Brrrrrrrrr

We're starting to feel like everyone else in Ontario...-1C here and I understand you were about -2C today.  We are currently in Midland, Texas, and we're at the tail end of Winter Storm Thor.  Rain and freezing rain falling right now.  Thankfully we're parked for the night and will not move unless the roads are all clear tomorrow.  We were very fortunate and only had rain for parts of the day today while driving - but the temperature continued to go down as we travelled along.

We're retracing our steps for awhile today.  Back through El Paso we were following a moving prefab home.  No, not our RV.

El Paso, nestled below the mountain range, which we think is in Mexico.

A bit of a spaghetti junction through El Paso, but nothing like we saw in Houston a month ago.

We liked how this section of the highway was divided.

And we decide which way to go.  Interstate 20 terminates/begins here at I-10.  We came across I-10, but this time, we're taking I-20 which goes more northeast.

Lots of these sights along the way.  Much more oil country here.

We came across this RV at a picnic stop when we pulled over for lunch.  It's virtually identical to ours!  We've never seen one before.  We ended up following them into a gas station about 2 hours later.

We have also crossed over to the Central Time Zone, so we're only behind Eastern time by an hour now.  Here we sit in Midland, Texas, with freezing temperatures.  We have to keep the taps open and dripping so they don't freeze...all night!

On the Road Again

We absolutely loved our month in Tucson, Arizona.  It's a great place to be.  The city isn't very big, and there's lots to do.  We said goodbye to our terrific neighbours and exchanged email addresses.

But the time has come to move along and head back home.  We will take our time though - we don't plan to be home until Mar 13th or 14th.  Hopefully by then it will have warmed up a tad!

This is the sign when leaving Rincon Country RV Resort West.

Dust storms are a real possibility, especially if we were out on the road on Monday.  It was crazy windy.

And here's where we are for tonight, in New Mexico.  We will be continuing on I-10 until we come to I-20 and then we'll veer off on I-20 northeast toward Dallas, Texas.

I'm really curious about this place.  Hmmm.  It's a real place!

And this is an overview of Las Cruces (means Crossroads in Spanish).  A valley city with the mountains in the background.  We're very close to Mexico, and Texas, of course.

Here's that dried up piece of #$%@, called the Rio Grande again.

Yep, looks just the same.

Tibby enjoys himself in the RV...and so do we, actually.

We're all hooked up for the night.  But we need to get an early start in the morning.  Our destination of Midland, Texas, looks like they could have some freezing rain by 4 pm.  We need to get there before that - get off the road.  We should be fine.

Hangin' Out

Hey there.  Not much happening around here the last couple of days.  We've just been enjoying the time we have left here.  And today (Monday) is our last day as we're leaving tomorrow morning.  We've talked about our trip home, trying to decide whether or not to go to Carlsbad, New Mexico.  The weather is not supposed to be very good there - they have higher elevation, so much colder, and the possibility of snow.  We don't want that when hauling the RV.

Anyway, we'll play it by ear and make the decision on the fly.

The only photo I have is of a sunset from just in front of our RV.  It looked like the cloud was on fire from within.  Very cool.

So from this point on, it'll be back to road trips every day.  Our plan is to be home by the 13th or 14th.

Sabino Canyon, Part Deux

Since we were in Sabino Canyon last, we said we wanted to go back to do the Phoneline Trail.  Although we walked back last time, we just used the road as it was late in the day.  This time, we got there much earlier and took the tram to the top again.  From there, we started walking.

It is an absolutely beautiful walk - moderate grade 5-1/2-mile hike.  An assortment of photos.

Gerard, checking out the size of that rock.

Spring is coming and the wildflowers are blooming.  Some cacti are getting blooms.

 Gerard managing to traverse the creek, without getting wet is the trick.

Sabino Creek - beautiful little stream.

 It was an absolutely gorgeous hike.  It took almost 3 hours, and was absolutely worth every moment.

When we returned, we showered up and had cocktails with our neighbours, Bev & Roger.  End of a terrific day.

