Ursula Leaves the State, Day 9: Saturday, November 24, 2012

Our last morning in Alamogordo. As we secured things and cleaned Ursula for the trip back, Jan and Tara came by to say goodbye. Tara went with me to the pistachio ranch for stocking up on nuts, weird wine and coffee. She was so good that the owner gave her a free bag of pistachios!

Tara says goodbye to the pistachio. Well, she lives there, so she can see it again.

It was no trouble getting back to Las Cruces in time to return the Malibu.  

We found a hat rack in Ursula's bedroom! The hats stayed up there the whole way!

And from there we headed back east, saying goodbye to El Paso and Border Patrol checkpoints. We took Ursula to a truck wash in Socorro, Texas. However much it cost, it was worth it, because all those dudes with sprayers cleaned the heck out of her. She really was filthy, too. It was worth the delay. She even got her tires cleaned.

Ursula's in the truck wash. The truck in front of us sure got clean.

After that it was just driving and driving, wishing the turn signals worked but glad the headlights did work.

I loved Lee's creative use of the bungee cord to keep things under control.
Ursula's command post has been brought into the modern age.

We kept a-going until we got to Ft. Stockton. Lee said let’s stop, so we found a sort of run-down RV park, aptly named “I-10 RV Park.” It did the trick, though.

Classy trees that buffered us from the intrastate, sort of--this was sunrise the next day.

We discovered good news and bad news. The good news was that Lee finally found where the switch to turn the LP gas on was. That meant I could actually cook dinner, finally. At least I got to make one real meal! The bad news is that the lounge slide made a bad noise, like it fell off the track. Great. Something else to fix. At least we were able to slide the bedroom out, and most important, the slide went in, so we could get home!

Lessons learned: If something has to break, at least it should break in a way that does not inhibit movement of the vehicle. And, well, they sure can hide controls in these darn things.

Ursula Leaves the State, Day 7: Thanksgiving Thursday, November 22, 2012

Ah, the conflicted American holiday. I am not big on celebrating bringing disease and ruin to a bunch of cultures, but I do like the idea of pausing to be grateful for your abundance. And I do love (and dearly miss) my family’s traditional meal, which I hope to be able to celebrate again some day. But the past few years have definitely brought some new and interesting experiences. This year, at least, it was more relaxed! (Remember last year, the year of turkey cold cuts? And how much heavier I was a year ago--happy anniversary to my diet!)

This year I got up, showered and quickly cut up vegetables to make dressing, and got cranberry sauce ready to cook. I now regret taking my own saucepan, because I left the lid at Jan’s house. No way to retrieve it, so I will need to get a new small saucepan for Ursula. Not a huge deal--but I need to think better.

Once we were all dressed and ready, we headed to Jan’s, where daughter Jayme had been cooking up a storm, and the turkey was baking.

Our lovely hostesses (from earlier in the week)

My dressing and cranberry sauce, plus Cindy's potatoes.

 I got the food going, and soon Lee’s other niece, Cindy, got off work (she cleans at a hotel) and joined us. She made mashed potatoes from scratch. 

Cooking away!!

The kids made quite a spread of appetizers, too. We watched football a bit, and chatted with Jan’s elderly Veteran friend she’d invited.

Appetizer World! The girls did all this! Jayme especially worked hard.

The food came out really good, and it sure was a pleasant time--lots of banter, chatting and humor. Plus there was the mystery of the fallen egg. No one would admit to dropping it first on the poor plant and then on the floor!

The egg just sat there, because no one would fess up to dropping it. Perhaps whoever did it just didn't notice.

I also really enjoyed their parrot, which had been Lee's sister's before. What an entertaining fellow Crackers is. And he's just middle aged--in his 30s.

Crackers is at right, hanging out with the family!

I enjoyed talking to the girls a lot—ages 10-13. They were very well behaved and nice. Lee and Jan got caught up on family lore, and I know they enjoyed that. Much fun was had.

Lee picks on his poor little great-niece.

