Westward Hoh!!

The wagons are hitched,  horses fed (gassed up).  Supplies sufficient.  Saddle up and let's head west!

We spent the past 3 wonderful days helping Sraddha's nephew, Tyler and family, move into their new home.  Camping outside on the street or "Burbs-Boondocking" was really fun.  We met many neighbors and friends who stopped by to say hello or help.

Burbs Boondocking

We even went shopping at Ikea for shelving and spent last afternoon and evening assembling and installing shelves and other storage devices in the playroom.  I had lots of help from the little ones.  Unfortunately, no one thought to take a photo until afterwards.  Sigh.  Must I do it all?

Helping out in the kitchen

We will finish up with installing wall photos this morning and I packed up the RV, making it ready to head out.  We had lunch with Tyler, then headed west.  Tonight's destination unknown but we have some possibilties.  It's 650 miles to Ananda Village.  Too far for one day.  Almost too far for two days although we have done that mileage.  The problem is having any energy left upon arrival.  So we will spend 2 nights on the road.

A little playtime when the sun finally came out

If we can drive 200-250 miles today (5-6 hours) and 250-300 (6-7 hours) miles tomorrow, then we have an easy day Thursday of, say 100-120 miles.  We average 50 miles per hour when we are really moving but thursday will be over and down mountain passes which drops the average to 35 miles per hour realistically or 4 hours of driving.

Helping out

So we will shoot for Wells-Elko area Tuesday hoping to set up camp for a late dinner.  Then head over through Fernly, NV for refueling and onto Washoe Lake State Park or Lahontan Lake Recreation area outside of Carson City, might be possibilities for affordable stop.  Then we could hit the Carson City Trader Joes store for essential resupply before heading up over Tahoe to Ananda Village.

We will not make any reservations and just see what comes to us.  Should be a fun little trip and looking forward to more "burb-Boondocking at Ananda Village.  The price is right.

Santa Fe

Back in a big city. Well, not that big but bigger than almost every other place we have been for past month.  Actually we have already departed Santa Fe but pretend we are here now. Too cold most of the time to really get out much.  We restocked the larder, got the RV serviced, ate some wonderful food.

Old railyard where farmers market is located

I must say it was a bit of an adjustment to be in a faster paced energy here.

Basilica of St Francis of Assis.  Parton Saint of Santa Fe

Also it is a bit more expensive than other places.

Some cool painted posts

Vendors on the central plaza

We noticed this today at the Whole Foods Market. When I went out to resupply our drinking water, the machines charge $0.30 per gallon where everywhere else we have been charges only $0.25 per gallon.  A little thing, yes, however, indicative of higher costs.










 We did go out to eat every night, our one indulgence.

Cafe Pasquale.  Home of the Best Chile Relleno EVER!

Fuel is about the same all over New Mexico right now at $3.43 per gallon. Cheaper than Moab, from what can see.

From inside the Baslica

New Mexico, in the Spring, has two kinds of weather,  windy and very windy.  We try to plan our excursions when it is only windy or breezy (less than 20 mph). Very windy (30+ mph gusting to 45-50 mph) are days when the chill creeps through our senior citizen bones so we try to spend those days indoors.  One day we visited the State Capital where legislature and governor have offices.  The artwork was the compelling reason. I didn't take a lot of photos of the art but here are a couple

           

Notice the materials used here

From one of the moon walks

Our stay in Santa Fe began with balmy weather so we headed out side up to Vaias Caldera and Bandelier for a day.  The next day we had scheduled the RV to be in for routine service the wind came up, so we headed indoors spending much of the day in the public library. Sraddha wasn’t feeling well so needed quiet.  I had work to do with the online Ananda Library so what better place than a public library with internet access.

Cottonwoods by Georgia Okeefe

 One day we visited the Georgia Okeefe museum.  Always different.  There was an exhibit of Okeefe and Ansel Adams in Hawaii.  Couldn't take pix though.

Gerogia's cook book collection in orginal boxes 

Saw this unusual parking sign outside the library.  Turns out it is not DOT sanctioned.  Still real fun

Am doing this quick post.  Honestly because of the weather we didn't take a lot of photos.  Too cccccooolddddd. I had hoped to shoot a lot of color.  Next time.

Our Home in Tucson

We have been in southern Arizona since before Thanksgiving.  Arriving in Tucson, we stayed at our usual places we so much love, Catalina State Park and Gilbert Ray county park in Tucson Mountains. Beautiful scenery, quiet at night.  Only drawback was limited stays of 1-2 weeks.

Fairview Manor

Back in December, we searched around for a place we could affordably stay for extended period of time.  We were not interested in the mega-RV resorts with all the amenities we would never utilize.  We also wanted to be centrally located if possible.  Hitting upon the idea of a mobile home park we began to drive around north Tucson in search of one suitable to our needs and tastes.  We googled and we reviewed maps and must have looked at 20 different places.  All were either too run down, not great neighborhoods, too dense, noisy, etc.  Almost out of options we happened to drive past an entrance which we actually passed by and had to turn around and return.

Our home from home

We found a location just inside the north Tucson city limits near Miracle Mile street called Fairview Manor RV park. Gee, it is on Fairview Avenue hence the name.  An "over 55" mostly mobile homes with a few open spaces for RV's with full hookups.  We discovered, upon stopping by the main office, that it had a special daily price with one of our memberships so we decided to stay a few days to try it out.  We ended up staying 10 days because we had to go to Utah the week before Christmas for an unexpected family funeral.  We left Charli, our RV here in safe hands while we drove up in the Mr. Toad, our jeep.

Our view out the front window

We found the park to be friendly and quiet despite its proximity (half mile) from the interstate and railroad mainline. Our neighbors on both sides are quiet and friendly.  Space in between lots is sufficient to feel uncrowded and, best of all, we have a view of the Catalina mountains out our front window.  They even pulled all the weeds the other day around our site. I love the fact that I don't have to mow a lawn, or weed or prune, or any of those household things.

Rillito River bike trail from my bike

We had planned to be up in Phoenix area during January so made plans to spend February and March here, paying on a month to month basis. Sraddha visited Ananda Laurelwood in Oregon for 3 weeks while I spent some of the time traveling to Death Valley, Nevada and then some quiet alone time working on photography and cycling.  Bonus was being near the bike trails only a couple miles away on not very busy roads.




This time is rapidly drawing to a close.  We are preparing to head out early next week on our meandering trip through the rest of southern Arizona, New Mexico, and points north, eventually returning to Ananda Laurelwood, Oregon, sometime in June.

We don't have a fixed schedule which is very different for me.  We are going to take it mostly one day at a time and see where the next place is going to be when we get there.  Not sure how reliable the internet will be but I will attempt to post as time and internet allows.