#Tee Pee Curios | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

travelingtheusa · 2 years

Text

NEW MEXICO

2022 Apr 12 (Tue) – We went to the Mesalands Dinosaur Museum today. I was surprised at how nice it was. There is a community college in town and they got grants to provide funding for the museum. There were many artifacts and bones to tell the story of times past. Thank goodness! I look at those huge monsters and wonder why in the world they ever reached that size. It’s almost like it was an experiment that didn’t work out.

Following the Dinosaur Museum, we went to the Tucumcari Historical Museum. This was a 2-story plus basement building filled to the rafters with old stuff. Pictures, equipment, clothing, furniture, certificates, etc. were everywhere. I saw a braille machine. I’d never seen one before. We saw stuff in the museum (of course) that we used in our careers. There was even a phone booth in the corner.

We went to lunch at Dels Restaurant. It was refreshing. Although there was a section devoted to Mexican fare, there were also American foods. Paul enjoyed the salad and soup bar and I had a chicken salad without the hoagie.

The wind was wicked today. It was blowing from 30 to 50 mph with gusts up to 70 mph. I hope it lets up tomorrow. I don’t want to be driving on the open road with that kind of wind.

2022 Apr 11 (Mon) – We did several errands – got fuel, refilled the propane tank, and picked up groceries at Lowe’s Supermarket. We stopped at Dollar General and picked up Easter cards and candy for the grandkids. Lunch was at the Pow Wow, which was a Mexican restaurant. The food was good. It seems like most restaurants in town are Mexican fare.

Tucumcari is one of those towns that was but is slowly sliding into oblivion. There are 4 stops on I-40 for Tucumcari so the impression is that it is a large town. Route 66 used to run through here and the large 5-lane boulevard runs past quaint 50s style businesses. There are names like Palomino Motel, The Apache, Blue Swallow, Tee Pee Curios, etc. There are numerous motels with the old U-shape with a pool in the center. Many stores, gas stations, and businesses have closed up. The interstate bypassed the town. That was the first stroke. Then Amtrak ceased stopping at the town. The only thing holding the town together today are ranches and farms but they are slowly disappearing as well. The town is dying.

2022 Apr 10 (Sun) – We pulled up stakes and left Kirtland AFB at 9:30 a.m. It was a great drive among beautiful landscapes. It seemed like we were in a huge bowl. You could see mountains all around us in the distance. And it took a very long time before we finally reached the mountains.

We arrived at the Elks Lodge in Tucumcari around 1:00 p.m. It is a small, unpaved area in back of the lodge. They claim they have 8 campsites but that would be incredibly tight. They really have 4 sites. At any rate, we are the only people here.

At 5:30 p.m. we went into the lodge to pay for our site. It is $20 a night for electric and water, no sewer hookup. We also bought a drink, trying to pay back the lodge for their efforts to provide camping space for Elks members. There were about six bar flies in the lodge who were pretty much already inebriated. The lodge only opened at 4 p.m.

2022 Apr 9 (Sat) – We drove to the commissary to pick up groceries and got fuel at the station on base in preparation for our move tomorrow.

2022 Apr 8 (Fri) – We worked on negotiating with a restaurant for the welcome dinner for the WWII Reenactment Caravan in Reading, PA, next month. After some back and forth and lots of negotiation, I think we arrived at an agreeable price. We are waiting for the contract to be emailed to us. We also spent the morning making campground reservations. I called the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum (they are hosting the WWII Reenactment weekend) to buy admission tickets, tickets for the Friday and Saturday dinner and dance, and tee-shirts. The cost to mail that to us is cost prohibitive so the agent arranged to hold the items for us to pick up. At first, we coordinated for Monday, May 30, but it turned out the museum is closed on that day. We asked about picking the box up on Sunday but they are also closed on that day. We then moved back to Saturday. That date was acceptable to everyone. But now, we have to change other arrangements so we can be in Pennsylvania sooner. That was a chore!

After lunch, we drove to the mall. I bought new sneakers and bras. Working with the clerk in the lingerie department, I found that my size has changed and I was buying the wrong size bras. Everything should fit fine now.

After making my purchases, we drove to Camping World and La Mesa RV looking for a Camping Journal. I have been keeping manual books with details about each campground we stay at. We have completed 6 books since we started full-time camping in 2013. Each book contains about a year and a quarter. I had to go online and order books from Amazon.com since neither of the two camping stores had any in stock.

When we returned to the base, we stopped at the Exchange to pick up a bottle of Red Stag. The girls were happy to see us back home as it was dinner time.

2022 Apr 7 (Thu) – We drove into Olde town Albuquerque today. We walked around the area, admired Native American made crafts, bought a souvenir, and had lunch at a Mexican restaurant. All but two of the restaurants in the area closed during COVID. Both of them offer Mexican fare.

