On The Road Again!

Headed To Yuma to meet RVSue!

We finally took the MotherShip out of dry dock,

filled her full of good eats, clean sheets and doggie treats! This is the longest we have been dry docked

off the MotherShip since we first boarded 

her almost 2 years ago!

On the  2nd  Tuesday of January, we climbed aboard

and headed out of our home base of Truth or

Consequences NM! The destinations being Yuma,

Quartzite and Ajo AZ!and lo and behold, the one main thing we forgot was our MiFi aircard from Verizon! YIKES! So I am very late posting all our fun news we want to share. Forgive me. Today 1-23-2012 finds us in Picacho AZ KOA, hooked up to shore power and I have a weak, but workable wifi signal!

Therefore, I am gonna try to get out part one of our journey to Sue's Pond near Yuma AZ! So far I have been working at this blog about 4 hours!

SLOWWWWWW wifi connection here! PLEASE BE PATIENT! If I can't finish it all here, I will finish when we get back home to T or C!

Just short of the I-10, I was a bit surprised to

find windmills spread across the New Mexico

landscape!  We have seen hundreds of them in CA and TX, but never until now had we seen them nestled in this SW corner of NM!

After almost 6 months dry docked in NM,

we are now crossing the state line into Arizona!

The second rest area on I-10 in eastern Arizona is one of my favorites, Texas Canyon! One can just imagine the old cowboy westerns where the bad guys are shooting at the good guys from all the big rocks and boulders at this rest area! Love it!

Right after we pulled out of Texas Canyon rest area, this truck passed us pulling a humongous BBQ Grill!

Chuck was all ready to pull in and follow them! That darned grill was bigger than the truck pulling it! YUM!

We both love good Bar-b-que! That is one thing that we haven't found in NM! That and a good seafood restaurant! Oh well..........

We were headed west going through Tucson, when we remembered Al (from the www.bayfieldbunch.com blog) had mentioned the at the same exit as the hospital there was an In-N-Out burger!  One of Chuck's favorites and he has not had an In-N-Out burger since his California days! So when we saw the blue H hospital sign we took that exit and parked in the big parking lot behind the restaurant and we pigged out on the best burger I have ever had! Now I understand all the commotion about In-N-Out food! It is the best ever! Honest!

Just west of Tucson, we saw our first Saguaro Cacti!

What giants these guys are! Royalty of the desert SouthWest! I wish you could see all the way up the mountain in the distance, Saguaro cacti marching up all over those hills! You can click on any of the images in this blog and bring them up to full size.

When I lived back east, before my first trip to the SouthWest, I used to see paintings of the mountains layered in different hues of blue and wonder why... it sure didn't look like anything I was familiar with! Well, you get out here and sure enough, the mountains are really layered in blues. This is also known as a Saguaro Cacti forest!  See all the Saguaro? Not like a forest back east, but a forest none the less! Absolutely amazing to see!

The Saguaro forest extends up those mountains in the background...much as pines etc would cover the mountains of the east! All those "dots" are cacti!

SUE'S POND !!

Finally we arrive at Yuma on Thursday and find Sue's pond just north of Yuma!  This is a beautiful little BLM site, you can "boondock" here for 2 weeks free!

For you non-campers, "boondocking" means camping without water, electric, sewer hookups. Most RV's can go 2 weeks or more with careful conservation of resources before having to dump the black tanks (sewer) or having to refill water supply.  This pond is isolated, beautiful and there are about 20 or so RV's camped around the pond! Certainly warmer here than than up north! It runs mid-60's day and mid- 30's at night.

It seems I have lost most of my Wifi signal, as it's not letting me upload anymore photos to the blog. I will continue when we get back to Truth or Consequences NM about Friday or Saturday! I can't believe we forgot our air card! Sheeeeeesh! We leave Picacho KOA tonight headed to one of our favorite AZ campgrounds in Safford.... the Roper Lake State Park. We will stay there 2 nights (it's danged cold still at home!) and then head to T or C!

We love you and remember, if you want to leave a comment you have to go all the way back up to the headline "On The Road Again", click on there then come all the way back down and leave your comment.... or heck, you can just email me!

Wishing you a great day as we get The MotherShip ready to take off!

Geri, Chuck and The Hound Herd!

WoW! We got a WHITE CHRISTMAS!

It started snowing last night just as darkness was taking over.  It has snowed all night with lots of wind to go with it, causing snow drifts all over town!  It is still snowing and we have 90% chance of snow all day and 40% chance of snow tonight! Truth or Consequences NM doesn't normally have this kind of snow. It snowed last weekend and now again this weekend! So it looks like we will have a great white Christmas!

The wind blew all night, but left our Christmas lights still hanging... sort of !

That wall is 3 feet tall... the snow drift is almost to the top this morning... up to the top now, 3 hours later!

The MotherShip sits across the street,

still waiting for a destination!

Last weeks snow just covered the top of this cactus, not sure it will withstand being buried

in snow this week!

At 7am, I went out with broom in hand to brush off the snow from the satellite so we could watch weather reports on tv. Stepped in drifts up almost to my knees!

