March 31 - Headed to Silver City NM

Left Albuquerque early morning, headed for Silver City, southwest corner of New Mexico. 

Decided to take the scenic route 152. WOW, it was scenic, desolate, and windy like a snake. 

Made it to our campground with lots of time to sit around and decompress. Beautiful weather. Are Jambalaya in a foil packet. Delicious. Then decided to go see if we could find the Methodist church for Easter Service, since their website wasn’t very helpful!  

Headed to the Gil’s cliff Dwellings tomorrow. 

(Backup) March 30 - lots of hiking

Today started off chilly but big blue skies. Decided to get a hike in at the Cibola National Forest which is at the foothills of the Sandia Mountains. Very dog friendly. Lenny was ready. Reuben went in the backpack. 

This is Reuben collecting all the heat. 

A cholla cacti

You can see for miles up here. 

Not sure if you can tell but there is still a little snow up on the mountain. 

Went back to camp for lunch and then off again to see the Petroglyph National Monument. 

This again is a pet friendly place for the dogs to hike so we got another 2.5 miles in while we looked for petroglyphs on the volcanic rocks. 

After all that hard work, we decided we needed to go to the Kaktus Brewery again. Tonight they had music. 

Has anyone seen such a huge chess board? Just one of the many options at Kaktus Brewery. 

Now it’s time for a little R&R at the camper with a beautiful sunset. 

March 29 - Albuquerque NM

When we left Palo Duro Campground, we decided to stay off of I-40 for awhile. Here are some shots as we rolled along. 

The skies are so gorgeous and sunshine abounds. Below is a pic of the Sandip Mountains. Linda Zubler and I took the cable car to the top in 2007. What a view of the town that’s become a city. 

As we turned into our campground, we realized that we had stayed here in 2008 with Lou, Denise and Brenda. It was a good campground then and it’s even better now with some improvements. The biggest improvement is a beer garden that you can walk to from the campground - Kaktus Brewing Company. 

That’s all for now. 

March 28 - finding sun and a canyon

Today we left Oklahoma City in thick fog and cold temps. Finally got to Texas and the fog lifted and temps rose!  Hallelujah. 

Here’s one of the nicest rest areas we’ve seen on this trip. Notice how flat it is. You can see for miles. 

Like the sign - rattlesnakes... oh my. 

Our campground is on the rim of the Pallo Duro Canyon State Park. In Texas it’s known as the Little Grand Canyon. Beautiful geological wonders of white satin spar gypsum and red rock. 

We were able to hike one of the trails for about 2.5 miles. Love the colors. 

Finally able to see a sunset. But it’s getting cold as the sun goes down. 

Tomorrow it’s Albuquerque. 

March 27- lots of rain

Not much to talk about today after we left the campground. It rained the whole way from Arkansas to Oklahoma City where we stayed the night in a campground right off the Interstate 40. We don’t like those so don’t stay at them very often. We didn’t even need to unhitch it was that level. 

This was a new campground so everything was clean. We even had cable TV so we could watch our favorite Tuesday evening shows - NCUS and Bull. Since we are on Central time, the show started at 7 pm. 

Since no pics of the area, I decided to show you the inside of our tiny home for those of you who haven’t seen what we are living in. 

The kitchen and living area


This is a Row-by-Row quilt that Linda and I picked up on last year’s trip. It’s right above the headboard. 

Two more Row-by-Rows that add some hominess to our home away from home. 



This is a little plaque that Andrea and the kids gave Bill for his birthday. It perfect place to hang the leashes. 

Headed for Amarillo Texas tomorrow. 

March 26 lots of hiking and Bill’s birthday

Decided to stay another night at Maumelle Park because we found spring and maybe summer!  

Lots of hiking around here. We decided we wanted to hike the Riverwalk so Bill put that in the phone’s GPS. Thirty minutes later and along a very windy road we came to a little town of Bigalow. It’s the same size as Fillmore ... one stop shopping at the General Store. And thank heavens they had gas because the light was on in the truck. Now we did have to pay inside but we didn’t care. Asked them if we were close to the Riverwalk. After they stopped laughing, they said we were about 50 minutes away in the direction we came. When we finally found the Riverwalk, we were only 7 miles from our campground. I guess the GPS wanted us to see more of Arkansas!  Reminded me of the Fillmore Store where I grew up. 

Beautiful, peaceful 4 mile walk.  

I was carrying Reuben in his backpack so I had 10 extra pounds on!  

The weather really warmed up and there was SUN. I’m glad I still knew what it was. Decided to go back to the campground and change into summer clothes and then head off to Pinnacle Mountain. Of all the trails available to us, “we” decided to do the 3.5 mile loop around the mountain. How tough could that be?  Well, it probably wouldn’t have been bad except we had already walked 4 miles earlier. This hike was over a lot of boulders so 2.5 hours later, we made it back to the truck. 

Since it was Bill’s birthday we had to do something to celebrate so Bill built our first campfire of this trip and my first s’mores. 

Enjoyable day and evening but I’m ready for bed. 

March 24 - Snow and Rain

Because of the snow that Virginia was supposed to get, we decided to pack up and keep heading West to try to get away from the white stuff. As you see in the photo below, we ran right into it but it turned to rain in Tennessee. 

We chose to stay near Nashville in Edgar Evin State Park. Love the campground, huge lake. Would be great place to come kayaking, Pillars and Powells. 

Look, we did find spring ... lots of red bud trees blooming all over. 

Despite the rain, we were able to get in about an hour hike through the woods. Temps are in the high 50s so very nice hiking weather. 

Tomorrow we’re going to keep heading west, somewhere in Arkansas.