Door County Wisconsin

We made it to Door County. We really didn't have time to get settled before we had to start right in with our new jobs. Our first assignment is helping with the finish work on the main bathhouse that is being remodeled. Jim has been enjoying seeing his "office weenie" wife do real physical labor. I was using a power sander on the ceiling, a scraper on old peeling paint, etc.

We have Wednesdays and Thursdays off so we finally got out to see some of the surroundings. We found our first lighthouse in Peninsula State Park. It is Eagle Bluff Lighthouse. There are a total of 10 lighthouses around the shoreline of Door County. I hope we get to see them all. We also found a boat ramp we can use to launch our boat into the waters of Green Bay. It seems so small after using the huge 10 lane one in Elephant Butte. The waters of Green Bay are 15 miles wide and 90 miles long. Luckily the fishing is supposed to be good not too far out from where we will be launching.

We are at Door County Camping Retreat. The campground is very large with over 250 camping sites. It is pretty heavily wooded and each campsite is surprisingly large. Right now a few wildflowers are beginning to bloom. It should be beautiful here when everything buds out and is blooming. Our campsite is nice with trees, grass, a picnic table and a fire ring. Very different from our cactus and gravel campsite in New Mexico.

Goodbye to New Mexico

We had to say goodbye to the quail that were always hanging around the cactus by our rig. They were so cute and would walk by the neighbors cat without a care. They knew the cat was on a leash. We are also leaving the Western Grebe (ducks) behind -- they do that cool dance on the water. A pair of them will "walk" on top of the water together. They make a strange noise that sounds like a traffic cop's whistle.

The picture of the two of us was at Sparky's restaurant. I'm just posting this picture to show off our tans. We will probably be loosing those as we head north to the cool spring weather.

We said goodbye to all of the RV'ers we spent the winter with at Lakeside RV park in Elephant Butte. Most are going back next winter. We don't know yet where we will be going for the winter although we were offered jobs if we wanted to stay. Who knows -- if we haven't found a winter job maybe we will go back there and work. It's simple enough work, take reservations and rake up the gravel with a machine to "freshen up" each RV site after the camper leaves.

We will be in Minnesota this week. We've traveled through New Mexico, the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma and then Kansas, Nebraska and now South Dakota. We had to veer north sooner than we planned to avoid some cold, wet weather.

Hope to visit as many friends and relatives as possible during our stay in Minnesota.

250 to 400 Million Years Ago

We went with a group from camp to an old quarry east of Hatch, NM. The long, windy, sometimes quite rough gravel road that we followed to get to the quarry goes as far as Redhorse Mountain. We didn't go quite to the mountain. There is the most beautiful crystal, quartz and multicolored rock here that you can chisel and hammer out. I tried to take a picture of one little ravine with the rock in the bottom -- in the full sun it didn't turn out well enough to really see how pretty the rock is. Along the sides of the cliffs --- Jim is up on one -- you could find thousands of fragments of fossils. We found fossilized seashells and what looks like rock with little fossilized seeds and stems but it could be some tiny sea creatures. Our first fossil finds --It was great! Of course Jim was busy swinging his pickaxe to get them out. This whole part of New Mexico used to be underwater as part of a great inland sea. There are pockets of these kinds of treasures all over --on public land -- you just need to know where to go.

Most of the group concentrated on finding big beautiful rocks to take home. They filled up the backs of their vehicles with their treasures. We then decided to stop in Hatch for lunch. Hatch is known as the chili pepper capital. It's a small town along the Rio Grande south of TrC that is heavily farmed with the irrigation water from the river. All the crops are in and starting to grow -- onions, chili peppers, alfalfa, cotton and huge tracts of pecan trees. Acreage with irrigation/water rights goes for at least $8000 an acre and much more with mature pecan trees.

Lunch at Sparky's in Hatch was great. We had the green chili cheeseburgers - very good -- not hot -just good flvaor. Most order the barbeque pulled pork or ribs. Its always served without the barbeque sauce. You add that yourself at the table -- served like ketchup. Outside the restaurant is a bench with a fullsize replica of Colonel Sanders (at least thats who he looks like) -- we all took turns sitting with him having our picture taken. I have to have someone email me a picture of Jim and I on the bench.

This may be the last pictures from New Mexico. We will start heading north sometime this coming week depending on the weather.