Enjoying Southeast Arizona - The Ants, Not So Much

Here we are again readers. Our last chapter ended on Tuesday, October 12th upon our arrival at the St. David Western Horizons Resort in St. David, Arizona. St. David is a small town, about 1,800 population, founded by Mormon settlers in the late 1800's. It is located about six miles South of Benson, Arizona, one of the railroad towns on Interstate 10. Continuing another 15 miles on Highway 80, past St. David, will bring you to Tombstone, Arizona, home of the OK Corral, Wyatt Earp, and other Old West Legends. We had last stayed at the Western Horizons here back in 2006 and the place hasn’t changed much. It is pretty rustic, no grass with mostly gravel sites and only 30 amp electric, but it is part of our membership program so it only costs us six dollars a day to stay here. By the time we got parked and set up the outside temperatures were in the high nineties, pretty hot for this time of the year, and I decided not to do any of the outside stuff until morning. So we just relaxed, watched television and played games for the rest of the day.

Wednesday, October 13th, I went outside about 9:00 a.m. to set up our patio and get the sun screens on the coach. It takes about two hours or so for me to get the flagpole set up, the patio mat down, set up the BBQ, get Jackie’s hammock set up, the sun screens on the windows, and other odds and ends I do for the longer stays. After lunch we gathered up our clothes and drove into Benson to do laundry. The RV park has a laundry, but it only had three machines and we had not done laundry for a couple of weeks, and needed more capacity. After we did laundry we found it had been eighteen days - both of us were running short of underwear, which is the only real reason we have to do laundry more than once every couple of months. We also picked up our mail, which was the first mail we have had since leaving Pahrump a couple weeks ago.

Thursday we decided to just stay home and relax for the entire day. We have been on the run for the last two weeks and it felt good to not have to do anything important, or be anywhere, for a change. We played games, watched television, and took care of some administrative things like bill paying. We also completed our Nevada absentee ballots which had come in the mail. I am proud to say that I have never missed voting in a General Election since I was first eligible in 1968.

Friday, October 15th, we went out after lunch to do some geocaching. We did a couple in St. David and then drove up to Benson for some more. We ended up finding ten caches in a couple of hours. We noticed that the skies were getting dark, and the weather had predicted a chance of thundershowers, so we headed home after our ten finds. We just made it to the motorhome before the skies opened up with rain, thunder and wind. The storms were not severe, but we were happy that we made it back before they started. The storms kept up for a couple hours, then things calmed down for the rest of the night. We had a nice dinner and stayed in the rest of the day.

Saturday we thought about driving down to Tombstone for the Helldorado Days celebration, but the weather forecast called for possible afternoon thundershowers again, so we decided to stay home. We played games, watched TV and took care of a few chores. Jackie got to lay in her hammock and read for a few hours. She enjoyed that. I managed to get my balky rear view camera monitor working again. That is the one item on our coach that has been a problem since we bought it. Monaco replaced the rear camera several times, we have modified the wiring and generally fooled with it for five years. It works most of the time, but still goes out from time to time. This time it was a loose wire. It’s now working, for how long I don’t know.

Sunday, October 17th we left the coach in the late morning and drove the fifteen miles South to Tombstone, Arizona, the Town Too Tough To Die! This weekend was their 87th annual Helldorado Days celebration. We got there as the parade was going on. Lots of horses, wagons and tractors. A real old fashioned parade. Oh, of
course there were politicians coming out of the woodwork being as it was just a couple weeks before the election. People running for office were riding in the parade in a tiny Smart car convertible all the way up to a Class A motorhome. We didn’t find the parade particularly compelling so we went to lunch at our favorite restaurant, the Longhorn, before the crowd watching the parade broke up.

We had a nice lunch and then strolled around town for a couple of hours, watching gunfights, looking in the stores, and people watching. There were hundreds of folks on the street in period costumes. Gunfighters, outlaws, bandits, marshals, enough Wyatt Earps to fill a school bus, and even an old time reverend. At one point they
had what they called the “cowboy walkdown.” Apparently this only happens once a year in Tombstone, during Helldorado. As many of the costumed characters as want to start at one end of Allen Street, the main drag, and start walking North a couple blocks. At each of the three intersections they stop and all shoot their weapons (blanks, of course. Or at least I certainly hope so!) in the air. Since there were about a hundred folks participating, it made quite a sight, and quite a racket.

For those interested, here is a little history of Tombstone as gleaned from the town’s website. Tombstone was founded in 1877 by a prospector named Ed Schieffelin. Ed was staying at what was then called Camp Huachuca, now Fort Huachuca and Sierra Vista, Arizona, as part of a scouting expedition against the local Apaches. During his time there he would venture out into the wilderness "looking for rocks", all the while ignoring the warnings he received from the soldiers at the camp. They would tell him, "Ed, the only stone you will find out there will be your tombstone". Well, Ed did find his stone. And it was Silver. So, remembering the words of warning from the soldiers, he named his first mine The Tombstone.

