Last of the season mini trip

 

 

Day 1 we made it to the destination for the day, Elephant Butte…We were extremely proud of Elephant  butte, as it was Veterans day and the streets were full of flags…Flags  are city owned but the vets helped put them out…and I mean out…like every 60 ft.

Camped in an RV Park  about a block or so from the American Legion Post.Wind was blowing like hell, no fun…

Tuesday night went to the American Legion for a jam session..Sue, Constance, and Husker played and sang, Wanda sang a few also…All in all a good time and got in  a bit of BS’ing.

Wednesday night we were back at the Legion to listen to Jim Corrons play, an ole time favorite of ours…More BS’ing….

Thursday we lit out for Carrizozo and spent the night at the Valley of Fire. Froze that night…We met up with a school chum of wands and had a late lunch..We then headed for Hondo,  I had not been there so was fine with me…We stopped at a small store called Tangle Wood Art…Most amazing store…You would not believe all the stuff they had…Here is a small sample.

 

Friday headed for Alamogordo and pulled into the Boot Hill RV Park…Nice little park that we have stayed in before..Reasonable rates and free wifi.. Really nice people. This was our final destination. A Geocaching event was to start Saturday morning at the VFW.. So at 08:30 Sat morning we were there…Had a buffet breakfast fit for a king, Then drawings were held, New cache coordinates handed out and much BSing.. It finally broke up and everyone lit out in their own directions to pounce on some new Geocaches…We met again for dinner at a chinese buffet and ate until we busted. with that over around 7:30 Wanda and I Headed back to the VFW for music..Cross Bow was playing and we really enjoy them..

The Hosts of the Geocaching event showed up, so we visited with them  for the entire evening….

Sunday, it was planned to head home….Did not happen…We felt tired and lazy so just lounged around the RV for the whole day….

Monday headed home…Miserable weather, Wind, Rain, and Dust..yes dust…took us an extra hour to get home due to having to slow down so much for the wind and dust…Long trip home…But we made it….

That is it for the season….Drained the fresh water tank, opened all the faucets and the low point drains…Called it a day….Still blowing and raining off and on..

Another adventure

 

In September some new friends, Dillon, Jean, Wanda and I headed out to cooks peak for a ride. It was a beautiful ride but had a set back or 2…

First one of the ATV”s rolled over in to the top of a mine shaft…Very luckily the girl was not hurt..Winched the atv out and were ready to get back on the journey…But Dillons UTV would not start no matter what we did so decided to just tow it back to the trucks…But…..It’s lunch time, so took time out to enjoy or lunch before heading back down the hill…About 8 miles to trucks. All in all a great day…Here’s some pics. You can click on them to enlarge.

The pictures with people in them were the old Cooks Town cemetery. Only a couple of the had markers..

The following was from a Deming Headlight Article:

The 1900 U.S. Census records 343 people living at Cooks Town. This sizeable population was in fact larger than that which was recorded for the more well-known town of Lake Valley. Over half of the population listed for Cooks Town in the census were either born in Mexico or born in the US to Mexican Nationals, not native born New Mexican Hispanics. The most common surnames were Rodrigues(z), Gardia, Delgado, Jaso, and Guttirez (Gutierrez). Hence, while the mine owners were primarily Anglo, the mining camps of the Cookes Peak Mining District were largely Mexican in their ethnic composition.

By all accounts life within these camps was particularly brutal. While there were seven brothels and as many as 25 saloons, there were no churches and only a single source of drinkable water. Cattle rustling was common, as was claim jumping. Disputes were settled without the aid of law enforcement, often with violent and horrific consequences. Blizzards could occur in winter and dust storms were not uncommon in the summer months. Making matters worse, there is circumstantial evidence that many of residents suffered from the effects of lead poisoning.

Today, the remnants of Cooks Town, Hadley Town, and Jose Town, as well as the thousands of mines which once operated in the Cookes Peak Mining District, are still visible upon the landscape. However, visitation to the range is strongly discouraged. Much of the land remains privately owned and the abandoned mines are extremely dangerous. Be that as it may, the landscape of the Cookes Range remains an important piece of history to Luna County.

A Day in the Desert.

 

This month, April has been an exciting month for us…To start off both my surgeries are pretty much healed and I am feeling pretty good. We bought a 2015 Polaris Ranger 570 mid (side by side)to replace the 2 ATV’s . So far so good. We have close to a hundred miles on it in the last 3 days. Yesterday 4/20/2015 we took a trip out the Green Leaf Mine Rd…Which covers miles and miles of dirt/gravel roads. We did manage to pick up 1 geocache on the way.

We had a blast on the trip and the highlights were an Arroyo to run in which was really great and the other was at the geocache site that had an awesome view for many miles.

 

 

A Day in the Desert with the new Polaris.