Gallup

2019-06-06 thru 2019-06-11 – Traveling West – Liberal, KS and then Home…

This morning we pulled out of the RV park in Liberal, KS, and pointed the Villa southwest. In about three minutes we were in the far western part of the Oklahoma panhandle; about 90 minutes later we were in the far western part of the Texas panhandle; by noon we were in New Mexico…

These parts of Oklahoma and Texas look remarkably like Kansas…

At one rest stop there were these nice little picnic shelters… Mid Century Modern!… Nice, but a little beat up…

All day yesterday and all day today, until we entered New Mexico, we followed the railroad tracks. About every ten miles we came to a small town dominated by these giant grain elevators or silos…

The further we drove west the smaller and more distressed the towns were… Not being farming folk, we could not tell exactly what these facilities do, but we assume it is related to grain storage, food processing, feed production, or something like that…

By mid day we were at our campground in Tucumcari, NM.

And, for the record, New Mexico does not look anything like Texas, Oklahoma, or Kansas:

Happy Hours and a light supper ensued in the Villa; tomorrow we head towards Gallup, NM.

Friday morning dawned nice and cool, but the heat will be arriving soon. We pointed the Villa west, towards Albuquerque and beyond…

The drive was uneventful, as expected…

New Mexico looks like this…

At one rest stop we found this Scenic Historic Marker:

We weren’t sure what it meant… east and west looked pretty much the same to us. Yes, western New Mexico does has more hills. We rose to almost 7,000′ elevation before dropping down to 5280′ elevation in Albuquerque…

Then we went uphill again to 7,275′ elevation at the Continental Divide…

We eventually arrived in Gallup, NM, at about 6,500′ elevation…

The sky was beautiful, the sun was hot, but the winds made the 89 degree temperature bearable. By early evening we were able to turn off the AC, and by sunrise tomorrow it is supposed to be 48 degrees…

Happy Hours and a light supper ensued in the Villa; tomorrow we head towards Kingman, AZ.

Saturday morning dawned nice and cool, but the heat will be arriving soon. We pointed the Villa west, towards Winslow, Flagstaff, Williams, and Kingman…

The drive was uneventful, as expected…

Arizona looks like this…

We drove for about six hours, taking time for rest stops, fuel, and lunch… We finally pulled into Kingman, AZ by mid-afternoon…

Interesting note is that we stayed here almost exactly two years ago as our first stop after leaving Irvine on our 4 1/2 month trip, the day after Lynda retired…

Happy Hours and a light supper ensued in the Villa; tomorrow we head towards Palm Desert, CA.

Sunday morning dawned nice and cool, but the heat will be arriving soon. We pointed the Villa west, towards the California border…

The drive was uneventful, as expected…

We crossed over the Colorado River…

And we entered California!

We were met by some attentive uniformed people who asked us where we’d been, and if we were bringing in any firewood…

The California Desert looks like this…

For those of you who insist on calling places like eastern Oregon a “desert”, please stop! Rivers, grass with cattle grazing, and green leafy trees do not make a desert! See photo above for what a desert looks like!

We moved on to Palm Desert, where they have succeeded in making the desert green:

We spent the afternoon and evening with like-minded friends, sharing happy hours and dinner. Early Monday morning we drove the final hour…

We arrived home in Redlands; an enjoyable time was had by all…

Tally:

Miles driven: 8,379

Days traveling and camping on our own: 40 days

Days on the Cajun Country Caravan: 16 days

Days on the Springtime in Kentucky Caravan: 22 days

Total days living in the Villa: 78 days

Total number of Airstreams seen along the road: 211

Number of nights in the Villa over the past 24 months: 375 days (51%)

And one last photo of our girls…

June 11, 2019 1

2018-10-10 – Day 53 – Camp Verde and Sedona

We left Gallup at 8:00 am. It was 36 degrees outside… We stopped briefly for a mid-morning snack. We are driving west along the 40 through northern Arizona…

At Winslow we turned south on tiny highway 89; the sign said, “No services next 51 miles”… They weren’t kidding:

We turned west again and soon arrived at Camp Verde, site of Historic Fort Verde (1865). Camp Verde is a working class town, a few miles south of Sedona.