The west is plagued with goat’s heads. Sometimes called burrs, spurs, and dessert hornets, they are little pea sized cacti. They are round with stickers on all sides. The dog steps on them during walks and we have to pull them out before we can go on. We have to check our shoes when we come in because they fall off around the RV. There isn’t a much more painful experience than stepping on one of those suckers in bare feet.

2022 Apr 6 (Wed) – We packed up and left the campground at 9:30 a.m. the Percha Dam Campground had no dump site. It is one of three campgrounds in the Caballo State Park. Another of their campgrounds had a dump site so we drove over there to empty the tanks before leaving.

We arrived at Kirtland AFB FamCamp at 1:20 p.m. They don’t accept reservations; it is first-come, first-served. When I called yesterday, they told me there were five open sites. When we arrived today, there was a man in front of us signing in who said he just parked in a site without checking in at the office first, like we were doing. His friend had done the same thing. As a result there were only three sites for us to choose from. But at least, we got a site. RVs came in after us and several wound up in the dry camping area because there were no campsites available. Glad we got here early!

Sheba caught a lizard (gecko?) yesterday. She grabbed it and ran into the trailer. I ran after her, trying to get her to drop the thing. When I got hold of her, she dropped the lizard and it ran under the slide. Now we had a situation. If it stayed under there, it was going to be squashed when we closed up the trailer. Sheba continued trying to get the critter so I locked her in the bedroom. Then Paul tried to lift the outer rubber lining of the slide so the lizard could get away. That didn’t work. After a couple of minutes, the lizard darted out and under the dog’s bed. We spent a few minutes trying to lift the bed and grab the thing. I finally got it and brought it outside. When I came back in, I found its tail laying on the floor. As a way of protecting themselves, lizards can let their tail go. It’s a method of getting away. It usually wiggles for a little while after it lets it go. I’m glad it was done wiggling when I found it. Ugh. I threw it away and let Sheba ack into the living area.

2022 Apr 5 (Tue) – We drove to Truth or Consequences today. It turns out that the town was actually named after the radio show. They were celebrating ten successful years as a popular show and the show’s producers put out a challenge to any town that would be willing to rename itself Truth or Consequences. Out of all the towns that showed interest, only one would be selected as the winner. The most interesting application came from Hot Springs, NM. After interviewing elected officials, citizens, and the state senator and president of the local Chamber of Commerce, the name change was put up to a vote; 1,294 voted for the rename; 295 voted against the change. On April 1, 1950, the first Truth or Consequences Fiesta was staged with 10,000 people attending. There was a large parade and people came from all over the state and even Mexico. “T or C” has celebrated its name change annually since that date. The Miss Fiesta Contest and other activities lead up to the first weekend in May followed by a golf tournament, parade, rodeo, and other festivities around town. I am sorry we won’t be here next month to see this.

All around the area – in all the towns we have gone through – everything is dry and dusty. They are definitely in need of a good rainstorm. The Caballo Reservoir is very low and many of the boat companies that rented and stored boats and jet skis have closed up. The Rio Grande is dry in many places as are all the creeks and canals that run off the river.

2022 Apr 4 (Mon) – We drove to Hatch, NM today. It claims to be the Chili Capitol of the World. I later saw a license plate for New Mexico that said IT was the Chili Capitol of the World. Funny. There were chili peppers hanging everywhere. The names of all the businesses were some derivative of peppers. We ate at the Pepper Pot. All eateries in town were Mexican – it was a small town with only 2 or 3 restaurants. The town of Hatch was first settled in 1845. The Apaches drove the settlers away until 1853 when Ft. Thorn was established for protection. The Apaches again drove the settlers away in 1860 after the fort closed. Settlers returned in 1875 and the town was named after General Edward Hatch, the commander of the New Mexico Military District.

After walking along Main Street and popping into a few stores to look for a souvenir, we returned to the campground.

2022 Apr 3 (Sun) – We left Willcox, AZ at 9:30 a.m. after using the dump station behind the Elks Lodge. The drive was about 4 hours with little traffic. The weather was clear with a little crosswind along an open area of the interstate as we crossed the border. The scenery was gorgeous all the way with mountains all around us in the distance. It was like we were driving through a big bowl.

We arrived in Arrey, NM, around 2:30 p.m. We are staying at the Percha Dam Campground. It is a small state park with just 30 campsites. Each site has a covered picnic table made of concrete on a concrete patio. We only have 30-amp electric and water hookups. After setup, we took a walk down by the dam. There is basically only a trickle of water in the area. There are many dead trees around what used to be a vibrant waterway. The Rio Grande is dry by the time it gets down here. We crossed a bridge over the Rio Grande on the way here and it was bone dry. There was a sign with a picture of a lush waterway on a post. We wondered where they stole that from!

0 notes