of the old radio antenna from the Visitor Center. That turned out to be our tallest job yet.

Removing the Radio Antenna

Removing the antenna itself was pretty easy.  But when we tried to pull the top section off of the tower, it was stuck pretty good.  We tied it off to the lift, applied some upward pressure, and I used a big hammer to "persuade" it upward.  When that piece popped loose, the basket on the lift jumped up about 2 feet.  Gabe and I both decided that was a little more excitement than we had been looking for!!

Removing the Top Tower Section

Our final project was another set of signs.  We had already placed the big signs on the Headquarters Building that identified the structure, but we still needed to add office hours and an address.  With the attachment of our final signs the staff and public now know the name of the building, the address, and the office hours!

Attaching the Final Sign

Done, and DONE!!!

That's it for our Summer in Colorado.  Stay tuned for our trip back to Texas.

Mark

Final Days in Colorado

September 4th was our last workday at the Refuge, and we had a busy few days trying to get a bunch of projects finished.  Since the rental lift was still available we concentrated on "up high" tasks.

First was replacing the facia board on a double-wide mobile home used for housing interns and volunteers. The existing trim was rotted and falling off, and refuge staff asked if we could get it replaced.  Teri had finished painting the boards a couple of months ago, but we hadn't had the time to get them mounted. The boards were 16' long and we had to get them transported from the shops over to the double-wide.  All of the trailers were being used, so we just tied them to the top of our truck.  Problem solved!

16' Trim Boards on Top of Truck

To get the boards up I used the lift, and Maury (another volunteer) held up an end off of a ladder.  We got the entire job finished in a couple of hours. The rest of the mobile home is in pretty rough shape, so the facia boards are now the best part of the structure!

New Facia Trim on Mobile Home

The next project required driving the rental lift 3 miles over to the maintenance shops.  At absolute top speed it took me 55 minutes to drive over there.  That is a slow drive!

First job there was to repair a light fixture that was mounted in the back corner of the shop, about 25' in the air.  Access to that corner was blocked by an vehicle repair lift, so we got the rental lift as close as we could and started extending every segment of that thing.  We were barely able to reach the back corner with all of the arms extended to their maximum range. It was tricky to maneuver into that back corner without getting tangled up in other items. 

Repairing Light Fixture

The old maintenance building has clear fiberglass panels to allow light into the building.  One of the panels had been broken in a storm a few years back, and the roof has had a hole in it since.  So we drove the rental lift to replace the broken panel.  It took several trips into the building and then around the back to get the replacement done.  At one point I was outside on the lift while Gabe (the new maintenance man) was inside on a ladder.

This Hole Shouldn't be Here...

Maneuvering Inside to Repair Roof

Pushing the New Panel into Place

No More Hole!

Stay tuned for more of our final week.

Mark