We parked and set up at a very nice RV Park, then we drove to Sedona. Sedona seems like they took Santa Fe and dropped it into the middle of Bryce Canyon…

Sedona, like Santa Fe, consists of hotels and shopping areas aimed directly at tourists: gift shops, art galleries, spas, restaurants, and bars. Compared to Santa Fe, it has a little less Indian culture and a lot more spiritual culture…

Being tourists, we found a nice restaurant. Lynda ordered a small margarita…

I was still pondering the menu and the Yelp ratings…

We had a nice, but small and simple lunch, then walked through the shops amongst the other tourists. I was surprised by the number of families in town; I would have expected more well dressed ladies of a certain age (with tiny yippie dogs) and their equally well dressed male companions…

We returned to the Villa. Internet service was bad, so I had to hang out at the office to get anything done. We walked around the RV park. It is very nice, mostly seasonal and long term visitors. There were six other Airstreams in the park… Oh! Wait! We just noticed a brand new Airstream Atlas! Make that seven other Airstreams in the park…

At dinner time we sought out all the fine dining options in the area. There was one.

We went to Moscato, a fine Italian place in Camp Verde, about four miles from the RV park…

We arrived early and we walked a bit in the town, such as it is…

We found a liquor store that carried all the essentials…

We’re not in California any more…

The restaurant was VERY nice – it soon became our favorite restaurant in Camp Verde…

The food and service were great. The room is beautiful. They also have a lovely outdoor patio, but it was a bit cool for that. There were several large parties and families celebrating something or other…

We made a reservation again for tomorrow night…

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

October 12, 2018 0

2018-10-09 – WBCCI 2018 Southwest Adventure Caravan – Day 52 – Caravan is over; we head for home…

We watched the balloons fly one last time… We walked on the field amidst the chaos…

It’s always fun to see the special shaped balloons – later in the week they will have a special competition just for them…

This is Bill Lee, the pilot who organized our balloon rides last week in Gallup. His balloon is the official balloon for the State of New Mexico… We tried to talk to him, but I think he was preoccupied…

So we walked on…

After a few minutes we looked back and Bill Lee was aloft…

Once all the balloons had ascended we walked back to the Villa, hitched up, and left our happy campground full of Airstreams…

Our destination today is Gallup, NM, back to USA RV Park, which we left less than one week ago… We are spending one night, to dump the tanks, take showers, and get re-oriented again for our trip home…

We stopped briefly to stretch our legs, and then traveled on…

We crossed the Continental Divide (7275′ elevation) at about 11:00 am. It was 44 degrees outside… And then the rain began. It was not heavy, and it did not hinder our trip…

There is not a lot going on out here in western New Mexico…

But soon we were settled in to our site at USA RV Park, just west of Gallup, NM.

This evening we had planned to walk the 1/2 mile and eat at Virgies, a Gallup institution. Literally seconds before we left the Airstream it started to rain in a giant downpour. It didn’t last long, but we didn’t want to get caught in another such downpour… Also, the highway was too wet, in our opinion, to walk…

We called Uber and 9 minutes later we were at Virgies:

By the time dinner was over we were able to walk back to the Villa…

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

Oh! Here’s Evelyn:

October 12, 2018 0

2018-10-03 – WBCCI 2018 Southwest Adventure Caravan – Day 46 – Traveling from Gallup to Cubero, New Mexico

Another travel day… These days are my favorite – driving down the highway, watching the scenery, going places that we’ve never been before… Today we took the long way around, choosing to drive the back roads for three hours instead of the interstate for two hours…

We drove south from Gallup, towards El Morro National Monument, then through El Marpais National Monument. This area is very volcanic, yet the mesas still exhibit interesting rock formations…

We stopped at a few historic markers…

The road eventually turned east, then northeast, where it intersected with the 40; about 20 miles later we were at Cubero, site of the Sky City Casino, Hotel, and RV Park. Sky City is the name for the Pueblo at Acoma, where we will go tour tomorrow…

We had an easy time setting up in a very modern, but very bleak RV park. Naps, then Happy Hours, and dinner ensued…

As Happy Hours were transitioning to Dinner we were hit by a sudden thunderstorm, followed by a rainbow…

News flash! This morning it dropped below 70 degrees in Los Angeles, and rain MIGHT happen. Erin quickly dressed Evelyn in all her winter clothes:

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

October 9, 2018 0

2018-10-01 – WBCCI 2018 Southwest Adventure Caravan – Day 44 – Gallup, New Mexico…

The figure above is “Kokopelli”, and this image is all over the Southwest USA; in fact, this caravan uses it as the caravan logo. The oldest images of Kokopelli appeared between 750 and 850 AD.