Escape to the Islands

Today we hung out at the RV resort.  It was a very nice day, again.  The resort here has an "Escape to the Islands" day.  There were several activities going on, and it was all kicked off with a parade up and down the main street of the resort.  Entries were the various clubs/groups that make up life here.

We all plunked our chairs down at the end of our street to enjoy the parade.

The flag-bearers - notice the 2nd flag.

I'm not sure this is really a club here...but I liked it anyway.

The various clubs usually had a golf cart all decked out.  For those of you not familiar with RV resorts, MANY people have golf carts to use as transportation within the resort.  This one was for the Bridge Club.  The sign says "Fun Bridge".  I've played Bridge a few times...and I find it an oxymoron..."Fun Bridge".  Ha.

I'm not sure of the club here, but it had the Jamaican Bobsled Team!  Oh yeah, it was an escape to the islands day.

Here's Bev, our neighbour.  She is part of the card club - she and her husband like playing cards.

Oops...the fire truck was a little late.

This was our group sitting at the end of our street.  The one sitting with his hand raised is Roger.  That's Bev's husband, and he's the one who has looked after Tibby when we've been away for a long period of time.

As I mentioned, there were several events going on during the day.  Our plan was to partake of their casino night in the auditorium, which we did.  After our street happy hour, we went there as it started at 5 pm and was running until 9.  Roger and Bev were looking after the Roulette table.  The deal was you paid $10 to get in and you got $2,200 in funny money to spend in the casino plus a ticket for door prizes.  You could buy another ticket for $2,000.  There were lots of games including poker, black jack, spin the wheel, ring toss, beanbag toss, car race, and 2-3 other games.  A fun night.  We left for dinner part way through, then went back to finish off the night.  You had to be present for the door prizes, and we ended up buying 3 more tickets with cash winnings we had.  We won a necklace.

All in all, a great event.  Proceeds of the casino went to Habitat for Humanity.

Biosphere 2

We got up and were on the road shortly after 9 a.m. this morning.  We arranged with our neighbour to look after Tibby because we couldn't take him with us, and it was going to be a long day away from our RV.

We were thinking "Biosphere 1" must have been another spot at one time and they've re-created "Biosphere 2".  Well, it's true there is a Biosphere 1 ("is" is the operative word).  Biosphere 1 refers to the Earth.  So this one and only place has always been called Biosphere 2.

Biosphere 2 is located about an hour north of Tucson at the foot of the Catalina Mountains, only on the other side of the mountains from Tucson.  We arrived there and were able to join their 11 a.m. tour.  This was built as a completely contained biosphere, totally sealed off from the outside world.  8 people lived in here for 2 years and had to sustain themselves with only the tools within the biosphere.  They had to grow their own food, they had some chickens, goats, etc.  They had lots of experiments to do as well (their work).  The bottom line, they spent a lot more time farming, and a lot less time working on their projects, which was frustrating for them.  But they did it.

Now it's totally a research facility owned by the University of Arizona.  It has 5 ecospheres in here, regulated by 2 acres of plumbing and air movement - rainforest, ocean, marshland, grassland, and desert.

This is the main building where most of these were.

This is where the original 8 did their farming.

This is where a "lung" is housed.  Because it was totally sealed off from the outside world back in the early '90s, they needed a couple of these lungs to move air through the complex.

This is the ocean.

The rainforest.

Frankincense given to the biosphere by Oman.

Grasslands

Desert.

This is the back of the "farm" area.

All in all, quite the place.  It's worth a tour.

After we left Biosphere 2, we continued on up north to Mesa where my cousins are living.  We stopped in Florence, Arizona, for a late lunch and found this nice little Mexican cantina.

A little water feature on the patio.

A shot of the outside from across the street.  Very nice.

We arrived at Kathy & Don's before they got back (she is very much into quilting and was doing a training session with a renowned quilter giving classes in Mesa).

We spotted some of their paraphernalia outside their RV.  Al Sawatzky - are you envious?  The lounge chair.

The oven mitts.  True Saskatchewan Roughrider fans.

And here they are - Kathy & Don.

We had an afternoon drink with them then went over to Laura's for dinner, who is about 5 minutes away.  A wonderful dinner and evening with all of them.