2009 Road Trips

[Gene]

I finished the microwave/printer cabinet last week, but have been too busy to document it. We got the cabinet, actually a small bookcase, from an unpainted furniture store. Since pine is lighter than oak, we ordered pine. The quality of the pine is low—the wood is exceptionally soft and different sides don't match well. I don't think I'll be ordering any more unpainted furniture. I drilled two 2" holes in the cabinet backing for wires. I resanded it, used one coat of natural color Danish oil, then 3 coats of polyurethane, each wet sanded with 400 paper. The 4 coats will toughen the surface a little bit. I used 2 strips of wood at the front of the bottom and the shelf to prevent the items from jumping out of the cabinet while we travel. And I used L braces to lock the shelf in place. Despite my complaints, it came out pretty well.

We removed the cushion closest to the TV wall and placed the cabinet next to the other cushion to hold it in place. The space to the right—between the cabinet and the wall is the right size for the Airstream bag and a few other items. I used three screws through the bottom of the cabinet into the plywood underneath to keep it in place.

Testing the final fit of the appliances—I had done it several times before I started finishing it—proved the printer wires were too close to the backing (which is the thinest piece of backing I have ever seen and so poorly stapled, most of them popped off), so I drilled two more holes so the wires would not press against the backing. Then both items fit perfectly. I threaded the USB cable—I needed a 6' and a 10' extension cable—through the back of the cabinet, under the cushions and then over the table supports to the curbside dinette seat where there'll be enough cable to plug it into my laptop. We put some of that nonslip rubbery stuff under each item—to keep it from moving and providing a little cushioning. All I need now is a surge protector for the microwave, printer and TV. There's now a small Navajo weaving on the top of the cabinet (it came after I took the photos) and that really makes it look good and matches the one we have on the sofa cushions.

The printer will enable us to print out weather reports, directions, RV park info, and the various things in life that continue regardless where we are. The microwave will be out of the way and open up counter space in the kitchen. We won't have to keep putting it on the floor for travel. We won't have to worry about whether we left it on the counter and whether it fell off the counter and crashed through the floor.

We also washed the trailer, cleaned off the bugs, polished the rock guard windows, washed the vinyl floor, vacuumed, and generally got it clean for the next trip. We've been airing it out for days to get rid of that chemical smell that persists even with the aluminum interior. I suspect it comes from the fiberboard partitions and this particular load of those boards was soaked more than usual with various chemicals.

We leave for Angel Fire, NM, Thursday for the several day celebration of Barb's grandmother's 100th birthday. I expect it to be chaotic and glad I'm not involved in trying to make this thing work. 200 or so people are expected and I'll be one of the people who married into this family trying to figure out what's going on. Today and tomorrow we have to load up and hope to get out of town early, something we are not very good at. I just found out I have a water company special board meeting tomorrow night, so I'm not too happy about that. But we'll soon be on the road and that's good. After the celebration, on to Santa Fe for a few days—we never go there during tourist season, so this will be different. And then back to Colorado for my in-laws 60th wedding anniversary. Barb's family sure keeps me busy.

Gene

Cabinet photos:

[dstalzer]

Gene,
The cabinet and your installation look like a great improvement to the AS. I always thought the long side couch on the FB models could be used better by being shorter and having more storage space.

Dennis

[Gene]

I think it depends whether you have kids (or several wives) and want to use the sofa as a bed. Credit for the idea goes to Moosetags. Our is different, but the same idea. What seems obvious now was a complete blank until I saw the photo of their cabinet.

Gene

[Lily&Me]

Cabinet looks very nice, and kudos to you for being clever enough to do this on your own. (Washing and debugging is a good thing.) Have a safe trip.

[Gene]

We set a record today by leaving shortly after 10. Yesterday was zombie day as we filled up the trailer. It's 150' from our front door to the trailer door. That means 17.6 round trips is a mile of walking and I'm sure I made more than 17.6 round trips. Packing the refrigerator must have been 6 or 7 alone. I like the big fridge except when we pack it with 11 days of food. Then there's clothes, other food, stuff and more stuff. Barb probably made almost as many trips, but also spent part of the day cooking food for the trip. She had a book group last night and I had a water company board meeting, so by the time we both got home last night, we were wasted. But we woke up really early, jazzed by the prospect of getting out of town and worrying about whether we would get going early enough.

