A Full-time Life

TEXAS GULF COAST, WINTER 2006-07

Last winter was our second stay on the Texas Gulf Coast.  We spent four months, staying at Waters Edge RV Park in Fulton. http://www.watersedgervpk.com/ 

In this picture, you can see our Texas home, where we were just a few steps to Aransas Bay. We liked this little park a lot and we loved the area.  The RV Park is not too large and had activities that kept us busy with new friends when we were not out exploring the area.  Pelicans and other water birds swam by every day.  The picture on the right is the Water's Edge fishing dock. Fishing wasn't very good while we were there, but it was nice just to walk out and watch birds and occasionally dolphins.

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Fulton Harbor is within easy walking distance of Water's Edge.   It's a working harbor, mostly for harvesting oysters (during the months we were there) and shrimp.

We always enjoy watching other people work and oystering is fascinating.  I wouldn't want to go out on the ocean in a boat like the one in the third picture, but it is typical.  There will be a crew of three men and a pile of sacked oysters on the deck when it comes in.  Then,the buyer will pay the boat's captain, and the sacks will be moved off to waiting reefer trucks to be transported back east.  (But sometimes, the sacks stand around for quite a while in the warm weather--that kind of makes you worry.)  The guy at the fish market told me that all of the oysters sold in restaurants on the east coast come from here.  Would he lie? 

Moon Dog at the Harbor was our favorite "dive".  More a local hangout than a tourist place, it served good, fresh seafood.  It was very pleasant to sit out on the deck and watch the boats and water birds.  Especially on a warm sunshiny winter day!                              

Our very favorite place to explore was the Aransas Wildlife Refuge. 

The volunteer at the Refuge Headquarters said that if we saw an alligator lying across the path, we should turn around and go back rather than attempt to step over it.  (Like I needed that advice!)  We didn't see any on the path, fortunately, but we saw a lot nearby.  I wonder what this one was thinking. 

Armadillos are supposed to be very common, but this was the first one we'd been able to get close to.  I think they are probably nocturnal (and we aren't).  We took a tour boat out to the offshore islands to see one of the few remaining stands of Whooping Cranes.  These birds are 6 feet tall -- there's nothing to compare them to out on these islands where they feed, so the pictures we have don't really get across how amazing they are in "person" .

This turtle and bird pond is in Port Aransas on Mustang Island.  You get there by taking one of the car ferries which are operated by the Texas Highway Department. 

                                                             

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We love the Gulf Coast of Texas.  It makes us smile too, just like this guy seems to be doing!!

New Mexico - Fall 2006

This is the second post about New Mexico because we enjoy it so much.  Just couldn't talk about our most recent experiences there without first going "way back in history" to tell about our first stay, which was pivotal in our decision to become full-timers.  The state is so full of great things to see.  This post has more current information -- from last Fall (2006), when we stayed in or near Albuquerque instead of Santa Fe.  This is a view of the City from the top of Sandia Peak.

The Petroglyph National Monument right outside Albuquerque is the largest petroglyph site in North America.  There are over 15,000 petroglyphs, mostly made between 1300 and 1600.  (There are three separate sections of the monument -- we hiked around just one and estimated that we saw over 100.  )

There are different interpretations about what they mean and why they are in this particular area.  They weren't casual jottings.  A lot of work was involved, as they were made by chipping away at the volcanic rock.

It's quite a little hike on rocky ground to get around to see them and you can really get up close.  We were kind of surprised that they were so open to the public, but there are so many I guess it would be impossible to fence them.  And it was really nice to be able to get such a clear look.   

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Then we spent a week at Bird Watcher's RV Park in San Antonio, New Mexico, just a little bit South of Albuquerque.  It is on the Bosque Del Apache Wildlife reserve.  Thousands of snow geese and sandhill cranes winter over on this reserve.  The morning and evening flyovers provide a spectacular birding show with the beautiful New Mexico landscape as a backdrop.  It's one of our all-time favorite spots.  (Click for the full pictures -- especially if you love looking at birds.)

