We must be camping in the wrong state

It disturbs us a bit to see signs for campgrounds and the first thing they have to entice us in is a STORM SHELTER!  Before free wifi, pull-thrus, or a laundry. 

We better be on our toes and watch the weather closely!!

Speaking of storm shelters.  We stopped at a sporting goods store.  In the parking lot were various sizes of storm shelters.  Think these were meant to be buried below the ground.  None of them were roomy. 

In fact, one model for $4975 – not installed is 7' x 7' x 7'.  That's 49 square feet on the ground and is advertised to hold 12 people!  And they all get to climb down a staircase to get in.  Egads.

Hi Ho, Silver! HOOFPRINTS in Amarillo

Amarillo has a public art project celebrating the history and spirit of the American Quarter Horse.  These decorated horses were everywhere we looked.  There are over 90 in place.

Helium isn't just so you can sound like a duck!

We are so smart about helium now that we've been to Amarillo which contains more than 95% of the world's known helium reserves. 
Our campground here was next door to a former government helium production plant which was used from 1929 until 1943.
Did you know that helium:

• is an element
• is used in lighter-than-air craft (hot air balloons), arc welding, preserving historical documents, and mixed with oxygen for use in deep-sea diving
• is extracted by liquefying natural gas at 300 degrees below zero
• To transport helium, it must be cooled to liquid form at –452 degrees F
• It was first detected during a solar eclipse in 1868 (we just learned in Alamogordo that the spectrum of the sun's light is unique to different elements)
• Large quantities have been extracted and are currently stored underground near Amarillo
• Though the US is stockpiling helium, it is likely that the reserves will be depleted in the next 10 years

Route 66: Tucumcari

Heading east out of Albuquerque along I-40 which parallels the old "Mother Road" Route 66.

We stopped overnight in Tucumcari, NM. One of the towns still "alive" (they say) on Route 66. Tucumcari is known for being 2 miles long and 2 blocks wide and a number of old hotels with the original neon signs. Funky!

We found out the town has a lot of murals and we traipsed around enjoying the artistry.

Are we having fun yet? Convention Fever

Another Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) convention. This time in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We always enjoy the amount of organizing that goes into planning seminars and entertainment, lining up vendors and RV displays, and finding a place to put a couple thousand RVs.

But, man, this was exhausting. Above was the convention schedule. Starting at 8AM on Sunday and ending at 8:30PM on Thursday. This schedule of activities and displays and entertainment was kept close by to keep us on schedule. There was quite a diverse selection of seminars and several times we were double or triple booked for seminars that we wanted to attend.

Our days went like this: up at 6, off by 7 to the EXPO grounds 10 miles away, first seminar at 8. A couple seminars then a half hour break to walk the dog, grab a bite to eat, pursue the wares at the vendor booths. Then back to class until about 4. Off to dinner and play with the dog. Entertainment is scheduled for 7. Back to the RV by 9. Four days of this and we are so tired!

But the things we learned: appliance, plumbing, generator, transmission, engine, exhaust brake and chassis repair and maintenance. Hints for better blogging, tips to take better digital photos, geocaching finding and hiding, and the ins and outs of using Picasa to organize photos.

We visited with friends, attended several chapter gatherings, and bought some stuff (nah, not a new RV). We froze overnight in below freezing temperatures, enjoyed the sun a couple afternoons, and fought our way through 2 snow showers.

Albuquerque: All 4 Seasons in One Day

It's a tough El Nino year. We've been here in Albuquerque the same time in another year and it was very pleasant. Sunny and warm. Not this year. In the week we were here, we had a high of 63 and a low of 28 and an average of 49 with lots of chilly wind.

"All 4 Seasons in One Day" became the popular phrase. It came from getting up at 6AM to cloudy skies and 39 degrees, by 10AM the temperatures had dropped to 32 and it started snowing - accumulating 3"! And then by 5PM, the sun was out and the snow had melted.

While at the Family Motor Coach convention, we dry camped on the Balloon Fiesta Field where the infamous Balloon Festival is held every October. We looked forward to a few balloons up and about each day. Unfortunately, there was no such thing as a calm dry period conducive to ballooning.

The convention plans were to have us all watch the evening entertainment outside at a casino amphitheater. With temperatures near freezing, they thankfully moved us inside the casino ballroom.

The Sex Life of the Pistachio

Once upon a time there was a little female pistachio tree who at age 7 was aware of her biological clock ticking. She wanted to produce some little pistachios but needed a boyfriend. So the pistachio farmer went to the nursery and bought a Peter. (What a male pistachio tree is called.) That is just what she needed! And from that day forward with the help of a little wind she produced 80 pounds of pistachios a year.

Yep, folks, that's how it works.

Each Peter can service around 10 females and have had the females all to themselves. But now!! according to the US Patent Office Randy is on the scene and is "more precocious than Peter" . How many females will Randy be able to service!!!

This is getting to be more than I want to know!