It wasn't long before word spread about Ed's silver strike. Soon prospectors, cowboys, homesteaders, lawyers, speculators, gunmen and business people flocked to the area in droves. In 1879 a town site was laid out on the nearest level spot to the mines, known at that time as Goose Flats, and was appropriately named "Tombstone" after Ed Schieffelin's first mining claim. By the mid 1880's Tombstone's population had increased to between 15,000 and 20,000 people. At its peak, it is said to have been the fastest growing city between St. Louis and San Francisco. There were over one hundred saloons, numerous restaurants, a large red-light district, an even larger Chinese population, schools, churches, newspapers, and one of the first public swimming pools in Arizona (which is still used today)

Tombstone is also the home of Boothill Graveyard. Boothill began in 1879 and was used until 1884 when the New Tombstone City Cemetery was opened. After the opening of the new cemetery, Boothill became known as "The Old Cemetery". The legend is
that Boothill was named for the fact that many residents there died violent or unexpected deaths and were buried with their boots on. However, it was actually named Boothill after Dodge City's pioneer cemetery in the hopes of attracting tourists in the late 1920's. Many famous Tombstone folks lie there including the victims of the 1881 Shootout on Fremont Street between the Earps and the Clanton gang.

The most famous event in Tombstone's history was the famed Gunfight at the OK Corral, which didn't actually happen at the corral, but in a vacant lot next door. On October 26, 1881, members of the Clanton gang had a run-in with Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan Earp. With help from Wyatt's friend Doc Holiday. 24 seconds and 30 shots later, Billy Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury were mortally wounded. In many peoples opinion, it was this one event that has kept Tombstone alive for all these years.

In 1882 the Cochise County Courthouse was built. It provided offices for the sheriff and other county offices. The county seat remained in Tombstone until voters in 1929 chose to move it to Bisbee, a bustling copper mining town 29 miles away. As the silver mining continued the mineshafts were dug deeper and deeper to get the precious ore. Once they hit the 520 foot level, the water table was reached which flooded the mines. Attempts to pump out the water marginally worked for a few years but soon became too costly to continue. As the mining slowed down, the people of Tombstone started leaving, but not before $37,000,000 worth of ore had been taken from the many mines in the area. It is estimated that by the early 1930's Tombstone's population dwindled to around 150 people. Tombstone today relies solely on tourism and is home to around 1,500 year round residents who believe in preserving the history and heritage of the Wildest Town in the West.

After exploring Tombstone we tried to do some caching in the area. However, I had made a mistake when I downloaded the caches and ended up with a bunch that were out in the middle of the desert with high difficulty ratings. So instead, we drove North and did some more caching around the Benson area. We found five caches before we got wore down from all the walking, both in Tombstone and getting the caches, and headed for home. We spent the rest of the evening at the coach.

Monday, October 18th we decided to stay around the coach for the day. We played games on the computer and also got some of our “to do’s” done. I fixed the wiring on our Brake Buddy, the unit that goes in the Jeep when we tow it to activate the brakes. I also rewired the cable that goes from the coach to the Jeep when towing. We were having trouble getting the tail lights to work consistently. Both jobs are now done. Yea! We also spent a couple hours cleaning cabinets after battling ants. This park is infested with the tiny tiny black ants that some call Sugar Ants. I sprayed all of the hoses and cables that come into the coach from the outside, as well as putting ant powder around the wheels, however, they can still come up the jacks and the inside of the tires where I couldn’t reach. Give them any kind of opening and they will come in. Every day they invade a new place and we spray and clean. At least our cupboards are getting a good cleaning. We should have known when we checked in at the park the office gave us a large can of ant powder and a very large bottle of ant spray! Oh well, there are more of them than us so I guess we will just keep up the fight until we leave.

Tuesday we left after lunch and headed 30 miles South to the town of Bisbee, Arizona. Bisbee is one of Arizona’s famous mining towns and is located in the Mule Mountains at about 5,500 feet elevation. It was founded in 1880 when gold and silver were discovered, however, within a few years massive deposits of copper were found and copper became the primary mineral. By 1910 Bisbee was the largest city in the Arizona Territory with 25,000 people. At this same time Phoenix and Tucson both had only a few thousand citizens. The biggest underground mine in the area was the Copper Queen, which was located just to the West of town. By this time the Phelps Dodge Mining Company had taken over most of the claims in the area and Bisbee
became a true company town. Although open pit mining was introduced to the area during WW-I the Copper Queen continued as the most productive copper mine in Arizona until it finally closed in 1975. In 1917 about 1,200 members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) participated in a general strike at the Copper Queen and were ultimately rounded up by the Sheriff and a posse of vigilantes. They were
loaded on a train and deported to Hermanas, New Mexico, where they were unloaded and abandoned. A similar deportation occurred about the same time in another Phelps Dodge town, Jerome, Arizona, about 100 miles North of Phoenix. In 1950 Phelps Dodge opened the Lavender Pit just South of the Copper Queen site. The Lavender Pit also operated until 1975 when Phelps Dodge ceased mining in the area. The pit remains today right alongside Highway 80 and is an interesting sight. The Copper Queen mine still has tours which take you underground and give you a feel for underground mining.

