Tombstone, AZ

So on our first day camping in Benson, AZ we decided to recon Tombstone. We knew it would take more that one visit to see everything we wanted to see. I've been a fan of the history of the town and loved all the movies about Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday and the Cowboys.

The picture above is taken in the Crystal Palace Saloon. We had lunch there and loved the decor.



There are a lot of folks in period costume like the fellow at the visitor center with Martha.



Some of the characters have jobs like the visitor center guy or the gun fighters in the shows, but the fellow above just dresses up and plays the part because it's what he likes to do.


These were the real gun fighters in town. They were the local Arizona Rangers. No six shooters for them. They looked like Glock's to me.

We are going back some more to see the museums and gun fights, but for now, here's a link to the photos I took on the first day. Flickr

Palomas, Mexico

We are staying in Deming, NM which is about 30 miles from the USA Mexico border.  So when you talk about what to do in Deming, you get all kind of suggestions, but everyone mentions go to the Pink Store in Palomas, Mexico.  So we decided to take our passports and head down.

The real draw for us was the Farmacia Express. i.e. drugstore.  Martha has some prescription topicals that are expensive even with drug insurance.  Plus they have to be approved by a lot of people.  Well at Farmacia Express you get them without a prescription and they are really inexpensive.

We went to The Pink Store next, this is the only way I want to shop anymore.  First the store has a lot of stuff including liquor, pottery, leather items, home decor items, etc. and there is a nice restaurant.  Adjacent building have eye glass stores, dentist, doctors, etc. all catering to the US customer.  You can get dental crowns for $140 each.  We know people who've gotten crowns there and they are pleased with the results.  Same for glasses.

Now here is the part I like, they offer you free beer or margaritas while you shop.  The faster you drink, the more you get.  We found a number of knickknacks and I got some nice belts.  I got a good price on George Person's favorite tequila he introduced me to.

Next we had a late breakfast/early lunch.  The food was very, very good and a margarita with Huevos Rancheros is a perfect breakfast.  Lots of fun was had by all.


I have some more photos on Flickr.

We hit a Rock Hound place on the way back.  There are a lot of interesting and artsy rocks in this area.  The lady who ran the store we stopped at had some wonderful pieces with staggering prices.  She even had some that when viewed under a black light fluoresced greens, blues and a very rare to find red.  Those were the multi thousand dollar pieces.

Next hit the other winery in Deming.  Luna Rosa.  They had a lot good wines.

Pancho Villa State Park, Columbus, NM

We did a run down to the border, but not across, yet.  In Columbus, NM is a state park where Pancho Villa invaded the United States.  Last time that was done.  Pear Harbor and 9/11 were attacks, but not armed men occupying USA soil.  There isn't much left of the camp that General Pershing setup to track down Villa, but the museum has a lot of good documentation of the events.

This all happened a few years prior to the USA getting involved in WWI.  In fact you can look at it as the first use of mechanized forces and calvary on the battlefield together.  General Pershing learned a lot about this prior to President Wilson putting him in charge of the American expeditionary forces in Europe for WWI.  It was also the first time the Army use airplanes in battle and reconnaissance.

The museum talks about the reasons for the Mexican forces invading the USA and there are conflicting reasons.  Homework is for you to google that and learn something because I'm on my second bourbon and have a case of CRS (can't remember shit)

View from Coots Hill in the park toward Mexico 3 miles in the distance.


There were tons of blooming cacti in the park.


It also had a small campground that would be good to allow you to park on the USA side and walk over to Mexico to shop and buy cheap prescription drugs. There's always tomorrow.

Day trip to Alamogordo, NM

We decided to drive over the mountain to see the White Sands Monument.  We picked the most direct route, but it's was a 2 lane state road.  It's a truck route, but only for trucks under 65' total.  Since I was only in the pickup truck I wasn't worried, but did want to evaluate whether I could pull the RV trailer over on this road.  We are camped at around 3500', and the road would take us to 9000' and them back to 4500' in Alamogordo.

First observation is don't expect bathrooms on any highway in NM that isn't an Interstate.  After about 1.5 hours we found a small roadside stand with restrooms, a petting zoo, canned everything homemade and candy and nuts.  The road got curvy after that stop and it was a gradual rise up to Cloudcroft at 9000'.  It was 20 degrees cooler there than back at our camp. The photo above is from a picnic area in Cloudcroft looking toward Alamogordo, NM with the White Sands Missile Range in the distance.  I could tell I was at 9000', I was light headed, the same as I got at Pike's Peak years ago.  Very uncomfortable feeling when you have to drive.  I posted a bunch of photos on Flickr.com  Day in Alamogordo

After lunch at Cowboy's Steakhouse which was recommended to us, we went to the White Sands Monument.  They have a small museum with a theater and we watch an informational video on how the white sand area was formed and keeps expanding.  Then we took the 16 mile drive, some of it on the sand roads.  People were sliding down the dunes with plastic saucers or just hiking on them.  We mostly did the slow roll though the park stopping for photos.

