Category — Las Cruces

While it was sad to say goodbye to our friends, Steve and Kathy, we were excited to be back on the road again. Sara’s prescriptions were finally ready, so we spent the morning picking those up, delivering them to Walgreens, picking up a couple of items from our storage shed and getting packed up and ready to go. We hit the road at 12:30 pm and instead of taking I-10 westward, we dropped down towards El Paso and took NM-9 west, thus bypassing another large hill outside of Las Cruces.

We arrived in Rodeo around 6 pm and we are staying at Rusty’s RV Ranch with an incredible view of the Chiricahuas outside our windows. Just after we settled in and hooked everything up, the storm we saw brewing for the last hour finally hit. Well, maybe not hit, but it did graze us. Further up in the mountains the lightning was blazing away, but all we received was about 20 minutes worth of rain.

Now I’m sitting here writing this post with the window screen wide pulled open to let all of the fresh air in and to give me an unobstructed view of the mountains. There are Cassin’s Sparrows singing away, as happy for the monsoon rains as I am. Although the temperature was close to 90 in Las Cruces, it is only 70 right now and feels delicious.

We will leave fairly early tomorrow to get over Mule Pass in Bisbee before the day’s heat makes it too difficult. After that, we should not have to deal with any more potentially overheating climbs. And best of all, by the end of the day we should be back home in Arivaca after a 9-month absence.

Okay, not a crackup, just a nice lazy day. I actually drove a car for the first time after a week of driving just the big rig. It was a little weird at first and I had to tell myself it was okay to drive faster than 40 mph!

I did some research into ways to help the motor home engine stay cool on those long climbs and I came across a product called Water Wetter that helps the water in the coolant system remove heat more effectively. I bought some at Auto Zone today and we’ll see how that helps. I also sprayed down the radiator and removed the multitude of bugs that were covering it. There is also a product you can buy that periodically sprays a little water on the front of the radiator and I’m sure this is also a big help. I realized that I could hook up the windshield washer hose to spray directly on the front of the radiator if I wanted, but I’m not sure if I’m going to go that far. I would have to remove the washer fluid and replace it with water (not a big deal), but I would also have to put up with the windshield wipers going back and forth every time I sprayed the radiator. Still, if it was a big help…

Steve and Kathy have been wonderful hosts and have cooked two delicious dinners for us. Last night was grilled ribs, chicken, and veggie kabobs and tonight we had pork chili burritos with damn good margaritas. How wonderful it is to have such good friends. (Don’t worry, Dedrick, you’re still the awesomest!)

Off to bed…

We’re moving… again. Only this time we’re not moving TO someplace, we’re just moving and moving and moving….

We’re buying an motor home and we’re going to live in it full time!

Actually, we hope to spend a lot of our time in Arivaca again. In the Southwest, Arivaca is the one place that has truly felt like home to us and we’re excited about getting to spend more time there.

The rough plan is to come back to Minnesota the beginning of September to pick it up (we’re buying it from my dad). This will be just in time to go to Sara’s niece’s wedding up in Duluth and visit her family. We’ll spend a couple of weeks down around Rochester so we can spend more time visiting our family there, also. Fall is also our favorite time to be in Minnesota, so this is another bonus.

From Minnesota we’ll head to Arivaca where we’ll spend most of the winter.

I know you didn’t expect us to stay put for very long, so none of you will be surprised. We’re excited about getting to spend more time with our family and we’re excited about getting to live part-time in Arivaca. We’ll remain residents of New Mexico which will allow us to keep Sara’s health insurance, the reason we moved here in the first place.

It’s been thankfully pretty boring around here. Spring has arrived and there are young leaves on the trees and the crab apple trees are in bloom. Yup. That’s about it.

Oh, I’ll be arriving in MN for a short visit around the 18th of April.

Yup, that’s definitely it.