During almost a century of mining the mines around Bisbee produced 2.8 million ounces of gold, 102 ounces of silver, and eight billion pounds of copper. Today the town has a population of about 6,000 and, like many old mining towns, now counts on tourism for it’s primary support. Old Bisbee, which is located in a steep, winding canyon, has many shops and restaurants and a large artist community. The city is part of a historic district and still boasts most of the buildings from the turn of the century. The old Phelps Dodge headquarters building is a National Historical Site and is now a mining museum. Right behind the Phelps Dodge building is the Copper Queen Hotel, finished in 1902 and once the center of society in Bisbee. The Copper Queen is the longest continually operating hotel in Arizona and is also believed to be haunted by at least three ghosts.

We spent a couple of hours walking down and then back up Tombstone Canyon, the name of the main road and the canyon the town is built in. We stopped in a lot of the shops and had a good time. At the bottom of the hill we stopped at the saloon in the Copper Queen Hotel and had a drink. While we were exploring we found that the parking we left the car in was across the street from the old Elks Lodge building. The Bisbee Elks formed in 1903 as Lodge 671 and built a nice lodge building on
Tombstone Canyon which burned down in the fire of 1908 that destroyed about half of Bisbee. They rebuilt and opened the building again on the same site in 1910. Sometime in the 60's they sold he building downtown and bought 40 acres outside of town. About 15 years ago the Bisbee Elks succumbed to loss of membership and folded. Their old building downtown is now used for businesses. After our exploration of Bisbee we did some geocaching in the area and found six. We then headed back to St. David for the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, October 20th, we decided to stay around the coach for the day. I did a couple more things on my to-do list, including checking the engine for an exhaust leak. When I had the transmission serviced in Redmond during the FMCA rally, the service guy told me that it sounded to him like I had an exhaust leak. I could never hear anything that sounded like a leak to me, so I just put it on the list of things to look for. Today, when I took the access hatch in the back of the coach up and looked at the engine I could clearly see where there had been exhaust gases leaking from the side of one of the flanges of the exhaust header pipe. There was a streak of black soot on the engine block and what looked like a piece of the gasket missing. Oh, goody - another thing to fix. Twenty years ago I would have fixed it myself, when I had tools and a little more strength and flexibility. Now, I will let someone else handle the job. It is not a major repair - unbolt the manifold, put new gaskets on, and bolt it back on. However, because it’s a diesel it is a big, heavy piece of iron and the turbo is attached to it, which makes it even heavier to handle.

Since we are leaving here on Tuesday to go to Tucson for a week I called some diesel repair shops in the Tucson area to see if they could get me in and get an approximate cost. Turns out that, barring any unforseen problems, its about a $500 to $800 job and can be done in one day. I also called the extended warranty company to see if it a covered repair and it is. I have a $500 deductible, so it will cost at least that much, but at least it will be covered after that, especially if there are complications. We also spent some time cleaning one of the cabinets where the ants had invaded. I will be glad to be out of the ants next week. Other than these issues it was a relaxing day.

Thursday, October 21st I spent some time in the morning pinning down the repairs to our engine when we go to Tucson. I settled on a shop recommended by my friend Ray Babcock, W. W. Williams. They are a national company with a good reputation and shops all over the country. Ray said they are very competent and fair and thei
r shop is large and neat. When I called them their price was a little less than the other place I called as well. Of course, that’s based on a repair with no complications. Fingers crossed! I set up an appointment for next Wednesday, the day after we move up to Tucson. After lunch we headed into Benson to do a Wally World run and then some caches. We found six caches and got a little bit of shopping done before returning to the coach for the rest of the evening. One of our caches earlier in the week had been near a small barnyard in St. David and there was a donkey, a horse and a goat in the yard. When we got near the fence the donkey came right over to be petted. The picture is me saying goodbye to our friend Donkey. Friday we just stayed at the coach all day relaxing.

Saturday, October 23rd we went out after lunch and drive the 30 miles South and West to the city of Sierra Vista, Arizona. Ready for more history lessons? Adjacent to the city of Sierra Vista is Fort Huachuca (Wa-chu-ka), an Army base founded in 1877 to counter the threat posed by Geronimo and the Chiricahua Apache Indians who inhabited the mountains to the East, near what is now Bisbee and Douglas, Arizona. The base is located about 15 miles North of the Mexican border. Although the Indian threat was eliminated with the surrender of Geronimo in 1889, the Army kept the Fort active because of its strategic location. Starting in 1913 the Fort was home to the 10th Calvary Regiment, the infamous “Buffalo Soldiers”. The Regiment was made up primarily of African American soldiers. The base was a major training facility for the Army during World War II. Except for a brief post war closure from 1947 to 1951, the base has been operational since 1877.

In the 1950's the base began to serve as the center of the Army’s electronic warfare and signals intelligence operations. It now houses a number of military electronic counter measure operations and serves as the primary electronic warfare proving ground for all branches of the military. It is also one of the military bases which house the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s Aerostat system. The Aerostat is a large helium balloon which is fitted with a radar system similar to that carried by the AWACS aircraft. The radar provides coverage of a large portion of the Arizona-Mexico border. The Aerostat system was put into place in the 1990's and has been instrumental in greatly reducing the incidence of air smuggling across the border.