So we kind of sleep walked through final packing and left at 10:07. An uneventful trip to Angel Fire, NM. The towing was smoother than ever with the Equalizer hitch adjusted correctly. The front end of the Tundra was lower than before and now weight is actually being transferred forward to the front axle. The trailer looks to be level; before it was nose down.

We arrived at Monte Verde campground close to 5:30, tired and glad to be here. Lynn was running after us as when he saw our Airstream. He helped exhausted me back into the space perfectly and we couldn't help ourselves from talking Airstream for a while. We haven't seen his trailer yet and a friend of theirs with a MH345 is here too. Lynn and Maria are very friendly, the grass is green and well kept and there are mountain views in every direction. The wifi works great.

Angel Fire is a ski town, but also busy for the summer and, of course, the 4th of July weekend. Because of paving between Taos and here (30-45 minute delays this week), we went through Red River instead. Red River also has a ski area and is much favored by Texans and there are nightly square dancing events there. The public and private campgrounds were packed everywhere. Lynn told me some people have stopped here without reservations and he has had to turn them away.

Tomorrow the 100th birthday celebration for Barb's grandmother begins with a trip to the family ranch near Wagon Mound. The name of the town comes from a big hill that looked like a wagon to travelers on the Santa Fe Trail. It just looks like a big hill to me, but I'm not in an un-air conditioned wagon and possibly drinking whisky because of the difficulty of finding water while crossing the high desert. It's someone's idea to climb the Wagon Mound tomorrow—not sure I will do that. It will be the second time I've been to the ranch. The first time was almost 20 years ago and it was the first time I'd ever been to a ranch. I remember driving down a two track road deep into nowhere. Barb's many time great-great grandfather bought it to supply beef to his butcher shop in mid-19th century Taos.

Gene

[Boondocker]

Glad to hear you are out on the road again. Lynn is a wonderful host, I was hopping to stop by there again this year, but alas, things often don't go according to plan. If you are near Cimarron on the fourth, the rodeo is a hoot. I am a fan of the wild cow milking contest in particular. When I used to work out that way in the summers we would enter teams in that event. Happy travels.

[eubank]

Originally Posted by CrawfordGene

...The wifi works great.
...
Gene

Well, it did until Maria walked up to me and said that it was dead. Durned DSL modem had to be reset, but this is the second time in as many days. Methinks we have to call Qwest and yell at them for a while. (Gene, if you notice no signal, let me know as soon as you can so that we can reset again.)


Lynn

[Gene]

If it were dead, I wouldn't have read your post, so it is alive!

It sometimes cut out, but I think it was the crankiness of the Forum server.

Strange how Lynn and I are sending messages to each other when we're about 75 yards apart.

Rodney, I've been meaning to PM you to see how things are going for you. It must be rough.

Gene

[eubank]

Seems to be alive and well this morning, knock on wood. (I'm not a great fan of Qwest and their equipment, so almost looking forward to yelling at them a bit.) I've also noticed a bit of slowness in Airforums over the last month or so, especially with threads that contain pics.

Hey, 75 yards ain't bad. My computer is about 30 feet from Maria's, and we email one another. Wish she's learn to use IM.

We have eight arrivals today. I didn't know we had that many empty sites. Argh. I'm enjoying retirement too much for this.


Lynn

[Gene]

The weather report has changed to 50% chance heavy rain today. Light rain started a while ago. The sky is grey and the clouds are getting low enough to touch the mountain tops. The roads to the ranch are partly dirt and that means clay mud in NM, the worst stuff to drive (or slide) on. Maybe we'll stay in Angel Fire today and visit with family. It's too bad because Barb used to visit the ranch when she was a child and has told me many stories—branding time, listening to a really old radio in the evening trying to get clear channel radio stations, and how boring it got as she got older (those teenagers!). A caretaker lives there now and cattle graze there. Years ago 2 families lived in a small abode house divided in two. When he was still in high school, Barb's father drove the school bus. That must have been in the early 1940's. I think the "bus" was a pickup converted to a "bus". Barb doesn't get many chances to see the ranch anymore—it's been 20 years since we were there. I always enjoy the stories she tells me about her experiences as a child in rural New Mexico visiting her relatives.