Since the drive over was 2.5 hours we decided to head back by a different route which was all 4 lane. but still when up to 7500' and back to 3500' and took an hour longer.  I still need to decide which way to leave the area towing the RV.  We might wait to do more stuff in Alamogordo after we leave Artesia and just camp there, or move on.  It depends on how much we can do in day trips over the next week.

We did see a roadside pistachio store where they grow them.  Picked up a bag or two. There was a giant nut in the parking lot.
 

A day in Roswell, NM

Got a late start but got the Roswell about 11:30am and the first stop had to be the UFO museum.



It's actually really well done.  It's cheap to get in and we got there just in time to watch ~hour video on the history of the UFO crash that put Roswell on the map. The video has interviews with some of the folks who were caught up in the event and not by their chose.

It's pretty clear that whatever happened, the Army Air Force put a lot of pressure for everyone to keep quiet, which they did until most of them were getting old and didn't want to leave it untold.  The museum has a lot of displays containing the newspaper clippings from those days.  It's has a lot of notarized affidavit from just about everyone who was involved.  Nurses, pilots, ground crew, etc. who were involved with the coverup. It's interesting stuff.  I bought an autographed book on it.

The museum also has displays from the movies made about aliens, Roswell, and space in general. It's a lot of fun.



After all the UFOs we were hungry and tried a local place called the Cowboy Cafe. I had the best Chicken Fried Steak I've every had and Martha had a Green Chili Brisket Enchiladas. Good food, good service.

We also found a winery tasting room that only had New Mexico wines and beers. Many European varietals especially Italian. I found a locally brewed beer call Alien. I tried their wheat and Amber Ale.

The Ranch, Lakewood, NM

After San Angelo, we figured we could make it to The Ranch in Lakewood, NM.  We picked The Ranch because we'd heard about it from some of our Montana Owners Club (MOC) friends.  It's an Escapee RV Club, which as members we can stay at cheap.  You can't make reservations at an SKP park like The Ranch, but you are guaranteed a place to park, even if you have to boondock, i.e. no hook-ups.  All of the site are owned by a lease holder, but when they are gone RVing, their site can be used by folks like us.

The folks here are very nice and helpful. A lot of them are already gone for the summer season or are leaving soon.  A few stay through the summer, but basically, it's a place to come to get out of the cold during the winter up north.  The Ranch is located 15 miles from the nearest town, Artesia, NM.  So it's remote.  It's 2 miles off of US285 so you can't hear any noise, and there are very few lights to distract the view of the night sky.  We decided to stay a week or so to recover and see a few sites in Roswell and Carlsbad, both a 30-60 minute drive.  Also maybe we'll be lucky and Martha will be out of her walking boot she's been in for 5 weeks so far.

I've included a few photos looking outside the park both from the east and west view.  As you can see we are in the high desert in the middle of a cattle ranch.  I haven't see cows yet, but have seen roadrunners and a fox.

San Angelo, TX

I've been chastised for not posting more on the blog about where we are.  I've put some post on Facebook, but that's not everyone's cup of tea.

We drove from Waco to San Angelo on the back roads because our GPS didn't know any better apparently.  Ended up on a dirt road due to construction so the RV got dirty.  Got to San Angelo and chose to stay at Spring Creek RV Campground and Marina on Lake Concho.  Great little park, picturesque, quiet.



We found a few things to do the one day we stayed over. First, I washed the RV before Martha even got up.  Then we went to Ft. Concho which was a very well preserved frontier, post Civil War, fort that due to the lack of local wood was mostly make of limestone, so a lot of the original buildings were there. The town seems to take a lot of pride in the fort and has a lot of volunteers working to keep and promote it with re-enactments, events.  Oddly enough there is no wall.  Just buildings. They didn't need walls in those days.





When we went to look in the barracks, we saw a cat sleeping on one of the beds. It seems to work there because they had a water dish and food plate. Must have kept the mice away.



The details in some of the restored buildings was as good as I've seen. I didn't take pictures of everything, but it was worth the stop. Seniors got in for $2.00.

On the way back to the RV, we hit a liquor store and found Buffalo Trace Bourbon, when they can't seem to keep on the shelves in NC.  I could have bought any amount at this store in TX.