In the ZONa

Always heard of Albuquerque but have never been here, until now.  I have even committed the spelling of Albuquerque to memory. There were a couple of things we wanted to do here.  One was a hike in the Petroglyphs area and the other was to check out old town Albuquerque. So Wednesday morning we headed off to the Petroglyph National Monument.  The whole park area has lots of petroglyphs but we visited the Piedras Marcadas Canyon section which has 5000!  These were left both by the native Indian tribes and by Spanish explorers and settlers of the area. This roadrunner was out to see them too. I didn’t take photos of all 5000...are you disappointed?  But here are a couple. This one kind of reminds me of “Wilson” on Cast Away. The rock is black basalt (lava rock) formed a very long time ago.  Much of this part of New Mexico is covered in it.  I noticed it while driving on Tuesday as well. Finger painting? Very neat area to visit - and got some hiking in to...

We left Las Vegas Monday morning, crossing the Hoover Dam, and ended up in Sun Valley, Arizona last night.   So this is Lake Mead from Hwy 93 heading to the Hoover Dam. We didn’t stop at the dam as we have been there before, but it’s such a beautiful area...the canyon created by the Colorado River.  And this is the river. We stopped in Seligman, Arizona, for some lunch and saw this place across the street.  A famous spot on Rte 66, I guess. All along the I-40 is the famous Rte 66. Quite a variety of scenery along the way. We passed the Arizona Divide at 7335 feet above sea level.  And we thought that was the end until today.   So today, this is what we dealt with. Yep, we had everything while driving...cloudiness, rain, snow, sun, and hail.  Fortunately it didn’t last long.  It was rather nice on the rocks. At a stop we had. In spite of the desolate land in most places, it’s quite charming in some spots. Completely snow covered here... But it was tempo...

Friday we left Desert Hot Springs in Southern California and headed west, then north.  The idea is to head EAST and north, but those darn mountains are in the way.  We had to go as far west as San Bernardino, then we caught the road (I-15) up to Las Vegas, Nevada. Along the way, we went through Barstow, California, and the Mohave River.  Yeah, just like the desert.  Dry as a bone. We came to...what do you know...we must be in Nevada!  How can you tell? While on the way, we go by the Mohave Desert.  These things were standing out in the field.  Or outstanding in the field?  Not sure what they were there for. So we arrived in Las Vegas Friday evening, and we were both kind of wiped.  We hadn’t slept very well over the previous couple of nights, so we just wanted to hang out.  We had plans to go into town, but...we could donate to the casinos the next day. The next day (Saturday) we did go into town.  We drove to Treasure Island and co...

On March 12th, we met up with John & Judy in Joshua Tree to do a trail none of us had done, called the Lost Horse Mine Trail.  Some story about a prospector looking for his horse in a canyon, and he stumbled across a mine.  Something like that. These 2 characters were on the trail.  Looks like Gerard found his horse! A rather large specimen.  I don’t think this is the horse though. This is the mine...and the prospector? An interesting site to visit.  Not too far - maybe about 2 miles to the mine and 2 back.  We didn’t do the loop which would have been about 6 miles.  We really didn’t have time as we didn’t get there until after 1 pm.  And that’s our excuse. On March 14th, as is the case every year, Judy had a birthday.  So when they came back to DHS on this day, we had dinner for them, and a cake, of course. Last Friday, we did a hike behind our RV Resort into the hills.  I think they’re called the Little San Bernardino Mountains. ...