Are You Kidding Me !!!

14-March-2018

Beckley, West Virginia

Trip Totals

Days:  23

Miles: 6298

On this journey we have crossed a number of mountain passes in the mighty Rockies.

Elevations in excess of 10,000 feet.

Nary a hiccup.

In the 3000+- foot pass through Beckley West Virginia the gunship was halted by a blinding white out snow storm.

After a number of stop and go’s we decided to hole up in a rest stop for the evening.

We woke up to a snow encrusted gunship.

A somewhat snowy/icy trip down the mountain and we landed in Lexington Va.

We got some coffee.

A frozen gunship and its commander

Eastbound and Down

13- march -2018

Florence Mo

Admittedly not one of Jerry Reed’s best.

Anyway, we’re pointed east and on the way home.

Managed a short side trip to Lake Wilson State Park in Kansas 

More Importantly we hit Joe’s in KC before they closed.

Ribs and brisket with a good KC IPA keep the Gunship Rolling!!

Early settlers cut fence posts and boards from this yellow rock. You can see remnants of it all around the lake, especially fence posts.

Guess I should have shot a few photos of that




THE GUNSHIP ROLLS!!!! 

Fit for a king or queen...... or both !!!!!

South Colorado Ramble

12-March-2018

Colorado Springs Colorado

The blogs been absent the last few days as we meandered around the southeast part of Colorado.

From a night in Trinidad we hit Walsenburg then Westcliffe up to Canon City.

Next day down through Beulah Valley (be sure to take the unpaved road!) to Lake Santa Isabel.

Then back down to Walsenburg and over to Alamosa.

Next day we went to the Annual CraneFest with 20000 Sandhill Cranes and a whole lot of crazy bird people.

It was pretty cool.

From there we hit Salida to visit our niece (great Thai food and wicked ambience) and about froze in the gunship.

Turns out Colorado can be cold in the winter!

Sunday we rolled down the hill to Colorado Springs and had a great visit with family at sisters.

Ate good food, slept in a warm bed and mentalla prepared for the roll across country back to avon.

Photos for the daze

Lake Santa Isabel

Crane Fest Alamosa

A lonely friend

Hot Chiles, freeze your butt off cold..... and even more crazy people !

7-March-2018

TaoS NM

We have been 4 nights in a row sleeping in hotels.

Last night it was the Hotel La Fonda on the Central Square inTaos

We were about the only people staying so the rate was reasonable.

I noticed not only Gideon’s bible in the dresser drawer but also the teachings of Buddha.

Very thoughtful.

Los Alamos was a really neat place. Great town lots of physicists and (literally) rocket scientists.

We checked out the Bradbury museum which could take days to get through.

Nearby is the remains of a volcanic Caldera from about 1 million years ago.

Very nice place to hike a we did a pretty easy couple of miles.

Taos was a bit different from what I expected.   A lot more spread out .

Galleries and stuff like Santa Fe but plenty of regular people running around looking pretty regular.

And a few of those those that were clearly beyond regular.

We paid a visit to the Earthship biotecture complex 15 miles out of Taos.

4 or 500 acres dedicated to building a community of off the grid alternative housing. 

Made of old car tires and what not, built into a berm of water cisterns, they are a site to behold.

While I applaud their efforts, $250+ per square foot for a house is a bit steep for this Gunship Commander

But they do look kind of cool popping up out of the landscape

Ate chicharrones with “Christmas style” Chile in Taos for dinner.

Then the biggest breakfast burrito imaginable the next morning.

The we hit the road

The Rio Grande outside Los Alamos  ... the unknown theme of our trip

Beyond conventional living !!!

Chiles, Museums, Art Galleries and Insanity

05-March-2018

Santa Fe NM

Eldorado Hotel

We parked the gunship on the hill and checked into a hotel near the Santa Fe Plaza for a couple of nights.

Civilized living with indoor plumbing if you will.