There are lots of stories of Kokopelli being a fertility deity, holding forth over childbirth, or being an agricultural deity, or being in charge of livestock… My favorite story is this:

A little man named Kokopelli used to travel to the various villages of the Southwest long ago. He carried a bag of corn seed on his back, and he taught the people to plant corn. At night, while the people slept, Kokopelli roamed the corn fields, playing his flute. The next morning, villagers would arise to find the corn four feet tall, and there would be no sign of Kokopelli. Also, many of the young women of the village would be found to be pregnant…

Today I tried to get caught up on my this blog; the only activity was to visit another Trading Post and learn, again, about the practice of Pawn, and to have the opportunity to buy rugs, pottery, and silver and turquoise jewelry. No thanks. Lynda went along with another couple; I stayed and tried to find good internet access, with little luck.

Lynda and the others returned about 5:00 pm. It was raining, and many people had gone out to dinner. We stayed in and had a quiet evening…

Tomorrow we return to the Pueblo of Zuni; this is the sacred Zuni Mountain…

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

October 8, 2018 0

2018-09-30 – WBCCI 2018 Southwest Adventure Caravan – Day 43 – Gallup, New Mexico – Hot Air Balloons and the Zuni Pueblo…

Today is the day! Hot Air Balloons!

We drove in the dark to meet at Red Rock State Park, just east of Gallup. We met up with the balloon pilots and their crews. There will be 6 balloons going up today. Weather conditions are perfect!

We drove around to the launch site, in the first of several canyons we would be seeing today. Then the work of setting up the balloons begins.

The basket is assembled, and the burners are installed and tested…

The balloon is inflated with a large, loud fan…

The the burners are fired and the air in the balloon is heated…

As the air in the balloon gets warmer the balloon rises…

We all climb in the basket and away we go!

As we ascended we could look down on the ground crew and the chase vehicles. These people will follow us along our route and pick us up when we land – wherever that might be…

Riding in a hot air balloon is an ethereal experience. Everything is VERY slow. It is silent, except when the pilot hits the valve to fire the burner to add more heat. There is no steering wheel and there are no brakes – the balloon simply follows the wind… There are some vents in the balloon to let the pilot release air, and this allows him to rotate and adjust the balloon’s trajectory.

So we flew over five canyons, soaring over the plateaus and dropping deep into the canyon, then back up again…

Part of the fun is flying along with other balloons…

This is the official balloon of the State of New Mexico…

Looking up into the hot air…

After about five miles and one hour or so the first balloon lands…

Our chase crew has arrived…

As the others are starting to deflate and pack up we are still searching for a place to land…

And we are on the ground! This is our pilot, Jeff. He has over 30 years experience flying balloons, and he set us down flawlessly!

As the balloon deflates we all pitch in to pack it up…

The basket is disassembled…

The burners are stowed…

And we returned to the original meeting spot. We had a traditional ceremony and we shared a little champagne to celebrate our flight…

And, with that, our ballooning was over. On to other adventures…

After such an exhilarating morning, we celebrated by having breakfast at the Railroad Cafe – in a remodeled mid-70s era Der Weinerschnitel.

And then we headed south about 45 miles to the Pueblo of Zuni

When Lynda retired from Valley Christian High School in June, 2017, another colleague, Tim Becksvoort also left. But Tim didn’t retire – he moved, with his wife and three children to Zuni, NM, to become Principal of the Zuni Christian Mission School. We set out today to visit the Becksvoorts and the Pueblo of Zuni…

In 1897, Andrew and Effa Vander Wagen established a permanent mission in Zuni on behalf of the Christian Reformed Church. Their passion and love for their Indian brothers and sisters made a lasting impression on all they touched. They became fluent in the Zuni language and persevered in spite of physical threats to their lives.

