As it turns out, the RV Rally I told you about last week was called a Customer Appreciation Rally. I don’t know if all the people bought an RV from them or not, but there were hundreds of people. The campground was nearly full and they have some 400 campsites. There were many activities for young and old, all free. Each afternoon was a catered lunch, and each evening a catered dinner. They had set up huge tents for the affair. Two large tents for eating, one for watching TV on big plasma sets and one for entertainment, with a stage.
Local bands provided the entertainment on Friday and Saturday night. The Friday night band was called Springfire and consisted of three musicians, two guitars and a keyboard. Their music was folk and variety. The singing was not the greatest, but very entertaining. They were also comical. We enjoyed the ninety minute concert. Saturday night was a Bluegrass band called Applejack, not our cup of tea. We had filled out a raffle ticket at the beginning of the Rally. Saturday night was the drawing. They pulled names for prizes before the concert. Don’t you know, our name was pulled out of the hat. We, who have never won anything, won an Electric Tabletop Grill, worth over $130. Can you believe it? (Carolyn is grilling chicken on it as I write.) We stayed for half the concert, picked up our prize and went home.
Sunday night, October 21st, was our last night in Texas. The winds were picking up with a cold front moving through and gusting to 40-50 miles per hour. Our slide awnings were flapping and knocking with regularity. We tried to quite them by slinging a rope over top, across the awning, and pulling it tight and tying it down. It helped a little, but the awning over our bedroom slide, about three feet above our heads, kept us awake most of the night flapping and knocking loudly. It sounded as though someone was on top of the trailer stomping around. We will have to figure some solution to this problem because there is a lot of wind in the Southwest.
The next day was moving day and we headed back across the border again to New Mexico. This time we were headed to Deming, about 75 miles west of Las Cruces. The journey was only a couple of hours. We took the exit from I-10 and turned North on Highway 180 for three miles and then turned right on a secondary road. After 1 ½ miles the pavement ended and we were on a dirt/gravel road that felt like driving over a washboard. The truck, the trailer and we were all bouncing freely. That is when I thought of something I had not done to prepare for the road that I usually do.
I have a favorite wooden statue carving of Don Quixote, about ten inches tall, that I got in Spain. I keep it standing on top the window box by the sofa. Usually, I take it down and place it in the sofa cushions for protection during the move. I just knew that Don Quixote had lost the battle with the bumpy road and was laying on the floor somewhere, hopefully not broken.
After a mile and a half of this torture, we made another right turn onto yet another dirt/gravel road. At this point there was nothing to see but desert and mountains in the distant in front of us. We were driving through the open range, dust billowing up behind us like the Stagecoaches of old. Apart from the occasional steer and a few Road Runners, the state bird of New Mexico (which I fully expected to go “beep, beep” like the Looney Tunes cartoon of Wile E Coyote and the Road Runner), we saw no evidence of life. We wondered if we were going to get there before we ran into the mountain. You see a picture of the road we were on and the direction we were going in the picture above. We traveled another 5.5 miles before we finally came to our campground, Hidden Valley Ranch, around the point of the mountain. “Hidden” is the key word here. There is nothing else for miles around. You can see the entry to the ranch above.
After we placed and leveled the trailer, we went inside to see how things had faired on the bumpy road. Some cabinet doors were open, things had shifted around in the cabinets. I looked to the place where Don Quixote had always stood, and “lo and behold”, the statue was still standing proud on the window box. It had not moved an inch in all the shaking and rolling. Go figure! I guess Don Quixote is a tough old dude, after fighting all those windmills he wasn‘t about to let a little bumpy road conquer him.
All in all, Hidden Valley Ranch is a very nice place. The sites are good with full hookups. You see a picture of our trailer site above. Nice view, huh? It is quite. And why wouldn’t it be, out in the middle of the desert. The sounds are of birds and quail. Lots of quail, mainly the Gambel’s Quail and the Scaled Quail. (You can see what they look like and get interesting information on the birds at the links below.) They are beautiful and interesting birds. There are whole coveys of them around the trailer all day long. And, of course, our friend the Road Runner. They seem quite tame here. One can get within two to three feet of them, and talk to them. They look at you and turn their heads and eye you. We also see a lot of huge, big-eared jack rabbits. They are not as friendly as the Road Runner.
We drove down to the border and crossed into Las Palomas, Mexico, about 32 miles from Deming, to look around. No tourist shops there, just the normal businesses and stores. You see a picture of the only interesting thing we saw on the crossover, a big metal statue on the street. Mostly, we are just relaxing, hiking into the desert and up the mountains. Hopefully we will not run into any Mountain Lions or Coyotes, which we understand also frequent the Ranch. We will be spending a week here. Then, we will head to Arizona. First to Benson, then Gila Bend, Yuma and Quartzsite before going on to California. You can look all those places up on your map. There will be a test later. That journey will take another three weeks after we leave here on the 29th.
Here are the links to look up for the birds. If the link cannot be “clicked” on, just copy and paste it into your Address Box:
Gambel’s Quail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambel's_Quail
Scaled Quail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Quail also called Blue Quail or Cotton Top
Road Runner: http://www.desertusa.com/mag98/sep/papr/road.html
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