SNOW????

It's been a pretty quiet weekend since Thanksgiving. Our friends, Judy and Sam, are here on their way to California, and we've really been enjoying their stay. We met them when we were in Naples, FL staying at the Neapolitan RV Park...very nice people! They are full-timing it now and decided, as we did, to see the wild west! Right now they're having their DirectTv fixed so they've stayed a little longer than they expected...yeah for us!

It has been raining for 2 straight days. Can't complain tho...this is the first real rain we've seen since we left on Sept 29th. What we don't want to see is the snow we're supposed to get today! What the heck! I know we're not as far south as Naples, but I did NOT think we'd see snow!! Ah well, a good day to do laundry and maybe even make some scramble and send out our Christmas cards! It's nice to be able to sit in this nice warm RV and watch the bad weather and not have to get out and shovel snow (even if it does snow!)!

Not much in this blog today...I'll have much more when we head to the Carlsbad Caverns next week!

Love to all and hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving in Las Cruces, NM

Thanksgiving day was a delight. Ed wanted to go to church this morning...actually a good idea since I don't often stop and really understand the meaning of the day. The service was very nice...short but powerful. We were able to take an hour out of the day and appreciate just how lucky we are to be able to live the life we live and to thank God for our families and friends and realize that not everyone has what we have. So even if we don't win powerball tomorrow, we have very full lives and loves and friendships...and it doesn't get better than that! Special note: none of this would be possible without the selflessness of our veterans and active military...thank you all for protecting our rights and freedoms.

After church, I spent the late morning making a sweet potato casserole for dinner at the Hacienda RV clubhouse. MMMMM!!! Dinner was from 2:oo to 4:00 and there were about 50 or 60 people attending. Everyone brought a dish and there was more than enough delicious food to fill our hungry tummies! You might think that it would be difficult to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with 60 strangers...but you're very wrong! We chatted with several people and sat with a couple who are parked directly across the street from us...the 4 of us talked for 2 hours! We may all be strangers, but we're all living our dreams and have very much in common. Ed and I have formed many lasting friendships with many couples all over the country and every where we go, there's always at least one couple that we know...and everyone extends a welcoming hand! It's amazing how many beautiful people there are out there in this amazing country!

Here's wishing everyone a very happy Thanksgiving and may all of our family and friends know just how much we love you and how thankful we are to be blessed with each and every one of you!

Many, many more happy Thanksgivings to all of our wonderful nieces and nephews, grandsons and granddaughters, and great-niece and 2nd cousin!

Trip to High Point NC

Just got back from 5 wonderful days in NC with Janet, Bob, Annabelle and Katiebug! The trip there was a little more traumatic than I would've liked. I took a shuttle from Las Cruces, NM to El Paso, TX to catch a flight on Wed Nov 18...about 1/2 way there, I realized I forgot my driver's liscense...leads a call to Ed and the shuttle service to arrange for Ed to drop off my liscense at the shuttle and for the shuttle to bring it to me on their next trip (they run hourly). Well, it didn't quite make it by my 8:30am flight so I had to reschedule...I flew out at 6:30pm! So there I sat for 12 hours! Good thing I had a good book...and I did alot of walking around the airport. Then I was the lucky one to participate in the random frisking of boarding passengers. Then, a woman passed out while walking down the middle aisle of the plane, on her way to the bathroom! Knocked out cold for about 2 minutes...I think she's ok tho...she came to and after some oxygen and an icepack on the bruiser she's going to get above her eye, she was led back to her seat. The paramedics met her when we landed. Thankfully, the flight back to El Paso was very uneventful!

I digress...back to my visit...

After they met me at the airport (both kiddies knocked me over!), we enjoyed a very busy week, including watching Annabelle in her dance class, followed by dinner and ice cream for us girls, a birthday party for one of Annabelle's friends, a trip to the park, a few trips to look at and compare the townhouse and house that Jan and Bob are looking to buy (as of this writing, they're going with the house). Phew! Oh, yeah....I babysat one night while Jan and Bob enjoyed a night out...the girls were great, by the way! Sunday we drove through a 4 mile park filled with Christmas lights and scenes...fabulous! (Drew, remember the one you took me through when I was there? Just like that one!) The girls were mesmerized! Somewhere in all that, Jan and Bob 'adopted' another stray kittie...that makes 3 cats now...achooo!! A quick trip to Wally World with Jan to buy Christmas gifts for AJ and KB....yeah! One of the things that melted my heart was rocking Katiebug before her nap and at night...she curls right up in my arms and she seemed to love it as much as I did! I could've rocked all night! Another high point was sleeping on the air mattress with Annabelle...she'd reach over with a big smile and hug me while we watched Barbie movies...ahhhhh! The hardest part was saying goodbye at the airport....it's hard to say goodbye to 2 little girls with tears running down their faces! Did I forget anything, Jan??

