On The Road Again...

We left our Gate Guard post on April 15th and headed to San Antonio, Texas. But first I must share with you a picture of my Lily. I have been traveling with this plant for 4 years and for the first time ..IT BLOOMED!! And it's still blooming.. for 5 weeks now... can you tell I'm excited.

Now where was I... oh yeah.....we went to San Antonio Texas and met up with Wayne (the mobile RV repair person) who replaced our broken inverter with a new one. We stayed there for one night to insure everything worked fine..... it did!! The next day we headed to the glass repair shop that our insurance company directed us to and had the broken windshield replaced with a brand new one. Didn't I mention that.....I'm sorry..... pulling onto the pad at our first rig assignment this year, John went off the side and into a 6 - 8 inch depression. It twisted the front so much it cracked the driver's side windshield.... quite extensively. We decided to wait until we completed work to have it repaired. After several hours waiting for the new windshield to cure, we went to Iron horse RV to have the yearly maintenance done on the RV. New filters (oil, air, fuel, transmission), oil change, everything that needs greased, got greased and our leaky jack evaluated. That took 2 days. They couldn't fix the jack so they ordered us a new one. Rather than wait there for the part to arrive, we left and went to Medina Lake TT for a week to thoroughly clean the RV (inside and out), Jeep and motorcycle. We were surprised at how much dust we brought out of the oilfields. Then it was back to Iron Horse in San Antonio for our new jack. Here is the Rose raising to the occasion.

Since it was late in the day when it was done, we stayed overnight there and headed out the next day to meet up with our friends John and Wendy Dreese in New Mexico. After 2 days of travel we arrived at the Valley of Fire Campgrounds outside Corrozozo, New Mexico where John and Wendy had dinner all ready.
The Valley of Fire is an area where there was volcanic activity many decades ago and much of it still remains. Here are John and I standing next to a volcanic rock.

We spent 3 days there rock hounding, off-roading and enjoying the company of friends. From there the six of us (John, Sydney, me, John, Wendy and Sophie) moved to San Antonio, New Mexico, a small community near interstate 25. Wendy and I spent several days in the wildlife preserve watching birds and critters. It is a nice place that I would like to return to and volunteer for awhile. Here are a few pictures.

 

We also did some off-roading, here are a few pics from those adventures.

The cactus is in bloom now in New Mexico and we have some beautiful pictures.

We also had our first Friday Pizza Night in months. It sure is nice to be on the road again ....  especially with good friends.

But all good things must come to an end....after 10 days of togetherness,  John and Wendy headed north east and we headed north west. We are currently in Show Low Arizona at a city campground. It sure doesn't look like the parts of Arizona we've been in previously. There are trees.... big ones.... and greenery. Here is our campsite.

 

 

We've taken scenic drives through reservation land (Fort Apache Reservation). Beautiful desolate land. Our plans for now are to hang here for a week and then start north. We will be watching the weather and judging when we move based on the temperature. We want to hit Arches National Park in South west Utah, Snake River Valley in Idaho and then head west to the Oregon coast. Meanwhile I'm enjoying the activity at my hummer feeder. I have black-chinned and broad tailed hummers as well as a pair of Bullock's orioles. Type at you soon.