Taos NM Highlights

We have spent the month of August in Taos NM and were joined by friends Jean and Dave (and Yogi and Max) and Ken and Betti (and Sweetie).

We have been doing lots of carving and beading since the weather has been perfect for being outside.  Don't we look industrius?

When we aren't carving or beading, we are often eating!  The Northern New Mexico cuisine is absolutely delicious and unique to this area.  Here we are at Orlando's.

The six of us are getting mail here, and Kathy in the office needed to put a name on our mailbox.  She couldn't decide what to name the box - The Carving Group or The Beading Group, so she finally decided on The Talented Group!



Our animal RVers on this trip are:

Sweetie, sitting on the step inside her RV letting us know she is ready to come outside.  She is a very vocal girl.



Sweetie up close and personal - look at the color in her eyes - so beautiful. As allergic as I am to cats, every now and then I just have to pet her and then hurry to scrub my hands.



Yogi (left) and Max (right), Jean and Dave's rescue Yorkies.  Yogi will sit in anybody's lap forever.  Max is 12 and has arthritis and doesn't see well so we need to be gentle with him.  I think it is wonderful that Jean and Dave were willing to give Max and Yogi a forever home.



Jean and Dave walking the boys.

Lots of dog love free for the asking.



Taos has the most amazing clouds and the sunsets are breathtaking.   The cloud pictures were taken on our morning walks.  Most every night brings a new, more beautiful sunset, and all the sunset pictures were taken from behind our 5th wheel..

Sunset reflection in our 5th wheel's rear window.

We have had such a good time here in Taos but are anxious to move back to Creede CO to enjoy the fall in the Colorado Mountains.  We are hoping it doesn't get too cold or, worse, snow!

A Blog Post, Finally

It has been so long since I posted on this blog that I can hardly remember how to do it.  I owe so many of you emails that I thought I would get back to you this way.  No excuses - just lazy, I  guess.

We spent last spring in Congress AZ for our yearly beading/carving gathering, visiting family, getting some work done on our new Excel 5th wheel, a month in Denver and a week in Colorado Springs.  We ended up in Creede CO again for part of June and all of July, so I will start there.

Alan and I have been walking about an hour each morning.  We struggle to get out there but the scenery is amazing.

A view looking back towards Creede.

We walk along Deep Creek - the sound of the water is wonderful.

Many days we see a marmot sunning himself.

We always walk past Pine Crest Ranch, the cabins where Alan spent so much time growing up.  This is the barn (it has seen better days) and the horses are always a bonus.

 

 

Alan is really good at spotting deer.

 

More horses - these guys were really friendly.



 

 

The 4th of July Parade was fun and there were tons of people in town, such a good thing for Creede after the wildfires last year caused many people not to head this way.

 

 

What can I say about this entry in the parade?

 

Alan and I had such a nice lunch outside at the old Creede Hotel after the parade.  Our strings of beads were thrown from floats during the parade.

 

 

Part of the reason we came here for July was for Alan to finally be able to attend the Creede Woodcarvers Rendezvous.  It is held in a unique space - the Community Center and the fire station which are both cut into a rock cliff.  There were many classes offered and 260 attendees.  Alan enjoyed his classes and instructors and hopes to come back again next year.  We met several couples who were staying in the park and attending the rendezvous - all very nice folks.

 

 

It is a little empty - it was lunch break.

This is also the bingo hall on Monday nights!

 

We took a drive up Pool Table Road (really) to look for wood to use for bases for carvings and came across an area that was just thick with blue columbine, the Colorado State flower.  It is very unusual to see so many columbines - they were everywhere.

 

 

Another amazing site was 7 mountain goats crossing the road right in front of us.  Then they headed across the hill next to the car one by one.

 

 

We have had lots of afternoon rains this month and that has also meant lots of rainbows.  Many times we have seen double rainbows like this.  The picture just doesn't show how vibrant the colors were.

 

 

We have had a really good month here but are heading to Taos NM again for the month of August only to return to Creede in September.  If all goes as planned, Betti and Ken Hendrickson and Jean and Dave Buhman will be joining us there.  We are really looking forward to that.

 

Please don't stop sending your emails - we love hearing from you.  I promise to do a better job of answering in the future.  We hope you all are having a good summer.

 

 

Sandy and Alan's EXCEL-lent Adventure

On our way to visit our family in Kansas and Missouri, we stopped in Smith Center KS to tour the Peterson Industries plant where they manufacture Excel 5th wheels.  Alan has been doing some research and wanted to check it out.  The tour was very interesting - and off we went towards Overland Park KS.

The largest Excel dealer happens to be in Moriarty NM, just outside of Albuquerque, so we stopped on our way to AZ to check it out.  Well, you know what they say about not going to the dog shelter if you aren't prepared to bring home a dog?  Apparently, the same holds true for RV dealers.

We ended up buying a 2014   34'   5th wheel trailer, just 6" longer than our HitchHiker.  The dealer couldn't get it to us for a couple of days because they host a safe trick-or-treat event for the area and all the rigs were parked end to end for Halloween.  Each trailer is sponsored by a local business and volunteers stand in front of each trailer (about 30 of them) to hand out candy. We volunteered to man our new trailer, and it was a very fun event.  They had 1665 folks come through - admission was a can of food or $1 that benefitted a local charity.  Afterwards, the dealer fed all the volunteers dinner too.



We didn't have costumes, so we donned our long underwear, warm clothes and some Halloween headgear.



Alan handing out candy bars.



The man in the rig across from us had this Spongebob costume and it was the hit of the event.  All the kids wanted to have their pictures taken with Spongebob and it created quite a traffic jam!  While Alan and Spongebob handed out candy as fast as they could, Sandy cut open bags and restocked both supplies.  Spongebob, Alan and I were all worn out by the end of the evening.



This tiny bumble bee was half frozen - it was very cold and windy.



Getting to look up to Spongebob made it all worthwhile.

Here is our new home as we saw it on the sales lot.

A larger TV than we have ever had and even a fireplace.  We really like the hickory wood cabinets.

It has a residential refrigerator, quite a culture shock after having an RV refrigerator for the last 14 years.

A microwave/convection oven - my friends tell me it isn't hard to make the conversion.

Nightstands - that is really a treat.

View of vanity and washer/dryer closet - no washer/dryer for us as we need the storage space.



Here is our salesman, Brian, delivering our new home to the back lot where we were parked.



Maneuvering the contraption that helps makes moving easier.



The "bridge" in place.  All it takes is one step down, a walk across and one step up for each load.  It took us two full  days to move and we were exhausted.  We had lived in our HitchHiker for almost 14 years, and we worked hard to clean out, throw out, etc.  Still, we struggled to fit everything in the Excel.  NuWa made that HitchHiker with tons of storage space.

We spent two or three days living in the Excel, making a list of things that needed attention by the dealer.  Then a day or two for repairs and adjustments before heading to AZ.   We were glad to be on our way, since it was 13 degrees a couple of nights while we were in NM.

 

Here we are on the road.  One of the repairmen said that NM is known as the Land of Enchantment but it is really the Land of Entrapment.  That is kind of how we felt after being at the dealership for so many days.

 

Here is the space above our kitchen cabinet, displaying some of our treasurers - Diane, your quilt is there and Chris, Pollo Loco is in the bear's lap on the left.  These things are very special to me.

 

 

 More treasurers, including the Santa Mary made me and the pillow Lisa embroidered and the little bear with the picture drawn by Brandon when he was little.

It is beginning to feel a little more like home.  Other than too much stuff in too little space, we are liking if fine!