Windy

Hi Friends,

Another windy weekend.  Woke up this morning at 2AM with the wind shaking the RV and the slide covers slapping loudly in the wind.  Enough wind already! YIKES.  It's supposed to be calmer tonight, and I'm hopeful for a good nights sleep.

Tomorrow, wind permitting, we plan to do some hiking down at Guadalupe.  Would like to go skiing, but it's been too warm (and windy).

Work at the CAVE is going to get worse before it gets better.  The secondary elevators will now go off line for maintenance.  They will be available at 9:30 - 10AM and then 12:30 -1:30PM and then after 4:30 until everyone is out of the cave. If you were planning a trip to CAVE forget it unless you are willing and able to hike down into the cave and then back out of the cave.  They claim it will only take six weeks to repair them.  They claimed that the main elevators would only take six months.  We are now in our 17th month of them being off line and still no word when they will be working again. 

Additionally, a lot of our wild cave tours are being cancelled because of the potential threat of injury and not being able to get people safely out of the cave in a timely manner.  It's a really crappy situation, and I'm sure visitors will be disappointed and angry.  The rangers will bear the brunt of their anger and not management of course.

John's been busy with work as well.  Seems like the housing market has hit its bottom.  We are hopeful that things will slowly improve.

That is all for now.  Hope everyone is well.

Love to all,

VAL & JOHN & the kitties! :-)

Alpacas

Hi Everyone,

Yesterday John and I went for a ride up to Clovis NM.  It's about a three hour drive north of us, and inbetween there's not much.  There was an open house at an Alpaca farm, so we decided to go and poke around.  After all, I've never met an alpaca I didn't like! :-)

Alpacas were once found in Northern America.  They think they all moved south when the ice age hit.  They have really thick fur, but no lanolin, so if you don't like regular wool, you might like alpaca wool.  We both bought Alpaca wool slippers and wore them last night... toasty warm!

A few pictures of our new friends...

Love to all,

VAL & JOHN and the kitties (who gave us the sniff test last night when we got home!)

Winter snow

More snow today, but not as much as Christmas.  We went over to La Cueva for a hike.  Nice to hike there in the snow.  Makes it look prettier than usual.   The road in La Cueva is mud/dirt and on the way out, the truck got stuck for a short time in the mud.  John expertly got us out of the mud.  

A few pictures of us in the snow...

While we were out hiking the cats stayed home and kept warm...

Back to work tomorrow...

Miss you all and love ya,

Val & John & the kitties

Winter weather

Hi Family and Friends,

We were hoping that the snowy weather due later tonight would come earlier today which would allow for a snowboard trip tomorrow.  Unfortunately, so far we have blue sky and lots of wind.  Looks like the storm won't get here until tomorrow and the roads will be too snowy to drive to the ski resort.  Maybe next week...

Good day for watching football and make some homemade soup.  I'm thinking broccoli cheese soup for lunch.  It's one way to get John to eat his vegetables! LOL

Stay warm and safe.

Luv to all,

VAL & JOHN and the kitties!

 

2012

Hello All,

Can't believe another year is in the books.  At times it seems like we just left Florida for our great National Park Service adventure.  It will be almost two years full timing in an RV.  For the most part, we enjoy the lifestyle. There are of course, some bumps along the way.

When the weather gets cold (in the teens or colder) our water lines tend to freeze.  Usually it's only for a few hours.  Once the sun hits the line, they warm up.  Today, the RV park was working on the water and had them shut off.  John had tried to use the water before he went out for a while, and apparently didn't shut it off properly.  When he returned, the water was flowing out of the sink, onto the floor!  He had also closed the holding tank...

Minor flooding, mostly in kitchen and the drawers.  John had a heck of a mess to clean up, but had it well under control by the time I got home.  Our floor is very clean! LOL

Hope your new year is filled with fun and adventure!

Love to all,

VAL & JOHN & the kitties!