The City of Sierra Vista is adjacent to Fort Huachuca and extends to the East and South of the military reservation. In 1892 the first businesses were opened at the entrance to the Fort, a saloon and brothel. Over the ensuing years of hit and miss development the area that is now Sierra Vista had numerous names, including Carmichael, Buena, Overton, and Garden Canyon. In 1956 the City of Sierra Vista was incorporated and the city’s current population is estimated to be 45,000. It is a popular retirement community, particularly with military retirees because of the excellent climate and the availability of the military facilities.

We spent several hours caching in Sierra Vista and managed to make a dozen finds. One of the caches was called "Wonder Wheel" and was located on this huge pully wheel on display at a local self storage lot. The wheel was used at of the local mines at the turn of the century as part of the system to winch miners, ore and equipment out of the mine. After our caching we made a quick visit to the Sierra Vista Elks Lodge. This is a very friendly lodge. In fact, when we presented our Elks cards to the bartender,
she rang the bell behind the bar and announced us to the crowd, who responded with enthusiastic cheers. The place was pretty full because they had just finished a chili cookoff that afternoon. We had a drink and some nice conversation with some of the members. After our visit we headed back to St. David for the rest of the day.

Sunday, October 24th, we didn’t do too much except drive into Benson after lunch to do our laundry. We will be leaving here for Tucson on Tuesday, so we wanted to get some things done. Monday I spent a couple hours getting the outside stuff put away in preparation for our move on Tuesday.

Tuesday, October 26th we packed up the coach and left St. David around 10:00 a.m. headed for Tucson. It is only about 40 miles and most of it was on the freeway. We are finally free of the damn ants! Yea! I know that we have a few hitchhikers that we will have to deal with over the next few days, but once we get them, we are done! We arrived at the Cactus Country RV resort around 11:15 a.m. and got settled into our spot. This is a pretty nice RV park, one of the Passport America parks, located at the far Southeast part of Tucson, just off Interstate 10. We didn’t set up all the stuff on the inside because we have to take the coach in for repairs in the morning. We hope that it will be a one day job repairing the exhaust manifold gasket. I realize that there could be complications, but I have my fingers crossed.

With our arrival in Tucson I will close this episode of our travel blog with a picture of our "fur-kid" Smokey. We will spend one week in Tucson before heading up to Casa Grande, Arizona for a couple of
weeks. Sometime in the next couple weeks I will publish another chapter. Until then, love, live and laugh! Life is to short to sweat the small stuff! Bye for now.

Balloons, Balloons, and More Balloons!

Welcome back friends. Our last chapter ended on Tuesday, September 28th, with our arrival at the Needles Elks Lodge after a long, hot drive from Pahrump. Later in the afternoon we went into the lodge for a cocktail and chatted with the bartender for a while. We were able to get a lodge pin for our banner, our first new lodge pin in a while. We didn’t go out and explore Needles because it was too hot and we just wanted to stay in and relax. This was a one night stay because we are headed for Albuquerque, New Mexico for the Balloon Fiesta and have to be there by Sunday.

Wednesday, September 29th we got up and out early, about 9:00 a.m. for our 170 mile drive from Needles, California to Williams, Arizona. Again I spent most of the trip watching the temperature gauge to be sure we didn’t overheat. We went from about 500 feet elevation in Needles to nearly 6,800 feet in Williams. Although there were only a couple of steep grades, the entire trip was uphill so the coach was working pretty hard and the outside temperature was still in the 90's. We did arrive in Williams about 1:00 p.m. without any overheating problems and got settled into the RV park there. Since the temperature in Williams was only in the high 80's we decided to go out and do some geocaching. We were able to find nine caches in only a couple of hours. On one find we got yelled at by a security guy for being on the private property of the Grand Canyon Railroad, but we had already found the cache so we said we were sorry and were leaving. Our bad. After caching we went back to the coach for the night.

Thursday, September 30th, was yet another travel day. We left around 9:30 a.m. and started a 130 mile trek East on I-40 from Williams, Arizona to Holbrook, Arizona. We stayed at a Passport America RV park there called the Root 66 RV Park. (Not misspelled, that’s what they call it) We had full hookups with 50 amps and a level site, but it was literally in the middle of nowhere about ten miles East of Holbrook. It looked like an old motel that went bust and they put in a bunch of RV spots around the buildings. Pretty rustic, but quiet. After getting settled in we went out to do some caching. There were only six geocaches in the entire town and we were able to get to five of them in just a couple of hours. We skipped one because it was out in the middle of the desert and we didn’t feel like going out there in the heat. While caching we ran across a classic old Route 66 motel where the rooms were Tee Pees. There were vintage cars parked in front of each one. Very cool. After caching we visited the Holbrook Elks Lodge. The lodge is stuck back next to the railroad tracks almost under a freeway bridge, but the inside was nice. We chatted with the bartender for a while and then another couple came in and sat at the bar. After talking with them we learned that they were from California, near Sacramento, and were also heading for the balloon festival in Albuquerque. We also discovered that they had been parked right next to us at the Needles Elks Lodge on Tuesday night. We also got our lodge pin since we had never been to the Holbrook Lodge before. After a couple of drinks we headed home for dinner and stayed in the rest of the night.

