Borrego Springs

3/11 - 3/13/2013
Anza Borrego Springs State Park


Another first for us.  We are dry camping again, they get $25.00 a night for dry camping here, if you want water and power it's $35 a night.  There is also a lot of dry camping out in the desert for free and then you can go to the state park and pay a $7 fee to dump and fill up with water.  I guess some people do that all winter long.

This is a beautiful area, the village is small and friendly, and no traffic lights.  There are many RV parks, motels and golf courses but there are no chain motels or fast food.  We will probably come back again next year.  We are here on a new moon, and it is the darkest place I have ever seen and the stars are brilliant, the Milky Way stretches from one horizon to the other side, next year we might be able to come on a full moon, that would be pretty cool.

Many hiking trails,  I hiked up the trail to the springs above Palm Canyon Campground, a three mile round trip up and over rocks, logs and crossing the creek several times.  A most beautiful canyon.

The sky was so very blue.  I don't know if it's always  this blue our just happened to be this time of year.

The canyon was straight up with beautiful colors

The closer I got to the spring the more water in the creek.  I was told that the water in the spring is there all summer but the creek dries up.  A great hike especially early in the morning.

We were in space 69, perfect for the afternoon shade, but space 106 - 109 would be better.  Also space 116, 93 & 97.  These are all in the back and get the shade of the mountain first.

Thanks for stopping by

Have a great day

Nancy

Continuing West

2/23 - 2/28/2013
El Paso, TX
Wilcox, AZ
Catalina State Park, AZ

Heading west our next stop was EL Paso, TX where we encountered a huge dust storm in fact we stayed an extra day because of it.  When we left the following day the skies were clear and no sign of a dust storm.  I was expecting the dust to hang in the air like the forest fires do in Montana.

Almost the same pose the next day

Dust storm

The next morning














The most exciting thing on I-10 between El Paso and Arizona, besides no wind, was three big trucks pass us (we always go 60 mph) carrying the Budweiser Clydesdale horse teams.

We were headed for Benson AZ to Benson AZ to the  Escapee Park and then I remembered that I had a $25.00 coupon from Good Sam, for any Good Sam RV park and I found one in Wilcox, AZ for $27.00 including tax, this shortened our trip by about 50 miles.
I got the coupon from Camping World because we extended our membership for two years at a cost of $25.00.  The best part of this is that I actually remembered where the coupon was hidden away in my purse.

The next morning we are on our way again to Catalina State Park, a little north-east of Tuscon.  They were completely booked so we boondocked in the group campground and then decided to stay there for three nights which also gave me the opportunity to give Joe a much needed hair cut. The showers were hot and lots of water. There are many hikes, we went on a few in the mornings.  I am still trying to recover from my bout with the crud and I just plain run out of energy so taking a nap every afternoon and sitting out in the warm sun.  The first night we were here the temp was down to 22', our catalytic heater worked hard all night keeping the inside temp about 55', sounds cold but we were warm snuggled under the covers.

Early in the morning waiting for the sunrise, that is snow on the mountains.

Along one of the many trails

Cactus Wren

Our Buddy Boy

The end of the trail

This state park allows dogs on almost all of their hiking trails.

I almost forgot while here we went out to dinner at The Keg.  I remember going to one about 25 years ago so we thought we would give it a try.  A little pricey but I had the best prime rib that I have ever eaten, cut it with a fork, a big portion too.  I am not much of a meat eater but I would definitely  go back there again.


Thanks for stopping by, drive safe

Nancy

Kiptopeke, Shrimp and Clams

10/10 - 10/11/2012
Kiptopeke State Park
Kiptopeke, VA

Pronounced Kip' toe peek.  Another hard drive of about 75 miles, we are getting spoiled.  Perfect weather both days, barely a cloud in the sky.  The park is at the tip of the Eastern Shore of Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay is to our west and the Atlantic Ocean is to our east.
We are in the beautiful Kiptopeke State Park with many, many, trails and migrating songbirds,  butterflies, hawks and eagles.  This is also where they net the migrating birds and band them.  However they had huge flocks of birds very early and not enough volunteers; 700 birds were caught and 24 perished.  The state withdrew their permit about two weeks ago so we were not able to observe the banding.  But we were lucky to have Virginia, a young lady working for the organization that was banding the birds come out to our campground and talk about banding.  She lucked out because this is the evening that we also had an all you can eat cold shrimp, cheese and crackers, and it was soooooo gooooood.

This little red thing in the PVC tube is an example of a bird, this sits on the scale and the bird is weighed and then banded.

These are the bands and tools used; the big band is for eagles and the smallest bands are for the songbird, the closing pliers have grooves for the bands to fit into and of course the ruler is for measuring the wing span.

The following day we visited the WWII Concrete ships of the Kiptopeke Navy which consisted of nine World War II vintage merchant ships which are constructed of concrete as opposed to steel. The concrete ships were anchored off shore as a breakwater for the ferry that crossed the Chesapeake Bay.
A series of bridges and tunnels are now used to cross the bay which opened in 1964.  The concrete ships remained and are slowly breaking up and sinking into the water becoming a reef.