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While we were "at home" on the Bosque, we took a day trip over to San Agustin, a tiny town with some very large radio telescopes.  It's the home of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.  The 27 dishes of the Very Large Array radio telescope allow astronomers to study the overall structure of objects in the Universe.  (Not so coincidentally, it is where the Jodie Foster movie "Contact" was filmed.)  There's a good visitor center there and you can see the astronomers at work and imagine that they are making contact with other universes.

                                                

It was an interesting contrast to see the petroglyph monument and the astronomy observatory within the same couple of weeks.  Both the ancient past and the 21st century tours left us in a state of wonder and with the wish to learn more. 

New Mexico

We fell in love with New Mexico on our first long RV trip.  It really is, as their slogan says, the Land of Enchantment.  Perhaps especially to people born and bred in the Northwest.  Every place we visited was different and interesting.   We knew very little about the Southwest, so we grabbed all the tourist pamphlets and literature we could and we felt like we knew a little more after our visit. I think it was during this time that we really began to realize what adventures we could have living the RV life.   There is really no other way we could take this much time to explore so many different and fascinating locations.   

On that first trip, Fall of 1999, we stayed about a month at Santa Fe and explored the city and surrounding area.  We loved the City with all its wonderful museums, the turquoise sellers in front of the Palace of Governors, the (to us) exotic architecture and little byways to explore.  We bought a reasonably-priced museum pass good for about 10 days.  With it, we got to visit the Georgia O'Keeffe painting collection, the Palace of the Governors, the International Folk Art Museum, and the American Indian Museum. 

We visited the Chapel of Loretto, with its inexplicable staircase that makes you wonder about miracles.  (If you don't know this story, it's well worth a quick Google.)

On a side trip while we stayed in Santa Fe, we drove to Bandalier National Monument and archaeological trail where you can walk into ancient ancestral pueblo dwellings.  (You have to climb 140 feet on four sets of ladders. )

We used public transportation for the most part to get around the City.  It was easy and fast -- we caught the bus right outside our RV Park.

We drove the Turquoise Trail up into the Sandia Crest Byway with its amazing scenery.  We visited Sandia Cave -- the first known human dwelling in the new world.  The trail at the summit of Sandia Crest is at over 10,000 feet. 

We visited Taos with all its wonderful art and history and we went to the El Sanctuario Church at Chimayo.  While in that wonderfully authentic Indian village we bought fresh-ground peppers right from the farmer.  Wish I had some now.

After leaving Santa Fe, we stopped for a few days at several other New Mexico places and everyone of them was interesting.  Lincoln, which is kept as it was in the 1860s, is where Billy the Kid shot a couple of deputies and escaped from jail -- you can see the bullet holes.    Roswell has its camp UFO museums, which you've gotta see once, but it is actually quite a nice little town.  Carlsbad Caverns National Park is wonderful.  The cave formations are so beautiful I even forgot to be scared while we explored. 

The pictures are:  Taos pueblos and cemetery, El Sanctuario Church, old Lincoln County Courthouse. and one of the formations at Carlsbad Caverns.

We didn't have a camera on this trip.  (Only the sunset and the Sandia Peak snaps are ours and are from a later trip.)  It would be great to visit all these places again so that we could get our own pictures -- and also of course because we love New Mexico.

It's a prime example of a major traveler's dilemma.  So many new places to visit, so many old ones to go back to, and so little time!  We did go back to New Mexico last year and spent more time in the Albuquerque area  -- that's another post.

More from Colorado

This is Colorado's state flower, the columbine.  We saw it last August, when it was still like spring up in the mountains above Denver.  Wouldn't it be cool if we could get a picture of every State flower?

This visit to Colorado wasn't actually an RV trip at all.  When we came home from our London stay, we flew into Denver and then spent a while with our kids in Colorado before heading back to the Northwest by car.    (We had stored the fifth-wheeler in Oregon.) 

On one of the days we were there, Geoff took us on a Jeep ride up to these mountains above Breckenridge.  I don't think there could be a greater contrast than between living in the busy and crowded city of London and then just a few days later being up in these wide-open spaces.  We were so lucky to get to do both!

This is the Jeep Trail up the Mountain.  The pass is called Radical Hill(!).

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And here's some of what we saw when we got to the top.  (Click on the pictures to get full views.)

 

There were so many great views and the mountain goats were so amusing.  I could hardly stop taking pictures.  These are just a sample.   It was a great day.