The Weather is for the Birds

We ended up going through western Kansas and Nebraska and on in to South Dakota.  No matter how hard we tried to avoid bad weather we finally hit rain in South Dakota.  We are now in Minnesota and its still raining.  It looks like we will be in rain for the rest of the week.  Its strange to be in a steady rain after being in the desert since October.  We only had three days of rain the whole winter.

We got to go on a little pontoon ride and enjoy seeing some ducks, geese, turtles, pelicans and ospreys.  I managed to catch a goose in flight.  Also, I got some great shots of these ospreys building a nest.  Its amazing how they can handle big sticks to add to their nest.

We have a week reprieve before we head to our job in northern Minnesota.   We're hoping the weather improves before we have to go.

Rawhide Days

We left Arizona and spent some time in Elephant Butte, NM getting the RV serviced.  We then thought we would be heading north toward our destination but the weather changed our plans.  A huge storm hit the Rockies and the western plains.  So we ended up hanging out in Tucumcari, NM.   We thought we would just stay south of the storm instead of trying to race through it.  We ended up enjoying our stay in a cute little RV park in Tucumcari -- an old town on old Route 66.  There are cute motels and cafes that cater to the crowd that tours Route 66.

We were lucky enough to be in town when they were celebrating Rawhide Days.  They filmed the tv show Rawhide in this area.  They were showing old episodes of the show at the civic center and had a little fair going.  There were gunfights, pie eating contests and a parade.  I took the pictures of the parade.  Its was kind of a reenactment of a cattle drive.  They brought a bunch of long horn steers right up the main street.  It was amazing to watch the cows just follow right along up the street with no ropes or anything controlling them.  They had authentic wagons and lots of cowboys riding "herd".    

We will be heading to Kansas and up the western side weather permitting or we may have to head farther east right away.   Maybe Dodge City -- who knows what they will be doing in that cute old western town that would be fun to see.

Tombstone, Arizona

We made it as far as Benson, AZ our first day and when we were parking the RV in our camp spot the truck started acting up.  We found a Ford dealer in Sierra Vista and they took a quick look.  It needed a new clutch fan something or other and one injector needed replacing plus the turbo needed cleaning.  They would need the truck at least two days so we rented a car.  We were only planning to be in Benson one night but it turned into three.  

We decided to make the best of it and do a little sightseeing.   We have been to the town of Tombstone before but it had been a while.  The town caters to the tourist crowd.  They have stagecoach rides and they do a reenactment of the shootout at the OK Corral that made the town famous.  There are some cute shops with a few having authentic native american art.  We found a rock shop and got to talking to the owner.  She is a gold prospector like us and told us about the local club and the outings they have.  Too bad the vehicle we rented wasn't a 4 wheel drive jeep --we could have done a little prospecting.

We made it to Elephant Butte, NM but we seem to still be having issues with the truck so we will have it looked at again.   We stopped here to have some routine maintenance on the RV.  Hopefully that's all the RV will need.    If the truck is OK and the weather cooperates we hope to be in Mitchell, SD by next weekend.

Date Farms

The Yuma area has several date farms including one by Wellton, one in Yuma (Marthas Gardens) and several, (Bard, Sunland) just on the other side of the Colorado River in California.  There is also the small place called Dateland 50 miles or so east of Yuma that has a large date farm.  I never cared for dates until I tried some fresh ones here.  They are very good -- sweet and chewy.  The chocolate covered ones are very good especially when they pit them and stuff them with nuts and then cover them with chocolate.  Its like a very fabulous candy bar.  They are highly nutritious and they freeze well.  We usually stock up before we leave but I didn't get around to it with working and packing up to leave and visiting friends for final farewells.

We will then go over to Elephant Butte, NM (by Truth or Consequences) and visit for a few days.  We then plan to head north slowly and try to void any storms.  We will be in Minnesota in three weeks and are hoping it will be much warmer there by that time.  I enjoyed the pool one last time today while it was in the 90's.  I think it will be July before we see those temps again.