There are 40 of us all together.  Tonight we had steamed clams.  Joe and I were in charge of this and we recruited Deb and Chuck to help.  Ron our Caravan Leader also helped, in fact he knew how to go about steaming 600 clams.

We used two hot oil turkey fryers for the steaming, they worked perfect.  We had as much steamed clams as we could eat with french bread, drawn butter, large cold shrimp, coleslaw and cookies.  What a great dinner we had.  Just can't get any better.  Unfortunately, I was too busy cooking to get pictures so you just have to believe me.

For anyone steaming clams for 40 people, and a reminder for myself, 700 clams would have been better than the 600 that we had (usually 100 little-necks per bag), 3 # butter, 5 loaves of french bread.  Cooked in a couple inches of:  half water, half beer, seasoned with Old Bay, dry onions, dried parsley and chopped garlic in a jar.

The end to a perfect day, thanks for stopping by

Nancy

Delaware Seashore State Park

Oct 2 - 4
Rehoboth Beach, DE
Stop #1

We met up with 20 other Airstream trailers/motorhomes, no singles so we have 42 people in our group.    We are camped right on the water next to the "Inlet" with a beautiful new bridge that lights up at night.

Our first day, Tuesday, 10/2, we all met over at the Park Headquarters for a briefing and then a fabulous all-you-can-eat catered dinner from "Hook-'em & Cook-'em.  Fresh steamed clams, very large shrimp, scallops, flounder, green beans and corn.  Everything was superb, especially the scallops as they were the large ones that were cooked to perfection.  It looks like we have a nice group with couples from CA, NJ, SD, CO, NC, DE MN, LA, TX, AZ and probably some other places.

Wednesday. 10/3 we missed because we had to take Buddy, 80 miles to the north of us to have an abdominal ultrasound, that I won't go into now.  The end result was very good, no cancer.

Thursday, 10/4 we had a tour of the Indian River Life Saving Station  The station was built in 1876 for use by the United States Lifesaving Service, a government organization created to respond to the alarming number of shipwrecks along the coastlines of the U.S.  The building was originally located 400 feet closer to the shore, but a sand dune began to form around it almost as soon as it was finished.  It was moved 400 feet further inland.  The U. S. Life Saving Service was the precursor to today's U. S. Coast Guard.

-The station was manned by the Captain, or Keeper and six-surf men.  The six surf-men were local farmers that worked the entire winter during the storm and then went back to the farm for the summer planting and harvesting.  The men had to be fast and strong.  The life saving boat was 2,000 lbs that they had to get to the water by rolling it on a dolly with large wheels.  Every week they had to practice turning the boat over, upside down in the water and then, three of them had to turn is right side up again in five minutes.  A very interesting tour, a good place to take the time to visit.

The Station, painted in the original colors

The table was always set so the men would always have this image and know that a warm hearty meal would be waiting for them when they came back from a rescue

The Harden Star Fire Grenade

The boat has a false bottom for an air pocket

The Captain's Room

Room of the six surf men, in the hall was a locker for each of them

Looking out the window up stairs, looking out over the sand you can see a 

thin strip of the Atlantic Ocean under the clouds

The coal storage shed

Next stop is Chincoteague Island, Virgina

Thanks for stopping by.

Nancy

The Stair Step Challenge

Sept 18 & 19, 2012
Watkins Glenn State Park
Watkins Glenn, New York

It's a good thing we had time to spend two days here since it rained so hard and so long yesterday, today turned out to be mostly sunny and a beautiful day.  Really needed an extra day or two here as there are several other hikes I would have liked to go on.

Today, after a hearty breakfast of coffee, egg sandwich and V-8 juice I was ready to concur The Gorge, uphill.  I have over 100 pictures, don't worry I'm not going to give you all of them.

Different Place and more Falls

Sept 18 & 19, 2012
Watkins Glenn State Park
Watkins Glenn, NY
Finger Lakes Region

It rained and rained today, had to slow down several times because of not being able to see the road.  We managed to stay off the toll roads again, and saw beautiful farm lands, not only beans and corn, but now we are into vineyards.  The closer you get to the our destination, the south end of Seneca Lake the more wineries, almost every quarter of a mile another tasting room.  We have quite a bit of wine right now because of the last two wineries that we stayed at, plus we still have a few bottles of two-buck-chuck.  Which is good wine if you drink wine every day.  Can't afford to drink the winery wines every day, save them for special occasions, probably once a week.  It's funny, when I was working I very seldom drank anything during the week, wanted to be sure I had a clear head for working.

Going into Rochester, NY

The little town of Watkins Glenn, NY

After the rain finally let up we drove around a little.  There is a deep gorge here with several hiking trails up the gorge.  We went to check it out and got a few pictures

 close up of branch from above tree

Water is just pounding down through the gorge, 

the water is lower because of very little rain, until today. 

There are 19 water falls in about two miles, tomorrow will be dryer and mostly sunny so I will go hiking up this gorge.  This is all state park, both sides of the gorge.

Thanks for stopping by, have a blessed day.

Nancy