For pistachio lovers, more facts:
Oldest tree is 700 years old
Iran harvests the most pistachios
Pistachios only grow in a few places on earth. It is necessary that they have a climate with at least 100 days between 32 and 45 degrees.

Kitty City or Cat House?

Geocaching through Alamogordo and way off the beaten track we came upon Kitty City.

A temporary home and adoption agency for felines. They had several screened rooms with views of bird baths and an iron bunny. Climbing areas. Some areas in the sun. Numerous perches. What a cacophony of meows as we came by to scratch their ears.

What a delight - what caring folks!

White Sands

Off for a visit to White Sands National Monument today. On the schedule for our RV rally, plus we wanted to try our first virtual geocache. It was a sunny day for a visit and a number of NM & TX kids were having fun sliding down the dunes at their "beach".

Had forgot that the sands here are gypsum which is water soluble. If there was much rain, the sand would melt into a slurry. That rainy stuff doesn't happen here too often.

We found the answers to questions posed by the virtual cache. Hooray for us. We saw Matilda, the camel, coming via camel (aka horse) trailer into the park for a little jaunt.

We thought the discovery drive out the dunes road was reminded us of driving up in the mountains this week.

National Solar Observatory, Sunspot, NM

What a neat name for this community: Sunspot. Everybody here at the National Solar Observatory is involved in researching activity of the sun. Much of the information provided was above my head but came away with a few gems.

When asked what he thought about "Global Warming", the scientist who escorted us around the site said it seemed like a great way for the government to get your $'s!

Much of the analysis of the sun is done by analyzing the colors in the solar spectrum. From this they can determine composition (minerals), temperature, and strength of the magnetic field.

The sun has been going through a low activity cycle where there have been no sunspots for over a year which is unusual. The sunspots numbers normally increase (up to 150-200 concurrently) and decrease in number over a 10-year cycle. Sunspots are cooler regions. Maybe this is the source of our global warming?

The Dunn Solar Telescope (pictured) is 136' above the surface and we can see it from out campsite 40 miles away. Even more exciting is that it is built 228' into the ground and that the rotating part of this telescope runs along a container holding 10 tons of mercury. Hmm! Probably wouldn't be able to be made that way these days!

By the way, they have had so much more snow than they can remember this year. But we didn't have to worry about destroying the grass.

New Mexico Museum of Space History

Yep, been lots of rocket and missile testing in the sandy flats of the White Sands.

Four floors of displays from early rockets to the Ansari X PRIZE for space travel in this museum.

Learned about the hazardous pay the Holloman Air Force Base volunteers earned while being guinea pigs in acceleration and deceleration tests all in the name of space.

Learned about the V2 German rocket test that went awry and landed up in the hills behind the museum.

Got to play a video game and land the Discovery. Dean did good!

Analyzed the logistics of the SpaceLab toilet. Like what goes where?

Toy Train Depot

More fun for us RV'ers. Off to the Toy Train Depot today. This place was jam-packed with trains and tracks and all other kinds of miscellany. Several rooms with extensive railroad systems and plenty of dedicated and enthusiastic docents.

And we got a train ride to boot through the city park.

How tough can it be here?

We were a bit shocked when we got to Alamogordo, a town with a population of about 38,000, to find that they only had 2 grocery stores. One of which is a new Super WalMart. Our hometown with about the same population has about 7.

And then we found a number of used "fixer-upper" mobile homes. Whoa! Many mobile homes are under $40k new. And here they are on a lot selling for $9,900 to $18,000 and they are looking pretty sad!

RV Rallies: friends; fun and games; busy times

Latest stop: Alamogordo, New Mexico where we are meeting up with the Elks International and the Freightliner Chassis Owner's Club chapters of Family Motor Coach. Busy Busy Busy. Lots to see around this area from winery's to missiles to trains and dunes.

Voracious

New route. New park. Roper Lake State Park in Safford, AZ. Had to make a trek to camp here as the park is scheduled to close at the end of the month due to budget constraints.

Lots of birds, bunnies, and squirrels. We had a great campsite and enjoyed hiking the park and along the lake.

What really amazed us was the voracious yellow-headed blackbirds. On a normal day in most parks, our 3 feeders would have seed in them the whole day. But here, the blackbirds would come to the feeders late in the day and in 5 MINUTES!!! would empty the feeders! Wow!

Roosevelt Lake @ 99% full

We've written about Roosevelt Lake before. A few years back it was at a 17% water level with a prediction that it would go dry by mid-year. Last year we took a drive up here and saw that the lake was pretty close to 100% full. That continues this year too. With snow up on the mountains, they may have to release water over the dam. Serendipity.

We stayed at the Windy Hill campground. Watched the boaters, hiked the trails, and successfully found a couple geocaches. Windy Hill is across the highway from Tonto National Monument where there are several Salado native dwellings from before 1450. Below is a view from our campground.

By the way, the weather was better than it had been in Phoenix for us!