Time to flee Kalifornia once again, we went jacks-up and headed east on our usual path of escape – the Tehachapi Pass on Hwy. 58. The temperatures have been cold to start the new year and we are in “weather watch” mode so as to not get hit with a lot of snow while traveling. I will never be a big fan of driving Rosie through snow and ice. We buckled down and pushed on into Primm, NV, and an overnight dry-camp stay at Whiskey Pete’s Casino. Then it was a short hop into our next stop, a return stay with the Boulder City Elk’s Lodge. The temperatures were absolutely frigid, but the mountains around Vegas had the very lightest dusting of snow. This stop was mostly for the purpose of getting chores done; Costco, Walmart, Trader Joe’s, Jeanne’s hair cut, a quick tire rotation at Discount Tire, and, OK, a small donation to the local economy (hey, Sin City, what else can I say?). We also made a return visit to Hoover Dam to check on the status of Lake Mead compared to our last visit.

Moving on down the road, we conquered the battle of icy roads through the Flagstaff area and into an overnight stay at a defunct truck stop in Winslow, AZ. Up and at ‘em early, we motored our way to yet another return visit to the Enchanted Trails RV Park outside of Albuquerque, NM. A few days rest and on to our leased lot at The Ranch (SKP park) in Lakewood, NM. 

We got settled in for a bit of an extended stay, mainly to wait out the winter weather. I took the opportunity to do a few fixes on Rosie, at least the ones within my limited skillset. In all the cold weather our fresh water hose that is mounted on a motorized reel keeps freezing and snapping off small sections as I reel it in and out, so I had to replace the hose, not a difficult task. One of my more apprehensive endeavors was a clogged backflush spray head inside Rosie’s black tank (that would be sewer for you non-RVer types). A quick look on-line in the Tiffin RV Network (tiffinrvnetwork.com) and a huge leap of faith got me into the “belly of the beast” (Rosie’s guts) where I found the access to the backflush spray head to be very easy. I also tore into the (3) heat/ac units on the roof to clean the filters and hopefully discover the source of an interior water leak, the jury is still out on that one…

We utilized some of our time doing a little yard work around the casita. Being in the desert “yard work” consists mainly of playing with rocks. So we managed to kick our own butts, moving a total of (12) tons of rock that we had delivered by Southeast Redi-Mix from Carlsbad. The long dormant muscles that we both gave a rude wake-up call to are still screaming at us!

Rosie developed another coolant leak from the low coolant sensor, necessitating a road trip to the nearest Freightliner shop in Odessa, TX. A couple of nights camped out in their lot and, since we were there, what the heck, it was north to Lubbock for more big box shopping. We returned to the Lubbock Elk’s Lodge for a few days stay. Unfortunately for us, those few days included a pretty good dump of SNOW! It created some fun time (NOT) on our day of departure, it took me almost 3 hours to thaw the icicles and clear the slide toppers just so we could fold up the slides. Success attained, it was jacks up and back to The Ranch.

Clearer weather at The Ranch, we completed the finishing touches to our landscape project. Our backs and shoulders were happy to see the final placement of rocks! 

We have been meaning to pay a visit to nearby Sitting Bull Falls, just haven’t had the time/opportunity to venture out. With the yard done for now, we caught a nice weather day and headed out to the falls. New Mexico did a really nice job on the infrastructure/facility at this tiny little podunk-nowhere natural attraction. It is REALLY way out in the middle of nowhere, 32 miles off the “main” highway near the megalopolis of the “town” of Queen (basically, a cafe, a tin barn fire department, and a whole lot of nothing). The hike to the bottom of the falls was short (a couple hundred yards…maybe) and mostly concrete walkway. The water pools at the base of the falls was crystal clear beautiful, reminiscent of the clear waters in Montana. We also discovered the existence of a trail straight up the mountain which takes one to the spring headwaters for the falls. We were not prepared for a more strenuous hike at that time, but hey, now we have another activity to look forward to.

So this catches you up for now. I’ll leave you with a photo that represents the stressful lives of full-time RVers.  Until next post…