Friday, October 1st we left Holbrook about 10:00 a.m. We didn’t have to leave real early because the trip East to Gallup was only about 85 miles and the weather was going to be in the 80's. We arrived at the USA RV Park in Gallup about noon. We would have been even earlier, but we stopped to fill up with fuel so we could go into the balloon festival with a nearly full tank. We will be dry camping and using the generator, so having sufficient fuel is important. We had stayed here at the USA RV Park last March after the FMCA rally in Albuquerque. It is a very nice, large park that is very well kept. The only issue is that it is right across the street from the main rail line, so there are trains going through all the time. After we got settled in and had lunch we went out to do our shopping. We went the local mall for a while and then to Walmart. We learned a valuable lesson at Walmart. Gallup is at the edge of the Navajo Indian Reservation and government checks come out on the first of the month. It had to be the busiest Walmart I have ever seen. Not only was the place packed, but people were stocking up in huge quantities. Costco and Sam’s Club are missing the boat by not building a big box store in one of these reservation towns. Although it was crowded and irritating to try to get around, it was kind of nice to hear all of the conversations in Navajo. It is a very lyrical, musical language that is pleasant to listen to. After our shopping we spent the rest of the day at the coach.

Saturday, October 2nd we finally got to sleep in as we were staying in Gallup for two nights, so this was not a travel day for a change. After lunch we went out to do some geocaching in Gallup. There were only seven caches in the immediate area - apparently there is not a big caching community here. We did manage to find all seven caches within a couple of hours. After caching we went to the Gallup Elks Lodge. The Lodge is located on the North end of town, way up on a bluff which overlooks a golf course and the mountains, The bar is all windows and looks out over this view. It is a very nice lodge. We chatted with the bartender and one of the patrons, who turned out to be the secretary of the Lodge. We have never been to this lodge, so we made sure we got our lodge pin as well. As is the case with many lodges, we bought one drink and the lodge bought our second. We enjoyed our visit. After the Elks we headed back to the coach for the night.

Sunday was another travel day. We were continuing East on I-40 to Albuquerque, about 135 miles. We left about 9:30 and got into the American RV Park on the West side of Albuquerque about noon. We checked in, got set up and had lunch before going out to find our friends. We had known that our friends from Indio, Bill and Lynette, were at the American RV Park, but we were surprised to run into Lynette in the office doing laundry when we checked in. They had been at the park since Friday and were also there for the Balloon Festival. For those that are not familiar, the Albuquerque Balloon Festival is an annual event that runs for ten days. However, it is split into two “sessions”, one the first five days, the second over the second five days. They do a very similar schedule for each of the two sessions and don’t have too much going on for Tuesday and Wednesday, which are the days when people from the first session leave and people for the second session arrive. Bill and Lynette had come for the first session, but they were not staying at the Balloon Festival grounds like we were going to be. They stayed at the RV park, which is about ten miles from the grounds. They had to get up at four in the morning to be able to catch a bus, which took two hours to get to the grounds. Then they had to wait for the bus and wait in traffic to get back. They told us they were very disappointed in the Festival. With that type of schedule, I am not surprised. They said they would be leaving the next day, Monday.

After we visited with Bill and Lynette we got together with our friends Gary and Ramona Wilson, whom we had talked into coming to the rally. They were also parked at American RV Park, just around the corner from our coach. We had some cocktails and then all went out to dinner at a local Mexican Restaurant. The food was pretty good and we had a good time catching up with Gary and Ramona, who we had last seen at the FMCA Rally in Redmond back in August. After dinner we went back to the coach and relaxed.

Monday, September 4th we went out after lunch on a Costco run to get some more Absolute. Gary and Ramona went with us as they needed some stuff too. After we got back to the coach we met up with Rocky and Peggy Rahkola, the assistant Wagon Masters for our rally group, which is from Monaco International, one of our FMCA Chapters. Rocky and Peggy were parked just a couple of coaches down from us. Jackie had volunteered to help with the cooking, so we wanted to get together with them to find out what the schedules and menus would be. We also expected to meet up with Dave and Kay Piper, the Wagon Masters, who were also supposed to be at the RV Park. However, they had some trouble with their coach in Prescott, Arizona and were running late. Rocky said they were expected to arrive late that evening. Peggy gave Jackie a bag full of Velveeta and other stuff for the queso dip and cream cheese dip that she is supposed to prepare for each of the evening happy hours at the rally. We also learned that the Wagon Masters wanted us to come into the Balloon Festival grounds with them on Tuesday, one day before the rest of the group arrives. They considered us staff for the rally and wanted me to help with parking on Wednesday.