We hit the town running by taking a long nap after arrival.

Then we did all the things tourist do..... visit museums, go to churches, ask clerks if they really want $5400 for that ugly painting.

We did find some great food and some other stuff too.

We made it to MeowWolf which is apparently the new hip thing to do.

Its pretty interesting but I’m sure ticket demand will skyrocket once New Mexico legalizes recreational weed.

Its a shock to the senses.

Here’s some of what’s going on.

Church staircase.....Virgin Santissima!!!

Let’s get some food

“Christmas Style” with red and green Chile

party Time!!

Chiles, Cranes and Casinos

3-March-2018

El Duque (Alb City NM)

Woke up to 32 degree temps yesterday morning. First time we were cold in the gunship.

Had to pull out the sleeping bags. We fired up the gunship, threw on the heat and corrected the problems

After a little coffee we hit the town of Albuquerque. Well parts of it.

They have a great nature center along the Rio Grande. So we went there first to get some full on nature.

Because we all know nature is so beautiful.

Saw some cranes, think they were Sandhills because..... just because.

Went into center city and had bowls of green Chile at Monica’s  El Portal in old town.

That was green Chile not to be missed.

Some more walking around Old town.

We skipped the Walter White  Breaking Bad RV tour. Wish we’d had more time

then we headed north to the Sandia area.

There’s a big giant Native American Casino where they were holding the Annual Fiery Foods Festival. 

What timing. We paid our tickets and were in.

The show was mainly a lot of people selling hot sauce and salsa.

We ate a lot samples, mostly good some bad.

Ate a good dinner at the Casino hotel, had a few cocktails and slept the night in the Casino parking lot in the gunship

If only a little more time

Fiery Food Festival

Fiery foods and Native American Casino

Heisenberg and El Duque

2 march 2018

El Duque. (Albuquerque)

We continued up north bending further west into the hills. 

Skipped all the big towns (few that there are ) as we climbed over the pass at Cloudcroft into AlamoGordo.

Denied entrance at the largest Pistachio nut on the planet (they were filming a documentary)

Rolled on past a few missions/Pueblo and came into El Duque on Historic Route 66

The worlds largest pistachio

North by Northwest

1-March-2018

Artesia New Mexico

We rolled north from Presidio & found ourselves in Fort Davis.

We did a quick tour of the state park (very nice campground) and took a short hike.

Back in the truck for some more north then a little west to the Town of Van Horn Texas.

Not much going there except we managed a night in a hotel and a nice meal at a local Mexican place.

Yesterday we were off north again and stopped at the Guadelupe  Mountains National Park.

Ocean reefs and Permian seas, its a geologists delight.

Lots of plants to id. We found a great nature hike at Mckintree Canyon which had many plants identified with explanations.

Imagine, ferns in the desert.... my word!!

We missed a hike there I’d like to return to. At MkIntree is a Canyon Hike from 5-10 miles pretty level and/or up the side of the mountains to a place they  call the bowl. Up there is an island of Douglas firs, pines, even aspens isolated for at least tens of thousand of years by all the crazy stuff that goes on in this place.

We rolled on through Carlsbad Canyon state park. Obligatory cave photos attached.

From there into Carlsbad NM where we got a full on taste of what the west Texas oil industry is all about.

This town is exploding faster than the nuclear stuff over at Alamogordo!

Its all semi trucks, pickup trucks and every business trying to build buildings as fast as they can to take money.

It even has a Starbucks, which are rare as hens teeth in these parts.

That town was a bit too much for us. We rolled on to Artesia where we found a brew pub and a giant oil refinery.

We chose the brew pub, settled in for victuals and libations, then slept in the gunship in the parking lot of the brewpub.

Artesia seems like a really nice town with a lot of pleasant people and a great coffee shop. Too bad about the refinery.

The gunship rolls

Gimme land lots of land. .... then plant a giant hydroponic factory in the middle of it. 

Gunship commander flapping in the breeze