This is the back of Chuck's truck, looking out through the kitchen window!

Scotty has been in snow before, he gets busy making yellow snow!

This is the wrought iron decoration we have hanging on the tall wall between us and our neighbor Larry.

The snow looks really cool on it!

Scotty has been down in the snow for a few minutes. Our Florida dogs, DoogieBowser and Radar look to him for advice about this weird, cold, white stuff!

Our faithful mascot for The MotherShip, Cosmos, looks a bit lost in this world of white!

My Florida car also looks a bit lost with

all this white stuff! 

DoogieBowser got off the porch long enough for his feet to touch the snow, then he hightailed it back up the steps and refused to come walk in the snow!

Radar and Scotty seemed to not

 mind the snow at all!

My art table. Though since it was under the porch roof, I thought it would be safe from the snow....wrong!

This is where I had been framing some prints before all the cold weather hit!

MOM! Not now mom! It's hard enough trying to do this in the snow... and you gotta point a

camera at me?  SHEESH!

It's still snowing! The wind is still blowing!

Our high temp today is supposed to be 35 degrees!

This is my first white Christmas since the 1980's when I was living in Telluride CO.

Chuck's last white Christmas was in the early 1990's in Pine Mountain CA, so this is a real treat for both of us!

So from all of us, to all of you,

We wish you a very Merry CHRISTmas!

Happy Trails from Geri, Chuck and the hound herd!

ps... if you want to leave a comment... and we hope you do, if the comment box does not appear below here, please go up to the top and click onto the title of the blog: "WoW! We got a white Christmas!" and the comment box should magically appear!

Chicken Fried Steak

Wow! I cooked Chicken Fried Steak!!!

Thanks to Jools of www.joolsjaunts.com traveling blog, I have learned how to make one of Chuck's favorite meals! (Mine too!) With her permission, I am gonna pass the recipe on to you!

You need tenderized round steak, you can pound them yourself or get them tenderized at the meat market like we did! First thing is get smaller pieces of meat than I did! Ha! I shoulda cut them in half! One piece would have fed both of us and fit in the cast iron fry pan better!

Put some milk in a bowl... I used a fry pan because my bowls were too small and rounded... if ya got smaller pieces of meat, or if I had cut them up smaller, a bowl would have worked fine!

After you have dipped the steak in milk, dip it into a plastic bag that has All Purpose Flour in it along with salt, pepper to taste and shake it up, coating the milk wet steak in flour.

Get the cookin' oil hot, not smokin' hot though, Jools says that ruins the oil!  Heat it over medium flame. Use only enough grease and not too much like I did! Make it about 1/4 inch deep, lay the floured, tenderized round steak into the hot

oil. This will "set" the breading on the steak when it's dropped into the fry pan. Jools didn't say exactly

how long to cook the steak, I just turned 'em over a couple a times until they were good and brown.

Now you gotta make the gravy! Scrape all the goodies off the bottom of the fry pan and discard some and leave some. Leave only about 5 TBSP of cookin' oil in the bottom of the fry pan. I sifted about 1/2 cup of All Purpose Flour while 3 cups of whole milk was heating on the stove. Don't boil it, just get it hot! Slowly add the sifted flour to the frying oil

Slowly add the flour to the frying pan, making a medium thick paste, continue stirring browning

the flour. When this mixture is nice and brown and

and bubbly, start slowly adding the heated milk. Keep stirring while doing this. It will become thick, creamy gravy. Add salt and pepper to taste. Jools likes her gravy all peppery.

When it's done, put the gravy over the chicken fried steak and hot mashed 'taters. It should look sorta like this!

Chuck and I are ready to dig in!

YUM!

Nothing left to do now but the dishes!

Chuck?  Chuck where are you?

I cooked.... honey ???

Hope ya'll get a chance to try this chicken fried steak. It's the first time I ever made it and it turned out pretty darned good!  List of ingredients:

Tenderized Round Steak
Vegetable Oil
All Purpose Flour
Salt and Pepper
Whole Milk (or as Jool's grandma called it, "sweet milk" as opposed to "buttermilk".

So today you got to take a trip around my kitchen instead of the highways. Prolly not as exciting, but still fun! If you want a more defined version of the recipe, click onto the link above for Jool's blog and the real recipe!

Just a note to let ya'll know, the big bad storm that swept through the Southwest pretty much missed us here in Truth or Consequences NM. We have had 2 days of some rain and lots of dark gloomy clouds, but that's all.  No snow, no blizzards, no flooding and no warm weather either! But we are fine and still enjoying our winter here!

Also, another heads up! Sometimes the area to make comments to us does not show up. If you don't see the comment box at the end of this blog, go back to the top and click on to the title...Chicken Fried Steak, then come back down here to read the comments that have been left and hopefully add your own!