We had reservations at the American RV park for three days, but it wouldn’t cost us anything more to go to the rally site one day early, so we really weren’t losing anything, so we agreed to go with them on Tuesday morning. We knew we wouldn’t get a refund from the RV park, the Balloon Festival is their big money maker for the year. They charged us $65 a night with a three night minimum. The Festival draws tens of thousands of RV’s each year, so the parks really jack the rates up during the festival. The only thing we faced was one additional day of dry camping, but that still made only six days which is very easy for us to do.

After our meeting with Rocky and Peggy we made a quick run to Walmart for some supplies that we thought we could wait until Tuesday to get, and then we stopped to find two geocaches that were just down the street from the RV park. We had to get at least a couple of caches in Albuquerque and we knew that it was unlikely that we were going to get out to cache during the festival activities. We had happy hour cocktails with Gary and Ramona and then relaxed in the coach for the rest of the night.

Tuesday, September 5th we got up and prepared the coach for travel. We only had about ten miles to go from the RV park to the festival grounds, and we weren’t leaving until about 11:00, so we didn’t have to be in a big hurry. Finally, about 11:30 we left the park, following Rocky and Peggy over to the festival grounds. We got into our rally site and were set up by 12:30. We are in a gravel parking lot on the South end of the Festival grounds and are parked right on the front row of our parking area. We are the closest RV parking to the actual balloon field, which is a couple hundred yards North of us. If not for one low building a couple of big tents, we would have an unobstructed view of the launch field where all the balloons set up. In addition to us and the two wagon masters, there were three other “advance” coaches that parked on Tuesday. Since there were no evening activities scheduled for Tuesday all of us went out to the Texas Roadhouse restaurant for dinner. The food was great and we had a great time meeting all of the other people who would be helping with the rally. After dinner we went back to the festival grounds for the night.

Wednesday, September 6th we woke up at 6:00 a.m. and watched our first balloon flight. There is a normal morning schedule for the Balloon Festival which is followed each morning, weather permitting. At around 6:00 a.m., while it is still dark, they launch four balloons which are called the “Dawn Patrol”. Their purpose is to check the winds, both direction and intensity, and report those back to the officials on the ground. Hot air balloons require a little wind, but if it gets too windy they won’t fly because it is too hard to keep them upright on the ground when setting up, and too hard to control them once airborne.

At around 7:00 a.m., just at daybreak, they start the “mass ascension” which is basically as many balloons launching as possible. The actual launch field is a ninety acre grass field where the balloons set up and inflate. As balloons inflate and take off, more balloon crews take their place and set up. The result is a continuous flow of balloons for about 90 minutes. On most mornings there are about 600 balloons that fly. The normal morning winds blow from North to South, so when the balloons take off, they would fly directly over our motor home. Needless to say, we took a lot of pictures and had a wonderful time watching the balloons.



After the morning launch there is little activity around the park until the evening. Most of the balloons have landed by ten or so. After a brief meeting with the Wagon Masters we started the process of parking all of the members of our group, which started arriving about 10:30 a.m. I was one of the parking crew and we parked from 10:30 until after 3:00 p.m. We had 56 coaches attending the rally from Monaco International and we had all but about 5 parked before 2:00 p.m. We had a couple of late arrivals, and one that wasn’t coming until Thursday. By the time I got back to the coach I was dead tired and my back hurt from all the standing and walking. It was still a good time though, the parking crew was great. Plus, they gave all of us Subway sandwiches for lunch. I was lucky enough to be able to park our friends Gary and Ramona just one coach down from us on the front row. When they came in we had one front row spot left and the rally master let me put them there close to us.

At 4:30 p.m. we had the first of our rally happy hours and everyone attended. Jackie made her dips, and the wagon masters made hot dogs. There were also chips and veggies to munch on. We had a good time visiting with our friends Gary and Ramona, as well as meeting new people. After dinner we cleaned up and then just crashed for the night. We were in bed by 9:30 because we knew we would be up again at dawn the next morning.

Thursday, September 7th, we were again up at 6:00 a.m. to watch the Dawn Patrol take off. About seven the mass ascension started again. Like yesterday, the weather was perfect, 60 degrees, just enough wind and the take off’s going right over our heads. One thing I didn’t mention in yesterday’s description is an atmospheric feature they call the “Albuquerque Box”. This is one of the things that make Albuquerque a very unique place for balloon flying. With the box you have ground level winds blowing in one direction, in this case North to South, and then upper level winds, only a thousand feet or so higher, blowing almost the opposite direction. What this means if the balloons take off, fly South for a while, gain some altitude and catch the reverse wind at the higher level and fly right back over the field again. By going up and down they can do this “box” several times in one morning. It is really something to see. The box was working well this morning and we watched the balloons for about two hours.

The second session of the Festival features the “special shapes” balloons, which are the ones that have unique designs, shapes, and decorations. There are dozens of special shapes ranging from pigs to angels to monkeys to houses to you name it. We took hundreds of pictures, many of which I will post with this blog. There were also hundreds of regular balloons flying as well.