The breakthrough for the fledgling Mission came when the Vander Wagens (with their infant children) refused to leave Zuni during a serious smallpox epidemic. Instead of fleeing, as did the officials at Bureau of Indian Affairs, who were responsible for medical care in Zuni, the young couple went door to door caring for and administering medicine to their Zuni neighbors. In that and later acts of mercy, the Vander Wagens pioneered the then-revolutionary mission concept that in order to minister to people’s spiritual needs one must also be willing to demonstrate Christ’s compassion and care for their physical needs. With that groundwork laid, the first ordained missionaries were assigned to the Zuni Christian Reformed Mission in 1906.

In 1908, so that the missionary children might have Christian schooling, Miss Nellie DeJong came to Zuni as their teacher. Along with the missionary children, four Zuni children were also enrolled. From that humble beginning, the school expanded rapidly and soon claimed an important role in building relationships in the community, in educating the children and in sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the children and their families.

Although the church and school have been housed in the same location within the Pueblo since its inception, there have been many changes in the facilities. A major setback occurred in 1971 when a devastating fire raged through the Mission, completely destroying the church and school. Portable classrooms were brought in and “temporary” facilities were constructed. Forty years later, an amazing venture to rebuild the entire mission campus was begun. Today there is a beautiful new school, a worship center for the church, residences for up to six families of staff members, a playground, and a gymnasium.

Zuni

The school is located across the river from central Zuni, the oldest part of the pueblo, “Middle Earth”, as they call it. However, the village has, over the past 100 years, grown and now surrounds the school and church.

The Becksvoorts live in this very nice two-story apartment…

We had lunch with the Becksvoort family, chatted with their three children, and walked around the “Middle Earth”…

The A:shiwi have lived here “forever”. When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in about 1620 they gave the natives the name of Zuni… The Spanish built a church: Our Lady of Guadalupe. It was destroyed in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, and the Spanish left and fled to Santa Fe when the American frontiersmen started coming through in about 1800 as part of America’s western migration. The church was rebuilt in 1960, but, due to benign neglect, it has significantly deteriorated, making it uninhabitable today…

The church even has vigas, which are, of course, rotting…

We walked about the newer (1960s) buildings (with vigas…), and saw one of the Zunis’ ceremonial courtyards, and their traditional adobe ovens, used mostly to bake bread…

(We will come back to Zuni in a few days with the caravan; we will have a native meal with the Zuni people and an official tour… Stay tuned…)

We returned to the RV park in the late afternoon, and enjoyed happy hours with our fellow Airstreamers…

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

October 7, 2018 0

2018-09-29 – WBCCI 2018 Southwest Adventure Caravan – Day 42 – Gallup, New Mexico…

Another quiet day on the caravan. We began by visiting an Indian Trading post and learning about Pawn. Among the Indians, Pawn is nothing like the typical pawn shop where folks down on their luck borrow a few dollars on something semi-valuable that they own. For the Indians, Pawn is a combination bank and safe deposit box. Since there is little private ownership of land, and semi-communal living is common, there is no place secure for the Indians to store their valuables. So they bring them to the Pawn and Trading Post; the trading post will store the valuables and give a token “loan” to the owner. The owner then comes in every 2-3-4 months and pays a fee to keep the items in pawn. When they need their possession back, they pay back the “loan” and claim their goods.

This trading post has over 1,800 saddles in Pawn. I doubt there are even 1,800 horses in this part of the reservation… There are also guns, ceremonial head dresses and boots, lots of jewelry, and many other things the Indians deem valuable…

The saddles…

After listening to the Pawn explanation we saw an artist demonstrate his craft. He showed us how he sketches and etches his design (in this case a silver bracelet) into a piece of soft stone. This makes a mold, into which he pours the molten silver. Out comes the rough bracelet, which he then polishes and finishes into a fine piece of jewelry…

Most caravaners then proceeded to spend lots of money…

We returned to the Villa. We enjoyed a Saturday afternoon watching college football. While the internet service is terrible here in New Mexico, the satellite TV is great!