Happy Trails from the crew of The MotherShip!
We hope you have a great Christmas with your friends and family!
Geri, Chuck and our Hound Herd

Soaking in the Hot Springs

As ya'll know, Chuck and I love to soak in the wonderful hot mineral springs that are what Truth or Consequences NM is all about! We really love Riverbend Hot Springs in the warmer months, all of their springs are outside facing the Rio Grande River and the spa is just a beautiful, artsy place that we love to visit. Chuck and I workamped there the summer of 2009. www.riverbendhotsprings.com

This is our friends Larry and Betty Harmon, full time RV'ers and bloggers visiting us and soaking at Riverbend! www.mountainborn.blogspot.com/







But this week, Chuck and I decided to soak in a different hot springs resort. Blackstone Hot Springs.

http://www.blackstonehotsprings.com/

Here they have what they call "The Wet Room". WOW! What an experience!

Here, you get a whole room all to yourself with a huge tub with all different levels you can sit on! You can soak as deep or as shallow as you want! The water is HOT! WE WENT IN VERY SLOWLY... ABOUT AN INCH AT A TIME! In just a few minutes we were all the way in and soaking. It felt soooooo gooooood!

Next to the tub is the steam room! The steam is caused by a big waterfall of mineral hot springs water! You sit under it, as Chuck is in this photograph... and it relaxes all your muscles. You leave the steam room feeling like a limp noodle! We loved it. Also included in this room is a shower, so after we soaked our hour, we took a shower and headed home totally relaxed and renewed! I totally recommend that anybody take time to experience soaking in a mineral hot springs. The ones here in Truth or Consequences have no sulpher odor.. or any odor of any kind for that matter! The whole town sits on a huge aquifer of mineral hot springs that are some of the best America has to offer!

Chuck and I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Lost Photos, New Friends and SNOW!

LOST PHOTOS

I had put my little Fugi camera away last summer, opting to use my trusty old Nikon D-70. It has a much faster responding shutterspeed for when I am shooting through the windshield of the truck as we go speeding through all of beautiful America! Chuck is a great tour director!

I got the Fugi out the other day, when we went down to Percha Dam State Park to visit our fulltime camping buddy Sue. Surprise! Surprise! Had some images on the memory card of time spent in Torrey Utah.

Chuck and I have fallen in love with Utah! It is one of the most beautiful states we have visited and we are excited that we will be working in Utah this summer!

If you look to the right side of this blog, you will see a list of past blogs.... any one of the years with summer months will have Utah photographs listed! This last summer we posted all the wonderful petroglyph sites we visited there.

We love Torrey Utah!  If you think Sedona AZ is beautiful, you ain't seen Torrey Utah! This was taken from our campground... looking north ! There is a buffalo herd somewhere in that field...

This is also from our campground looking west at the alfalfa fields being irrigated! While staying at Torrey, we stayed at 1,000 Lakes Rv Park and highly recommend it!

This was taken from one of the backroads near Torrey.  It was a good dirt road with lots of views! Chuck and I have mostly been staying in campgrounds the past few years. But we have "met" fellow campers on their blogs who prefer boondocking. There are many places around Torrey to dry camp!

Torrey Utah is surrounded with beautiful red rocks! Torrey is Sedona 30+ years ago, when I first visited Sedona. Sedona is now such a touristy trap, overgrown to the point that most of the original beauty I found there is now hidden by "progress"!

Torrey is a small town on a small highway. One gas station, one grocery and several good restaurants!

Here is a link to Torrey:

http://www.phunnyfarm.blogspot.com/2010/09/torrey-utah.html

OK We are caught up on the lost photos of summer, now for the current life of the MotherShip Crew!

MEET THE HOUND HERD!

Scotty, DoogieBowser and Radar are our furkids!

Meet Sue!  Sue is a lady full timing in her Casita. We met her through Emily who linked us to her blog. Sue's blog is well worth reading! She is an excellent writer and I look at her blog every day. Unlike me who posts only sporadically, Sue posts almost every day and it's always interesting!

http://rvsueandcrew.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/power-runs-through-it/

Sue is in the process of getting solar installed! She is from Georgia, soft spoken and funny. She travels with her "crew" of 2 rat terriers Bridgette and Spike. She left Georgia several months ago and has had gypsy feet ever since. She and her crew have become good friends and will be missed as she heads for warmer weather in the deserts of Arizona! Chuck and Sue are looking at the maps as we share some of our favorite places with her!

WE GOT ICE AND SNOWFLAKES!

We are the tail end of that storm that roared into California yesterday! Our winds came last night, but not nearly as strong here as in Alburqueque or California, but real gusty at times! The temp is now 37F and this morning when I walked the hound herd, there was ice on the "duck pond". the duck pond is a wash tub we keep under the gutter to catch rain so we can water our plants!

Poor duckie is stuck in the pond!

The winds were so strong, all the leaves on our mulberry tree blew off!

Looking west, over Truth or Consequences NM, you can see the bad weather coming in over the Black Range Mountains! Right now, at noon, we are seeing snow flurries floating around!

MotherShip awaits her orders! She is ready to take off for warmer weather if her crew would just get on board! We now dock the MotherShip across the street from our place. Chuck trades helping our elderly neighbor with yardwork so that we can dock nearby. We are lucky to have such good neighbors here!

Happy Trails to you from the MotherShip Crew!