Now I'm back in Las Cruces with my Eddie and we enjoyed a very nice, QUIET day...I didn't even get dressed till noon! Did a little food shopping to pick up ingredients for a sweet potato casserole I'm making for Thanksgiving dinner at the clubhouse on Thursday. Tomorrow....more of the same!

Thanks for a fabulous visit!

Love to all

It's been a very uneventful week for us...not a bad thing though. Sometimes it's nice to sit back and relax! Yesterday was church, laundry, and cleaning day...in that order. Father Richard is in Italy for 2 weeks, visiting the Pope so there was a visiting priest, who was very entertaining! His sermon was all about death and how we never know when our time will come, and we'd better be ready! Hmmm...hope that doesn't have anything to do with my trip to NC...better find that St. Christopher medal!

After church, we did 4 loads of laundry and cleaned the RV from top to bottom. Because the air is so dry out here, when the heat goes on, the fans blow the dust around and it settles EVERYWHERE! It felt so good to have everything spanking clean!

Today we took a short trip into El Paso and then drove the route around El Paso that we were going to take with the RV to Carlsbad Caverns (it's called the Trans-Mountain Road or the 375 loop)...the key word being 'were'. This route goes right through the mountains and, although it's really a beautiful road, the incline is about 8% on both sides. I know we'll probably see that kind of an incline when we head to California, but we decided not to tax the RV brakes if we didn't have to...so we're going straight through El Paso and cut across from there. We'll be heading to the Caverns a week or 2 after I get back from NC (see ya on Wednesday!)

After a quick stop at Camping World to look at grills (ours is barely going to make it through this trip, but we decided to wait a while longer to buy a new one), we went grocery shopping and then headed home. See?? Pretty uneventful, yes?? It's going to drop to 27 degrees tonite...brrrr! But the days are beautiful, if not a teensy bit chilly! We don't care...we haven't seen a single snow flake!

Gotta go...Emma's whining for me to take her out...

Hugs and kisses to AJ, KB, LG, and LC!

El Paso TX

Yesterday we took a day trip down to El Paso TX...left the RV and Emma in Las Cruces so we were on a 6 hour schedule! First stop was the Golden Horseshoe shopping district in downtown El Paso...not too impressed but worth the trip! It consists of about 4 streets downtown...the outer 2 streets are shaped like a horseshoe, thus the name 'Golden Horseshoe'. We felt like we were in NYC, but with a strong Mexican influence...alot of electronics stores and cheap clothes stores and all of the stores brought their wares out onto the sidewalks...very much a fleamarket atmosphere! I bought a pair of white tieless sneekers for $6! I'm always look for shoe deals! We stopped at the visitor's center and the very nice lady recommended a restaurant called Ruli's, so of course we had to have lunch there! Both of us had Cuban sandwiches and a special potato soup that was excellent! Good choice for lunch!



We walked down to the lower end of the horseshoe and saw one of the bridges that leads into Juarez Mexico...the traffic was backed up beyond our vision. We have NO desire to cross the border but it was fun to see it.



From there we took another exit off the highway and went to the El Paso Saddleblanket warehouse store. It reminded me of a Mexican version of the JR stores on the way down to Naples. the Saddleblanket has a ton of turquoise jewelry, saddles, cowboy hats and boots and southwestern furniture. Ed bought a really nice black cowboy hat for only $16...now that was a good deal!


Our final stop was a couple exits further to a restaurant called Hiney's! Similar to Hooters, but very local atmosphere. After all, it WAS Ed's birthday and he wanted to see it...so there we went! We had an appetizer plate and a drink and headed home to our Emma.



Happy Birthday to my Eddie!

City of Rocks and the Gila Cliff Dwellers...

Yesterday we decided to head up to the City of Rocks State Park and then on to the Gila Cliff Dwellers. The City of Rocks is about 80 miles NW of Las Cruces and we LOVED it! From the visitor's center, you look out over miles of bare land and the park itself consists of numerous tall rocks jutting out from the earth, in all shapes and sizes. There are several campsites amongst the rocks that are on a first-come first-serve basis and then a few that are reserved. We drove through the sites and found several that we can fit the RV in, so we're thinking we might leave Las Cruces a few days early and spend a couple of nights tucked in among the rocks. We took Emma on a short trail that wound out through the cactus and she had a ball!