Around sunset, Tara and I took their two Jack Russells on a walk. I got to see a covey of Gambrel’s quail, which was cool. They live across the street from undeveloped land, so there is lots of wildlife. While we were out, one dog’s collar broke, so Tara had to carry her home. A few minutes after she got home, she was covered in welts. Apparently she is not just allergic to cats! They had no Benadryl, so after a chat with Lee’s dad, we went back to Ursula so they could get some. Poor kid sure was itchy!

Lessons Learned: Eggs are tricky. And everyone should keep Benadryl around, in case a sudden allergy arises.

Ursula Leaves the State, Day 5: Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Well, it was time to finally leave Las Cruces and do the second leg of the trip. We got Ursula all ready to go, then we split up. Lee went directly to Alamogordo, while I drove over to the Las Cruces rodeo arena to see Guy’s horses. I do like the equines, you know. He has two horses right now, one old one, who is the horse he won all the roping trophies with, and a much larger and younger one who he hasn't competed on yet because of Guy's hip problems. The hope is that when he gets his second hip replacement in January, he will be able to compete again

This is the younger horse, with Guy. He is very big.

I enjoyed getting to pet and talk to the horses, especially the one in the next stall to theirs, a black filly who was incredibly sweet and friendly. There were also very cute calves for roping as well as some goats. Guy does goat roping, apparently.

The calves had on horn protectors so roping wouldn't hurt them.

We took Guy’s horses out to run in the roping arena and they had so much fun. Guy worked with them a little, but mostly they just ran and pestered each other and exercised. 

Hooray, we're free to roam the arena!

I have to say I was tickled at the sight of Steve walking a horse. He did not appear all that comfortable with it. I never would have guessed my cerebral musician and linguist friend would end up with a rodeo dude. Of course, I never would have expected I’d have my own ranch and donkey! You just don’t know what the future will bring.

Steve intrepidly leads the older horse, who Guy's had a long time.
He looks like he is thinking up something naughty to do.

I got some eggs from their chickens, plus a cool old horseshoe Guy found, and headed on to Alamogordo, passing some more lovely mountains, and then the plain with the White Sands Missile Range on it. There was a blimp in the sky there, too, plus a Border Patrol stop, where I admitted I was a US citizen and they let me go on.

I managed to find the Boot Hill RV Resort all by myself, and Lee was all set up by then. This is the same park we stayed at last time in the rental RV. It is not overly scenic, but clean and kitschy. The whole set-up is in the shape of a boot, for example. Plus it is across the street from nuts.

Our parking spot. There ARE mountains behind it.

Sunset over pistachio. Everyone says it reminds them of Georgia O'Keefe.

The World’s Largest Pistachio still beckoned, and the space we had, which was the closest one to the office, was made even more special by the fact that it was also the closest space to the horse corral, which contained two horses, and their poop. 

RV Park horse.

Still, it was fine—we weren't there for the scenery anyway.

Right after we got there, we went to have lunch with Lee’s niece, Jan. It was a late lunch, but since she works at a Ford dealership selling cars, she could lunch whenever she wanted to. We had yet more Mexican food, which was fine but nothing like that place in Deming. We discussed our plans for Thanksgiving, which were complicated by the lack of propane accessibility in Ursula. Then we dropped by her house, which has a wonderful mountain view, and re-met her three youngest (of 5) daughters, Jayme, Katie, and Tara. Tara immediately friend requested me on Facebook.

Cute Greco girls.

I would not complain about this view from my house!

On our way back from lunch, just before reaching the RV park, we saw a LOT of emergency lights. Thank goodness we spotted them in time to take a back road and make it to the familiar boot and pistachio. We saw the Life Flight helicopter and knew it was a bad one. Traffic was stopped for a LONG time going both ways. We were sorta bad and went and gawked, along with another guy, for a while. 

Saving a life, we hope.

Then we realized there was no better time to go to the pistachio store across the street than when all traffic was stopped, so we ran over to get coffee, pomegranate wine, and pistachios. I sure liked the lemon lime ones. The pistachio farm also makes their own wines, including a bunch of fruit ones. I find then fun for dessert or after dinner, so I planned to stock up later.

We were tired, so we settled in and watched a movie in the evening. We watched Brave one night (loved so many aspects of it), and really liked it. Another night we watched The Election, which was pretty funny. Oh yeah, and watched an oldie but goodie, ET.

Lesson Learned: Always have an escape route.