From Star Valley to South Texas

 

We left Star Valley in early October and headed south to our friend, Val’s ranch. It is a hay ranch, but this year’s drought was so bad that she only got twenty-three bales, (she normally gets four hundred). This of course presents a huge problem, as she has two rescue donkeys, two rescue horses, her horse and deer.

She also has many bird feeders which bring in flocks of doves, scrub jays, and red wing blackbirds. The scrub jays land and empty her feeder onto the ground which brings in wild turkeys, and others. She even has a skunk that comes in but luckily, we never saw it, (did I mention she loses cats to an annoying mountain lion)?

You never know what you are going to see, and when you walk around after dark you want to take along a bright flashlight!

From Val’s, we headed further south and west and went to Surprise, Arizona. We stayed there for two hours, which was long enough for us to select and order a park model for our place in Wyoming, (The manufacturer is so far behind that out delivery date is in the spring of 2023). Jumping back in the car we next headed to Tucson, across New Mexico and into Texas. As we crossed the Hopi and Navaho Reservations, we did see Monument Valley in the distance and were lucky enough to get involved with a snowstorm, (we bought snow tires this year, so it was not a problem).

We ended up driving over twenty-three hundred miles in five days, which is way too much for us. Hopefully never again. Clear skies

So now we are in south Texas where the temperature is in the upper eighties with a high humidity. I miss the mountains already. We went birding to Lamar and did spot a red tailed hawk hiding it's kill. Clear skies

 

 

Deming Rocks

I will not mention any name(s) but we are not the only members of the class of 2007,( people who sold their house and went fulltime rving in 2007), that have rocks in their fifth wheel and I mean rocks plural. See if you hang around Deming, rocks and rock hounds are everywhere and you are bound to get hooked. Express even the slightest interest  and we will even give you some free rocks to get you started! We have rocks to spare!

We left Mesa and drove the long drive to Deming, checking into the Escapee Park and being warmly greeted by Wallace and Wanda. Wallace is a rock hound himself and has more rocks then you can count scattered all around the park!

So it wasn’t long before we were talking about rock hounding, places to go see, and even sharing and trading rocks! Of course we ended up trading some of our Wyoming lepidolite for some Big Diggins agate, some Baker Ranch rough, and some assorted slices of other local rocks I know you may think that we have too many already but Wallace knows you can never have enough rocks!

Saturday morning arrived and we drove to Silver City. Stopping  at a flea market, and guess what, we found several sellers with rocks in their booths. We soon left with our first pieces of turquoise, some green turquoise and azurite, and another rough rock of green turquoise.

I could hardly sleep thinking about working the turquoise and so I set up our grinder and made my first turquoise cabochon. I ground some other rocks into cabochons and soon our friend  Marty was over and watching me. He could see I was having too much fun and he left with a sack full of slabs.

Another day and another rock shop and there was Marty buying rocks. He wasn’t the only one and Renita and I added to our collection with some beautiful cathedral agate. The shop owner had to show us some beautiful gold moss agate and it was like a junkie as I grabbed the slab and offered him my billfold,(well almost).

The next day we decided we had enough rock and it was time to leave Deming. That night our toilet broke and the repair kit parts I had already bought didn’t work, go figure. Getting online we drove to the Camping World in El Paso and purchased a whole new unit. It went in so easy that we had our repairs done that evening and I only had to make one run to the local hardware store!

Our plan to leave was again stymied as a massive cold front was blasting through and we decided to stay here for a couple more days until the wind died down. It was a good choice as we saw a motor home roll in with a destroyed awning. Hearing about a new rock shop north of town we headed there just to look at what they had.

The store owners were so kind and knowledgably that we just had to buy some more rock, We now own some excellent lapis and even some rare Tiffany stone, which was originally used in Tiffany stained glass lamps!  Can you blame us?

After eating lunch at the fifth wheel we headed to the Deming Museum to look at the rock collections. Now we had seen the collections two years ago but we know so much more and so we spent some quality time holding hands and peering into rock cases. Lucky for us the museum sells rocks as a money raiser and being giving souls Renita picked out some slabs of New Mexico Crazy agate.

We are leaving Deming tomorrow and heading east,  either  that or we will need to rent a storage unit for all the rocks we have added to our traveling house. We don’t care if others make fun of us and tell us about the movie, The Long Long Trailer. At least we slice the rocks so they don’t roll out of our oven!

Clear skies.

Capulin Volcnao National Monument

There where days when teaching was so easy that I wondered why they paid me, and then there where days when they didn't pay me enough. One of the easiest days was when I introduced my students to remote sensing and three dimensional imaging. That day I would start them with old stereo images of Capulin Volcano in New Mexico. Even the stoners were enthralled! So one place on my list has always been the Capulin Volcano in Northeast New Mexico. I can now cross that off my list.
We left Cheyenne, Wy, and drove across Colorado and into New Mexico. The drive was not pleasant as the signs, "strong crosswinds and high winds next 15 miles", were only too correct. Never the less as we crossed into New Meciao the winds stopped and Renita soon pointed out ancient lava flows.
Nearing the town of Capulin, New Mexico, we could see the Capulin Volcano off to the north. The next day we packed a lunch and drove up the road, all of three miles, to the entrance of the national monument. The cinder cone volcano is about as perfect a volcano as you will find anywhere in the Untied States.

After visiting the visitor center we drove up the steep road to the summit and the road is not a place to take flatlanders as there are only two guard rails all the way up! We stopped several times to admire the view and during one of the stops we actually saw a raven carrying a snake in its talon.(its the raven on the left and you can see the snake if you zoom in the image).
Reaching the parking lot we grabbed our gear and started up the crater rim summit. Stopping to sightsee and bird watch we saw a pinon jay and a prairie falcon, besides the usual ravens and little grey birds, some kind of junco? A canyon wren did stop to say hello and perched very close to us!
The trail was only a mile long but it did have several steep parts and we both had to stop as the gradient and the altitude, 8100 feet, caused us to pause to regain our breath.

The view along the way was superb! Sierra Grande, an ancient shield volcano, Baby Capulin, another cinder cone, and lava flow after lava flow all were below us. You could easily see the ripple flow marks from the first eruption of Capulin.

I learned a new term, "Boca", which describes a ridge/levee formed when a flow breaks out of the flank of a volcano. You could also see Rabbits Head, and the ancient Raton and Clayton lava flows along with the four recent,( 50000 years ago),distinct eruption flows of Capulin.

After we finished hiking the craters rim we had to descend into the caldera and stand at the vent. Renita so wanted a rock and it was all I could do to remind her that rock collecting was not allowed and that we had enough rocks in our fifth wheel,(We did stop after leaving the park and pick up some volcanic rock from the first eruption).
Now Capulin isn't our first volcano nor the largest, but it was a fine day of hiking and birding and any day spent on volcano is a good day! If you find your self passing this way, we would definitely recommend it. Retirement is so good! Clear skies.