Beep Beep. . .

We woke up yesterday in Elk Valley to 32 degrees. Terry and I both decided we were tired of cold weather so looked at the map and made some changes. It was decided we would drive to Albuquerque since the weather promised to be in the 70s during the day and the 50s at night. My kind of weather. When we arrived we put Neal out in the grass and he seemed excited that he wasn't wet and wasn't cold. We are staying at the Isleta Lake RV Park at the Isleta Casino south of town. Adjacent to the park is a field where graze a herd of buffalo. They don't like people near their fence . . . they just walk away!

Before we started our trek south, I emailed my Uncle John to see if we might visit him and his wife Joanne. They were delighted we called and anxious to see us. So today we drove to Rio Rancho and met them at their house.

Uncle John showed us around his house which is just beautiful. He has a garden and a lot of flowers in his backyard. It surely is a beautiful place to sit and enjoy the colors of the flowers and plants. BUT, the neatest item in his back yard are the roadrunners he feeds! Joanne said it started years ago with a roadrunner that showed up at the door and had an injured foot. Because it couldn't run, she started feeding it so it wouldn't starve. Eventually others showed up. She thinks these may be the grandchildren of the original ones as they only live about 4-5 years. There are 3 they currently feed, but we only saw one this afternoon. They come by in the morning and again in the evening. How cool!

Uncle John took us up to the National Petroglyph Monument and we made the trek up the side of a volcano cone. It is an ancient volcano and thousands of years ago, Native Americans used it as a homesite and there were areas on the very top where there were dwellings at one point. You actually drive in and park in the area which would be the center of the volcano and the walls of the volcano are visible all around. The rock around around the sides is basalt and the early dwellers scratched and carved images on the rock. It was quite large and very impressive. Uncle John and I climbed all the way to the top while Terry and Joanne waited for us down below.

From there we went to the Native American Museum. This was a day they were having Native American dancers and we were able to take photographs. We watched three dances which had two boys, one girl, and a small child. The dancing was impressive and the dancers were perfectly in time with each other and the music. The announcer was also the chanter. When he announced they would be doing a rain dance, Terry tried to tell me to run out and stop them! Hah! We enjoyed the museum.

We then went to Lotaburger where Terry got to try a green chile cheeseburger. He said it was very good. I wasn't that brave.


Afterwards we went to the Botanical Park and saw so many flowers and beautiful plants. One with orange berries was particularly beautiful and colorful, called pyracantha. We also got to glimpse the koi in the pond. It was a beautiful walk and we could see many Christmas decorations they are beginning to hang. Once back, we said our goodbyes and thanked Uncle John and Joanne for a great day and a great visit with them.

We got back to let a very grateful Neal out to do his business in the grass and were planning what to do tomorrow since we are still here. Turns out the Nascar race we planned to watch was actually on tonight. As we were watching it, there was a knock on the door. Imagine our surprise when our friend Dave Gibson was at the door. He and his fiancee are parked just across from us. They had been to the four corners area, but his some rough road on their way to a canyon. They have some damage to their motorhome and came back here to see about getting it fixed. We have a breakfast date with them at the casino. I see some slot machines in my future.

Till next time. . .

Dale