Final Push to San Diego !

      New Mexico in springtime!  If you look back at the beginning of my ramblings, we explained that the purpose of this trip was two-fold.  We wanted to get out and see America, and we wanted to get to San Diego to visit with Ben, Joanne, and Jamo.  But deep down we wanted to get out of the cold weather which takes over the north-country from October through May.  This is what we found as we toured a little north from Santa Fe into Taos, New Mexico.   We were probably asking for it since this area peaks out at about 7-8000 feet, and is about 14 miles south of the border with Colorado.  Nice thing though...Debbie was driving and I enjoyed some beautiful mountain peaks and snow covered valleys.

 But they called this road the Enchanted Circle, and it was unfortunate that the weather was not a little better.
     We did take a day and visit the Bandelier National Monument where human activity dates back over 10,000 years.  The journey there was quite interesting as we made a slight course error and ended up at Los Alamos Nuclear Testing site.  After clearing their security checkpoint, we made our was into Bandelier.

 Today was a gorgeous day, and we decided to take a guided tour with one of the volunteers tour guides. Our guide was a retired biology teacher from Chicago who had been at Bandelier for 15 years.  His program lasted about 11/2 hours, but he was truly fascinating.  The canyon is located quite close to the Rio Grande River flowing south from Colorado, down to Mexico.  The Ancestral Pueblo people who inhabited the caves along the canyon walls were present in the canyon starting around the mid 1200's.  In the mid 1300's large scale construction of villages took place as the Pueblo Indians moved from the mesa tops into the canyon bottoms.  Homes included caves dug into the canyon walls, evolving into brick sided dwellings, some several stories tall.

Visible today are straight rows of holes over the cave openings signifying the presence of roofs stretching out from the canyon walls.  These rooms were several stories tall also.  Above the rolls of holes we could see many petroglyphs of turkeys, dogs and lightning.  It is believed that the area remained viable for approximately 400 years before something forced the population to leave the canyon. It is believed that perhaps multi-year droughts or the depletion of game animals caused the migration south, still staying near the Rio Grande River.

  All visitors to the canyon are given the opportunity climb ladders and actually enter into the caves, although this is something that people who are afraid of heights may think twice about.  But it is definitely worth a visit if you're anywhere near Santa Fe.
      Now it was time to take a second look at our calender and our planned route of travel.  We had hoped to continue west from Santa Fe over toward Flagstaff and do a day trip up to the southern rim of the Grand Canyon.  But nighttime temperatures continued into the 20's and we knew just a short drive south would put us into nicer weather.  So a course change was made and we headed south out of Santa Fe toward Yuma, Az.  We had always planned on stopping at Yuma to visit my old boss from Campo BP, Gary and Beverly.  I had spoken to them last year and they had told me that they winter over in Yuma.  So my co-pilot got out the American Passport directory and plotted our journey south through Arizona.

     We did a quick over-night near Wilcox, Az before arriving in Yuma on Monday.  We settled into a nice RV park called Fortuna de Oro RV Park, which is also a Passport America park.  For $20/day we had all the amenities of an RV park which included a pool, golf course, tennis courts, and a restaurant.  The desert weather is wonderful.  Cools off nice at night for sleeping, and a nice dry heat / low 80's / during the day.  We actually liked the weather in Yuma better than Florida as we didn't have to deal with the humidity during the day.  I think Debbie is thinking of spending a little more time in this climate on our next trip.  We had a nice 2 day visit with Gary and Bev, and caught up on about 30 years of memories.  They also live in Montana which has about 20 feet of snow, so they're not really in any hurry to start heading back north.
     Wednesday morning we made an early departure from Yuma, filled the fuel tanks, and headed for our most important stop, San Diego.  We settled in at the Rancho Los Coches RV Resort in Lakeside, Ca, which puts us about 25 minutes from our grand-dog.  Rancho Los Coches is a very nice RV park with lots of shade trees on each site.  The park seems to be used mostly by area workers, but we've found that seems to be the pattern in most RV parks.  This one is very clean and quiet, and is located close to numerous stores.  We're set back a short distance from I-8 and there is absolutely no highway noise bothering us at night.  Just the occasional siren from the  fire station down the road.  If anyone needs a place to stay while visiting San Diego, so far we would highly recommend this park.  It's  very comfortable park, but don't tell too many people!
     Wednesday night we headed north to have a visit with Joanne and Jamo.  It took Jamo about 2 minutes to figure out that Granny was here from NY.  Of course Granny brought him a present, a plastic coffee can, which he loved to play with back in NY.  Ben was working, but we made arrangements to visit with him the following day.  He's working a 12N to 8P shift which usually ends up with 4 hours of overtime.  Joanne is working a 4A-12N shift with lots of overtime also.  Jamo seems to have settled into that crazy schedule and keeps a good eye on the house.  Thursday morning, Granny knocked on the door, and Ben had quite a time keeping him calmed down so we could get in the house.  He knows who Granny is now!  It was great seeing Ben and we'll be seeing a lot of them over the next 4-5 weeks.
      I have a few repairs to make on the jeep and Weezy.  The A/C compressor quit working on the jeep the other day.  I think it's a little over warranty as it just turned 94000 miles + the miles it's been towed.  We have lots of friends to reconnect with out here so it's going to be a busy time.    And of course, I have some more BP friends to visit.  Can you believe it?