After the morning flying we relaxed for a little while until our 11:00 lunch time came around. Our entire group then car pooled to a local country club for a luncheon. The Tanoan Country Club was a very nice gated community in the foothills East of the Festival grounds. We had a cocktail first and then a very nice grilled chicken lunch. It was standard banquet fare, but it was very tasty. We had rode up to the lunch with Gary and Ramona and we sat with them along with another couple we had not met, Bob and Honey Shellman. They were a very nice couple and we had a good time getting to know them. After lunch we went back to the Festival grounds and Jackie and I took a walk over to the balloon field. Since there were no activities during the late morning and afternoon, there weren’t too many people around. Many of the vendors and food booths were also closed for the afternoon, but would open later in the evening when the activities started again. We walked around for a while and looked in some of the shops that were open, but the only thing we bought was an inexpensive visor for Jackie. Jackie did manage to score a free breakfast burrito at one of the booths. We had been told by several people that the green chili breakfast burritos served at the Festival were not to be missed. However, we found that almost all of the food vendors served them and most had signs that touted “voted best burrito” or “award winning burrito”. Finally Jackie stopped at one booth and asked the guy how we would know which one was best if they all claimed it. He said that they had a contest every year for the best green chili burrito, and he thought they had won this year, but it hadn’t been announced yet. They then gave Jackie one for free. I am sure it was left over from breakfast and they probably would have tossed it anyway, but it was a nice gesture.

After wandering around for a while we went back to the coach so Jackie could get her dips prepared. At 4:30 we had another social hour for the entire group. This time we had taquitos along with the dips and chips and other snacks. Since we had only had lunch a few hours before, it was plenty of food to serve as dinner. After dinner we gathered around the front area of our parking area to await the evening’s entertainment. On the schedule was a “balloon glow” which was to start right around sunset. A balloon glow is where they get as many balloons as will fit on the launch field, blow them up, but keep them tethered on the ground. Balloons don’t fly at night, but once they get stood upright the flames from the gas heaters cause the balloon envelope to glow quite brightly. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing too hard for the balloons to safely inflate, so the glow was cancelled. Around 7:00 they started the evening fireworks show, which was very nice. Again we took a lot of pictures. After fireworks we watched TV for a little while and then went to bed around 9:30 again.

Friday, September 8th I got up about 5:30 a.m. because there was supposed to be a launch of the gas balloon flight. Gas balloons are the very large hydrogen balloons that folks race across the country and around the world. They fly at twenty and thirty thousand feet sometimes. They are totally unlike hot air balloons. The Albuquerque Festival always serves as a starting point for a race across the U.S. that lasts three days. Unfortunately, the launch of the gas balloons had been delayed several times. They were originally supposed to launch the Saturday before we got to the Festival, but it was cancelled because the balloonist that was lost during a race in Europe was supposed to have participated and he was well known in Albuquerque. Then the start got delayed a couple of more times because the weather wouldn’t cooperate. They were supposed to launch this morning, but there were thunderstorms in the area, so it was cancelled again. Although the thunderstorms were to the West and North of the city, the morning’s launch was still delayed. Hot air balloons do not do well in thunderstorms, so they ere on the side of caution. The weather finally cleared about 7:30 a.m. and they started the mass ascension.



I decided to actually walk down on the balloon field for this launch. Jackie chose to stay at the coach and take pictures from there again. Although it was a little more windy than it had been the last two mornings, a lot of the balloons still flew. Some of the larger special shape balloons inflated but didn’t launch. I spent a couple hours on the field, walking around, taking pictures and watching the activities. The balloons are very big when you see them up close, especially some of the special shapes. They have one which is a giant cow, 120 feet long! It has blown up every morning, but never launched. It needs very low winds to fly safely.

After I got back to the coach I rested for a bit and then at 11:00 we were off to our next luncheon, this time at El Pinto Mexican Restaurant. They had set up a buffet for us and the food was very good. We all had margaritas to go with lunch. We sat with some very nice people from Southern California and had a very good
lunch. After lunch we went back to the coach to rest for the afternoon and get ready for the evening activities. Jackie got her dips ready and at 4:30 we were back out with the group at happy hour. This time the nibbles were chicken wings/legs and shrimp cocktail. We were so full from dinner that we didn’t have much. I had a couple of wings and Jackie took some home for later. After the get together we noticed that balloons were starting to pop up into sight out on the field which meant that the evening balloon glow was going to happen. This would be our first glow since the one the night before had been cancelled. We debated going down on the field to see it close up, but decided to just sit in front of the coach and watch. We could only see the balloons set up on the South end of the field, but we got some good pictures. After the balloon glow, about 8:00 or so, the fireworks started and we had another great fireworks display. We watched the fireworks and took a bunch of pictures. After that we finally went back into the coach and crashed for the night.

Saturday, October 9th we got up and got dressed so we could go down on the balloon field and watch the morning’s ascension. I had told Jackie how cool it was yesterday and she wanted to see it today. We walked down on the field about 7:00 a.m. and walked around for a couple of hours, watching them inflate the balloons and take off.