From the City of Rocks we headed up to the Gila National Forest and the Gila Cliff Dwellers. The cliffs are about 70 miles north from the City of Rocks and I found several websites that suggested we leave the RV behind. Good thing we listened and left the RV back in Las Cruces! It took about 2 hours to go 40 miles...there's only one way in and one way out for the last 25 miles and it's treacherous! We took the 'easy' route going and the 'hard' route leaving. The 'easy' route consisted of twists and turns and several climbs and dips... we stayed between 25 and 40 mph the whole way. But the 'hard' route back down was much worse! There were numerous hairpin turns, 12 degree inclines, no center lines, and no guardrails along areas where the drop off the road was VERY steep and immediate! It wasn't bad in the car...we stayed between 15 and 35 mph...but we just kept thinking what if we had brought the RV?? Some of the turns would have literally been impossible to navigate!

Anyway, the Gila Cliff Dwellers were very interesting. It consisted of 7 caves high up in the cliffs where the Mogollon people lived. There were only about 40 people living there during the early 1200s. They grew various plants and fruits in the valley to attract animals so they could hunt them. We were able to go into the dwellings which was pretty cool. They don't tell you that you can't be afraid of heights and you have to be pretty sure-footed, because you are literally walking on the cliff edge from one cave to the next! And the cliffs are about 175 feet up from where we started off. The whole thing was about a mile loop and it took about an hour to complete.

It was a long day...we left at 9:00am and got home around 7:30pm. We were exhausted! But it was well worth it! We are definitely in tourist mode on this trip...

Happy Birthday Drew!

Hiking up Organ Mountain

So today we decided to hike up Organ Mountain. Our first attempt at getting there failed because we ended up on a gravel road and didn't think we were going in the right direction. So after about a mile, we turned around and, after getting back on pavement, found a postman and asked him how to get to the park for hiking. He sent us BACK up the gravel road for about 2 miles (told you so, Ed!)...then another mile on paved road and voila! There was the Visitor Center at Dripping Springs Trail Complex (in Ed's defense, there were NO signs on the gravel road indicating we were approaching the park!). The park ranger was very nice and very helpful and she gave us suggestions on which trails to hike. The first was the La Cueva trail which leads to a cave that a monk lived in alone in the 1860s. Every Friday nite he would light a fire that could be seen down in Las Cruces, to let them know he was still alive. Then one Friday, there was no fire, and the following day he was found dead with a knife in his back. Well, we started down the trail, and we didn't get more than 100 feet when right there in front of us on the side of the path, was a rattlesnake! Rattling like crazy at us! That's all it took for this baby to turn tail back up to the car...done! Ed of course wanted to go back...he threw a few rocks in the direction where the rattlesnake had been and he said it was gone...didn't matter...no way was I going back there!


After we got back in the car, we headed back down to the paved road and decided to drive up to Soledad Canyon, which was another trail that the Park Ranger had recommended...one that we could take Emma on. We hiked that one for about a mile up and back and decided that, as fun as it was, we didn't want to bring Emma with us. The trail was very rocky and climbed the whole way up. The entire time I kept thinking I heard rattlesnakes! Turned out the noise came from the clicking of wings on a particular butterfly! So we got our hike in after all, and no one got bit by a rattlesnake!

Tomorrow we're heading up to City of the Rocks State Park and the Gila Cliff Dwellers...it's about 150 miles NW and it'll be an all day trip. We're bringing Emma with us and I think she'll have a lot of fun!

Get better soon my little angels!

Hangin' out at the Hacienda

Today was very uneventful. We spent the afternoon food shopping and looking for a health food store and a crafts store...both of which we found! I wanted to find quilling paper and Ed wanted to find Acai juice. I enjoy quilling and thought I'd try my hand at it again. And Ed is always looking for healthy supplements...Acai is supposed to help with cholesterol, among other benefits.

We were going to go to Subway for dinner tonight, but instead I made a bruschetta that my friend Pat from L&M had made and brought in on my last day of work there in September. I loved it so she gave me the recipe! Anyway, I kept telling Ed how great it was, so I finally decided to make it for him...and I was right...he loved it! We went through an entire loaf of French bread! Thanks Pat!!

The sunset tonite was gorgeous but I didn't have the camara set right, so the full moon didn't show up. But I did get a couple of pics of the sunset behind the RV.

Watchin' the Yankees! GO YANKEES!