Our Winter Home

We found a nice RV lot to rent in the foothills area of Yuma.  It is so much quieter here than in an area RV park.  All of the parks are between the freeway and the railroad tracks.  Our lot is several miles away from both on a fairly quiet street.  Of course most of the snowbirds haven't come down yet so we shall see how noisy and busy our new neighborhood gets. 

There is a small shed behind us with a wash machine in it for us to use.  There is  a clothesline to use as a "solar" dryer.  We did a small load of clothes and hung them out to dry.  It was 92 very dry degrees today so the clothes dried within an hour.   We also have a small palm tree in one corner of our lot.  The owners planted it two years ago from a tiny seedling.  We have a Mexican brick wall all around the lot and a large rolling gate to drive through  and two small walk-in gates.  The lot is weed free and nice and level.   The lot space has room for two rigs so we will have a neighbor soon.    

Black Mountains

 

We spent more time in New Mexico than we had planned.  We ended up needing more than new shocks put on the RV we also needed the wheel bearings replaced.  So we took a few little road trips around the area as long as we had time.  One of our favorite little trips is a drive up into the Black Mountains.  It is just west of Elephant Butte and about 4000 more feet up.  At the top you are at  almost 8000 feet.  This is part of the Gila National Forest and there are lots of forest roads and trails to explore. 

We took a short hike along one of the forest service roads and came across a javelina (a kind of wild pig).  I didn't have a camera so no picture.  We left quickly since they can be unpredictable.   We also saw some mule deer.  As we were about to leave two guys pulling a camper pulled in where we were and said they were going to camp on the spot and hunt elk.  They had luck in the past bagging an elk in the same area so they were hoping to get lucky again.   We let them know about the javelina we saw but they didn't seem too concerned. 

We finally got the work done on the RV and hit the road. Now we are happily in Yuma, AZ where we will spend the winter. 

Elephant Butte Reservoir 2016

What a difference in the water level from our first winter here in Elephant Butte.  When we were here in 2008 the water level on the butte was all the way up to the top white line.  Now you can see three layers of water lines.  This one marina had two long docks to get out to it.  Now you can see one of the docks is totally out of the water.  They keep letting water out of the dam here to feed it to the farmers down river who have chili pepper fields and pecan tree farms that need water. 

Friends that live here year round said that on the major holidays this summer 90,000 people converged on this little town to enjoy the lake.  With so little water left its hard to imagine thousands of boats, houseboats, sailboats and jet skis out there.  We've been here for almost two weeks and the weather has been perfect.  Sunny and low 80's with no wind is hard to beat.  Yuma is still in the mid 90's and we should be "enjoying" the heat there by the end of the week. 

Fall colors in Southern Colorado

We left Fort Collins, Co and headed south past Denver and Colorado Springs.  We stopped in Colorado City just south of Pueblo.  We stayed at the nicest KOA campground we have stayed at in a long time.  We spent two days there so we could take a drive up into the mountains.  We also stayed because the wind kicked up and there were gusts up to 50 miles an hour.  You don't want to be on the road with an RV in those kind of winds. 

The road we took was a scenic byway through a national forest and it turned out to be a very beautiful drive with good fall color.  It was mostly aspen trees and pines so lots of yellow but some orange and some of the grasses were colorful.   We got to wondering how many state and national forests we driven in with all the traveling we've done.  Someday I'll have to try and figure it out. 

We are now in Elephant Butte, NM and the water level in the reservoir is the lowest we've seen it.  We'll be getting some new shocks put on the 5th wheel and then be heading into Arizona. 

Rocky Mountain National Park

From the Black Hills we went down into Colorado and stayed in Fort Collins.  We found a nice KOA there and drove about an hour up to Rocky Mountain National Park outside of Estes Park.  We hit it just right to enjoy fall colors and the elk in full rut.  This bull elk was bellering/bugling trying to maintain his turf and harem.  There was another male elk that this guy chased off after taking him on in a fight.  The other elk lost one of his big long antlers in the tussle. 

We drove up to the Alpine Visitor center which sits at almost 13,000 feet.  There is a hiking path there that you can follow up to the very top of the mountain at almost 14,000 feet.  We didn't try it having not had much chance to adjust to the altitude we didn't want to get the headache and blue lips from altitude sickness.  We got to see and touch some snow and enjoy some beautiful fall colors in the mountains. 

Now we are in Colorado City -- a tiny town on I-25 in the southern part of the state.  We are heading into New Mexico next. 

Big Horns and Big Waterfalls

We drove over to Spearfish Canyon on the west side of the Black Hills.   The canyon was beautiful with lots of fall color.  At the end of the drive is Roughlock Falls.  It was so beautiful and it had plenty of water spilling down because it had just rained two nights ago.  It was so worth the drive to see.  Then on the way back to camp we went through the towns of Lead and Deadwood and there just outside of Deadwood was this group of Bighorn Sheep.  Half of them had crossed the road and gone up the bluff but there were still a half a dozen that wanted to cross the road.  There was a sign about a half mile farther down the road stating watch for Bighorns crossing the road.  The sign was just a little too late.  

We had to have a front hub and assembly replaced on the truck.  Something to do with the 4wheel drive that we almost never use.  It was making a terrible squeaking noise and the guy said eventually the wheel would have locked up if we didn't have it replaced  Don't need that kind of excitement on the road.  We are for sure headed to Wyoming now and then down through Colorado. 

Black Hills Elk

We traveled from Bemidji, MN down the east side of North and South Dakota.  It was so nice to travel good roads with little traffic and almost no road construction.  We would have had to fight bumpy roads, lots of traffic and loads of road construction if we had gone south through Minnesota.  We then cut across South Dakota and are spending time in the Black Hills.  We've been driving through Custer State Park early in the mornings and have been seeing all kinds of wildlife.  We were even lucky enough to see this herd of Elk as we drove the Wildlife Loop road through the park.  The big guy in the center of the photos was obviously the top bull.  He chased all the other males out of his way.

We also saw lots of pronghorn antelope, deer and mule deer, mountain bluebirds, western meadowlarks, a badger, lots of cute little black tailed prairie dogs, wild burros and buffalo.  I really don't like the wild burros.  They hang out on the road hoping you will feed them.  They don't want to move out of the way so I just collapsed the mirrors on the truck and crept through the throng.  They will move when forced.    We aren't sure how long we will hang around here but when we decide to move we will probably head over to Wyoming and then down through Colorado.  If the weather hold out.