We had many Happy Hours with our Airstream neighbors, then watched football again well into the night…

And again we have a short day, so here I present Erin and George expressing their feelings about spending all day Saturday watching T-Ball…

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

October 6, 2018 0

2018-09-28 – WBCCI 2018 Southwest Adventure Caravan – Day 41 – Driving to Gallup, New Mexico…

We left Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon Dam and headed roughly Southeast across some of the most remote and desolate terrain I’ve ever seen. This is mostly the land of the Navajo Nation…

We drove for miles and miles… and saw nothing but miles and miles…

At Kayenta, AZ, we stopped at a Burger King, home of a great exhibit telling the stories of members of the Navajo Nation who served in WWII, and, particularly, the story of the Code Talkers.

By the time we had finished looking at the exhibits other Airstreamers had also arrived…

And then we left and drove to Gallup, NM. Nothing too exciting. In the evening we enjoyed a BBQ dinner provided by the RV park in their dining pavilion…

We were visited by the representative of the ballooning folks to brief us on the coming days’ activities – we are going to be riding in hot air balloons! We are scheduled for Sunday…

So, as is our tradition, on slow news days, we present some of our great grandchildren… Maybe you’ve seen these before…

Roisin, age 5:

Ian, age 4, and George, almost 3:

Ian, Roisin, and Evelyn, age 6 months:

Ian:

Evelyn

And, finally, Evelyn:

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

October 6, 2018 0

2018-08-18 – Traveling East – Day 3 – Gallop and Albuquerque

We pulled out of Williams, AZ, this morning at about 7:30. We are headed to Albuquerque today to meet up with other Airstreamers. The caravan officially starts tomorrow, but we wanted to arrive one day early. (Many caravaners arrive several days ahead of the official start…)

The drive was uneventful across the rest of Arizona. We are in the mountains of Flagstaff, Winslow, and Winona, with elevations from 5,000 ft. to a maximum of 7,275 ft. The countryside was beautiful – so much more green than it was last year when we came through here in June…

The good news! Many of the worst roads that we experienced last year have been repaired, or were being repaired as we detoured past the construction zones.

As we approached Gallop, NM, we saw billboard after billboard advertising the El Rancho Hotel . Since we wanted to stop for lunch, we pulled off onto another remnant of Route 66 and drove through Downtown Gallop. Our GPS led us to the hotel; it has obviously seen better days…

We soon realized that we had come in through the rear… The front looks a little better…

The hotel was built in the 1930s, and for the next 20 years was heavily used by the Hollywood film industry as headquarters for various movies being filmed in the rugged areas around here. The lobby was very “old west”…

We had lunch in the restaurant… Not quite the same scenic view as yesterday…

It was a fascinating place. We peeked into the bar and also the “49er Room” – a night club type of space that must have been really hopping in the olden days of the 1950s.

After lunch, as we walked back towards The Villa, it started to rain. For the next 2 hours or so it continued to rain, with some extremely heavy thunder and lightning showers and amazing cross-winds blowing across the freeway. A trailer traveling ahead of us was being blown all over the road, but The Villa held firm – sort of like an anchor.

The rain stopped, the skies cleared, and we pulled into American RV Park in Albuquerque. We beheld a wondrous sight:

We parked The Villa and set up – we are here for 4 nights…

We had a little Happy Hours and met a few of the other caravaners. We also received our Drivers Manual, so we now know where we are going to be for the next 51 days. We watched the sun set…

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

August 21, 2018 0

Adventures in the Villa

Category

2019-06-06 thru 2019-06-11 – Traveling West – Liberal, KS and then Home…

2018-10-10 – Day 53 – Camp Verde and Sedona

2018-10-09 – WBCCI 2018 Southwest Adventure Caravan – Day 52 – Caravan is over; we head for home…

2018-10-03 – WBCCI 2018 Southwest Adventure Caravan – Day 46 – Traveling from Gallup to Cubero, New Mexico

2018-10-01 – WBCCI 2018 Southwest Adventure Caravan – Day 44 – Gallup, New Mexico…

2018-09-30 – WBCCI 2018 Southwest Adventure Caravan – Day 43 – Gallup, New Mexico – Hot Air Balloons and the Zuni Pueblo…

2018-09-29 – WBCCI 2018 Southwest Adventure Caravan – Day 42 – Gallup, New Mexico…

2018-09-28 – WBCCI 2018 Southwest Adventure Caravan – Day 41 – Driving to Gallup, New Mexico…

2018-08-18 – Traveling East – Day 3 – Gallop and Albuquerque

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