When the family used to visit family in Taos, they'd drop off all the kids—Barb has lots of cousins—at the Plaza in Taos. In those days the Indians from the Taos Pueblo used to hang around and there were few tourists. Today the Indians are gone and stay more at the Pueblo. The tourists are everywhere and a lot of the old stores are gone and have been replaced by places with tourist trinkets. The spirit of the changes in and around Taos have been documented in John Nichol's New Mexico Trilogy, the first book being The Milagro Beanfield War. The known history of her family in Taos goes back 150 years, but over time they spread out throughout northern New Mexico and to Pueblo, Colorado, and her generation has moved even further. I think it's great they get together from time to time. In my family, people won't even talk to one another, so this has always been different to me and I like it.

I see Lynn riding around on his mountain bike in the rain checking things out. He doesn't have his laptop on the handlebars, so he can't post while riding.

Gene

[eubank]

I think I need to speak with the weather gods.

Lynn

[Gene]

Lynn's conversation with the weather gods did not work. We're on our last night in Angel Fire and it has rained every day, twice today. But, it keeps the temps cooler. This is a beautiful area—Ponderosa and Lodgepole forests and it's very green in the valley. And Monte Verde is a nice campground and Lynn and Maria keep a close eye on things to keep everything in good shape. He says he's "retired" but I don't see much evidence of it except for his addiction to the Forum.

There's a small ski resort here and it is not at all overbuilt like the well known resorts. In fact there's no center of town—development along the highway is classic sprawl and the road up to the ski resort still has vacant lots. This must be an anti-planning area. The second (or first homes) seem to be on fairly large lots and a lot of land and some houses are for sale. This is the way ski resorts used to be decades ago. Now they are excuses for real estate development because skier visits to large resorts are pretty much stagnant.

Even though I've been to NM many, many times, I still think of it as desert. It's true there's desert here and the Staked Plains are maybe not desert, but they're sure close. But the mountains in parts of northern New Mexico remind me of an area of Colorado where we used to live, except there are fewer people. Elevation is what counts—a several thousand feet and you have big conifers, much snow and a Colorado feel. A few degrees warming could change all that.

The 100th birthday celebration went off well even with the usual chaos—where is the next event, what is the next event, do I want to go to the next event? Seems like more than 125 people attended from a far flung family who don't get to see each other that often. Everyone says they don't know who all their cousins are. Grandma has 21 grandchildren, so you can imagine how many cousins there are. I've been meeting people in Barb's family for 23 years and I can't keep it straight—they keep making m ore, the kids grow up and have more kids. Made me feel old. We spent today mostly resting and took a short hike.

Tomorrow we are off to Santa Fe. We understand there are bad construction delays on the road to Taos—up to 45 minutes for a paving project. Not looking forward to that. Not as bad as what we heard of on I-25 in Colorado. Southbound traffic has had delays of 2 hours at Walsenberg. Seems like highway contractors can do anything these days blocking roads or providing bad detours any way they want.

Gene

[eubank]

Gene, I think you pretty well nailed it in your description of the area.

But I guess it's the usual thing: Home is still home, and it's always great to get away. I'm biting at the bit to hitch up and leave!


Lynn

[eubank]

Gene, did you make it ok to Santa Fe? You're lucky to have left here. We had a really ugly thunderstorm yesterday afternoon: Tons of lightening crashing all around us and a lot of rain. No damage that we've found (well, other than our one bird feeder, which tried to take flight), but it sure was exciting.

Lynn

[purman]

Hey Gene, we just got back from our 2 week trip. Heading west seemed to be good for weather. It was even sunny in Washington state. It's suppose to be in the 90's here for the rest of the week. So when you get home you can enjoy some sun...

