Monday, August 15 -- We did get an early start this morning (8:15), not knowing where we would end up tonight. Ruidoso is full of Texans, but traffic was light this morning in town, so we assume they must have all gone home last night. My sister-in-law from Indiana (Judy) left me a message Saturday night that Lucille's storm warning radio was going off again -- it was Severe Storm Warning Number 775. See, I wasn't kidding about those Indiana storms!
I am sure hoping we can make it into Arizona today. Shortly after we left Ruidoso, which we loved, by the way, we drove through a volcanic area named the Valley of Fire. The lava rock was very dramatic -- reminded me of one of the Hawaiian Islands we toured a few years ago.
As we continued on through New Mexico, we saw three antelope, and later on we came upon a buck just before we crossed into Arizona, so those 4 antelope are the only ones we saw this whole trip. We crossed the Rio Grande River again, hadn't seen it since Texas. But it was not much more than a mud puddle here. And as we came on into the next town, (San Antonio, New Mexico) we could see why. They do a lot of irrigating here, and we're sure they pull the water off the Rio Grande. We picked up I-25 here for about 11 miles, then headed west again through Socorro (we missed a turn in this town, so we got to drive right down Main Street).
Near Socorro, we came upon some weird-looking towers, looked like flying saucers. It was the National Radio Astrology Observatory.
There were two rows of these dishes, going in different directions. As we drove across this state, we saw the wide variety of terrain this state offers. Here are some of the many faces of New Mexico (barren desert, green mountains, rocks). This drive across 380, then US 60 was absolutely beautiful. We drove in the mountains all day, at elevations mostly in the 6000-7000 ft. range, in and out of rain showers, with temperatures fluctuating between the 60s to the mid-80s. At 1:00 p.m., we were at 7800 ft., with a temperature of 64 degrees as we drove through part of the Cibola Forest.
This road was not very busy, and I guess it must not get much traffic, because Joe hit two birds today. They apparently don't know they are supposed to go a little higher when they see us coming. During one rain shower, the temperature got down to 60 degrees, but as we drove out of it, it was back up to 77 in about 30 minutes.
At 2:10, we hit the Arizona border!!! Things are looking good for us to get home today. We are a little over halfway -- 250 miles from Ruidoso.
And Arizona is looking GOOD! They must be getting plenty of rain up here in this White Mountains area, because it is green, green, green. We thought we might see some of the damage from the Monument Fire earlier this summer, but everything we saw was very green.
We fueled early this morning in Carrizozo ($3.579), and our second fuel stop was in Show Low, Az ($3.539). We were making good time, so I think this is about where Joe decided to drive all the way home today. We hit Payson about 4:15 (Arizona time zone now) and decided to stop for an hour or so at the casino, and eat dinner there so we didn't get home right in the heat of the day. So as we left there a little after 6:00 p.m, (we are now only about 2 hours from home), it started sprinkling and we had to run clear across the parking lot to the RV -- not a pretty sight. Just after we got out of town, we came upon stopped traffic due to an accident. We had to wait about 10 minutes, but then they started letting traffic through. A Penske truck had apparently lost control coming down the curvy mountain and landed on its side.
We didn't see any ambulances or helicopters, so we hope no one was seriously injured. We came into Mesa just as it was getting dark -- who knew it gets dark here at 7:30?? -- and we were reminded once again of the beauty of our home state. We got to enjoy a beautiful sunset.
And the drive past Saguaro Lake never gets old.
We made our third fuel stop of the day just 2 miles from home ($3.299) and got home just about 8:00 p.m. I think this was our one and only 3-fuel stop day ($335.05, 95.65 gallons). Joe drove 465 miles today, so his homing instinct is pretty strong, too.
We were expecting to walk into a hothouse, but, bless Eric who had walked over this afternoon and turned on the air conditioner and the water, we came into a cool house. We walked over to see our babies before they went to bed, and surprised them -- they didn't expect us for at least one more day, and maybe two. They were happy to see us, and we were thrilled to see them! We have a lot of work to do tomorrow to get unloaded, by we are finally home. YEAH!
I have one more blog to do -- a wrap up of this year's trip, then I'm done blogging. Maybe forever.
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