There were more balloons today than on previous mornings and I can only guess that some pilots can only fly on weekends. This was the best flying weather we have had all week, cool temperatures and very little wind. This meant that we were able to watch two of the larger special shape balloons fly for the first time since we arrived. One was Airabelle, the gigantic cow. This was the biggest balloon at the event at 120 feet long. We watched it take off a fly away. Right next to it was a huge stagecoach from Wells Fargo, which also flew for the first time. We had watched them blow these two up on previous mornings, but they didn’t fly because the wind conditions were not quite right. We took a lot of pictures, bought a breakfast burrito and went back to the coach to get cleaned up and have our breakfast burritos. Unfortunately, the one’s we bought had a lot of potato in them and were not very good. So many people had told us that the breakfast burritos at the Fiesta were great. We were a little disappointed. The one Jackie got for free the other day was full of potatoes also. I guess it’s a matter of personal taste.

For the first time since we were arrived we didn’t have a provided lunch as part of the rally. Since we had our breakfast burritos, we weren’t hungry anyway. We spent the day just relaxing at the coach until we had to start getting things ready for the evening’s happy hour. Tonight’s meal was all the leftovers from the previous nights and there was plenty. After happy hour we settled into our chairs in front of the motorhome and waited for the evening’s balloon glow. They put up a few balloons for the glow, but none of the big one’s because the wind was a little too strong. We don’t have a lot of pictures of the glow because it’s hard to get the timing right to catch the balloon as it lights up. After the glow they had another super fireworks show. All three of the fireworks shows they have put on have been great.

Sunday, October 10th was to be our departure day. Even though it was the last day, and the day everyone was supposed to leave, they still had a morning ascension scheduled and it went off as scheduled. Our wagon master had told us that if the Sunday ascension went up it would set a record for the Fiesta in that it would bethe first time in 39 years that there was no cancellation of morning flying for the entire week of the Fiesta. In the past there has always been at least one morning when weather conditions caused cancellation of the flying. We set a record! Yea us!



After the morning’s flight we started getting the coach ready to travel. The wagon master had told us not to plan on leaving much before 11:00 a.m. or so because the traffic would be too bad. However, by 10:00 we were ready to leave and there was no traffic on the roads going out of the Fiesta grounds. With this, we said goodbye to our friends Gary and Ramona, and our new friends from the rally, and headed out to I-25 for the 160 mile drive South to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. We had called ahead to ensure that we had a spot, thinking that there would be a lot of people from the Fiesta crowding the RV parks. We found that there was plenty of room at the park and we were parked way up on a hill with a great view of Truth or Consequences. We learned that the town got it’s name from the radio (and later television) show of the same name back in the 50's. The show’s host, Ralph Edwards, announced that they would broadcast the show from the first town that renamed itself after the show. Hot Springs, New Mexico did that and afterwards Edward’s visited the town with the show at least once a year for the entire time the show was on the air.

We didn’t do any exploring of the town because we just wanted to relax, but we decided we needed to come back and visit again in the future. I thought that I would have to spend the night troubleshooting an electrical problem. We lost 120 volt power to our outlets while on the road and I thought that the GFI receptacle in the bathroom had gone bad. I started to pull the GFI out of the wall after we got settled and found that a wire had come loose from the back. When I reattached it all was well. Yea!

Monday was also a travel day. We left Truth or Consequences about 10:00 a.m. and headed for Deming, New Mexico, about 80 miles Southeast. On the way we stopped in the little town of Hatch, New Mexico, which is famous for it’s chilies. We shopped at a couple of the little stores and Jackie wanted to get one of the hanging chili bunches, but the store that had the best looking one’s was being visited by a bus load of tourists so we finally just left. We arrived in Deming about noon and settled into the Little Vineyard RV park, the same place we stayed in March when we passed through Deming on our way to Albuquerque for the FMCA Convention. After lunch we did a Walmart run and then went out and did some geocaching for the first time in a week. We found five caches in a fairly short time before heading home for cocktail hour. We were going to walk around downtown and explore some shops, but there wasn’t much to Deming’s downtown. About 6:00 p.m. we headed to Irma’s Mexican restaurant for dinner. We had eaten at Irma’s with Peggy and Vernon Bullock back in March and loved it. The food was just a good this time and we left very satisfied. After dinner we relaxed at the coach for the night.

Tuesday, October 12th we left Deming about 9:30 and headed East on I-10 for St. David, Arizona. St. David is a very small town just South of Benson, Arizona. Our trip was about 170 miles, but we gained an hour back when we crossed into Arizona from New Mexico. Until the end of the month when daylight savings time ends, Arizona is on Pacific time. Arizona doesn’t participate in daylight savings time. We arrived at the Western Horizons RV Resort in St. David about 12:00 and got settled into our site fairly quickly. We were surprised to find that it was still HOT, about 98 degrees. I decided to wait until the next morning to do all the outside work like the window screens and patio stuff. We are going to be here at this park for two weeks. Yea, no more traveling for two weeks.

Our arrival here in St. David also marks the conclusion of this episode of our travel blog. We will be back in a couple weeks with the story of our stay here in Southeast Arizona. Until then, be happy and healthy and enjoy everything the world has to offer.