[Gene]

We're presently at Santa Fe Skies and the internet hasn't worked at the trailer since we got here yesterday. After a lot of complaining and one women telling me we could go to another campground, suddenly they are getting very nice. The guys here are a lot more sensible than the ladies who basically say to go away. Don't know if we'll come back here.

Then there was the tie up in Taos Canyon (US 64) yesterday. The state is chip sealing the road and had no reduced speed limit and no signs warning that traffic would be stopped. So traffic was backed up far beyond the signs and two 1 ton trucks, each with a trailer with lots of weight, came around a corner and had about 100' to stop—result one crunched car, one injury, one damaged car and two messed up trucks. That took over an hour to clean up. We drove a couple of hundred yards and had to wait 20 minutes for construction, and traffic backed up to the curve again, probably without anyone coming around that curve knowing what was ahead. Thanks NM highway dept.

Other than that, Santa Fe is always nice to visit. First thing here we went to Trader Joe's to stock up, and then came back, had a good meal and watched a DVD. Today we slept late, ate good again, went into town. I found parking spaces on the street I always do 2 blocks from the Plaza (a secret I will never tell) and the meter was broken, so we got to park for free! We had a good meal at the Blue Corn Cafe just a block from the Plaza and then went looking for a present for Barb's parents 60th anniversary. Found something nice for their yard. Tomorrow we go to the Folklore Museum and not sure what else—very little I hope.

Gene

[eubank]

Originally Posted by CrawfordGene

... So traffic was backed up far beyond the signs and two 1 ton trucks, each with a trailer with lots of weight, came around a corner and had about 100' to stop—result one crunched car, one injury, one damaged car and two messed up trucks. That took over an hour to clean up. ... Gene

Probably the same two jerks in one-ton trucks who rocked the MG a week ago on that same stretch. One of them managed to put a nice, new pock in the brand new windshield. I hope the both of them get fired.


Lynn

[Gene]

I think the 2nd truck was from a construction company, not the one doing the road. They had not enough warning and the speed limit was 45—not enough space to stop a large truck, an 18 wheeler, or me. With 4 vehicles, the state and the contractor involved, it'll be a merry lawsuit.

They sort of fixed the wifi here, but it is still it too weak to get out in the park. Three of us are typing away right next to the office building, now pretty much in the dark.

Gene

[eubank]

Yuk. Remind me of their weak wifi when we plan our next trip to Santa Fe. Or maybe I should hire myself out to set up a better system for them. (Yeah, right. The last thing I want to do whenever we leave here is to go work at somebody else's campground.)

Lynn

[Gene]

It worked this morning Lynn, probably because nobody but me was using it and then it only had a little better speed than dial up. I guess you got to hire the right people to put in a good system and know how to operate it. They told me they spent $1,400 last week on it after they hired a new outfit because they old one did a lousy job—money down the drain.

We went to the Folk Art Museum today and I wasn't all that impressed. Barb likes folk art, but this museum didn't get a good grade from her either. The road to it has about 15 speed bumps, so my back got a workout—every speed bump jerks my old back injury and hurts. The Whole Foods here has the worst speed bumps I've ever seen—they are staggered so one side of the truck hits them first, then the other side gets another one, jerking you side to side as well as up and down. Obviously designed by a fiend. We've liked the other Santa Fe museums, but they all can't be good. Then we had lunch at Zia, a restaurant in the railroad district on Guadalupe. The lunch wasn't as good as ones we've had in the past and maybe this trip to Santa Fe has a curse on it, or we were spoiled at Angel Fire.

And we noticed in the past year prices in the Plaza area are much higher. There was a big spike in prices in the mid 90's and the result was tourism dropped a lot. I asked a merchant just off the plaza about it and she said rents have risen a lot lately and that's causing retail prices to go up and business has dropped off. I feel like avoiding Santa Fe for a few years after this trip. It is a good place to walk around and look at things, but sometimes it feels like some invisible force has conspired against us.

Gene