Where It Began - Eagle Nest, New Mexico

Today is our Jeep's 2nd birthday. To celebrate, we took it back to its first 4x4 adventure, Green (Tower) Mountain. Green Mountain overlooks the town of Eagle Nest and Eagle Nest Lake, and tops out at 11,075'. The road was in fairly good shape and we made it to the top without any problem. However, a high-clearance vehicle is recommended. On the way down we parked the Jeep and took a 3/4 of a mile (roundtrip) hike to locate a geocache. The hike wasn't too bad, other than having to climb over a couple of large, downed trees.

View of the lake. A similar picture adorns the header of our blog.

View of the town of Eagle Nest.

View of Ute Park (looking east) from the top of Green Mountain.

Local inhabitants collecting nectar from the local flora.

What's with the attitude?

Valle Vidal - Eagle Nest, New Mexico

Today the weekly excursion was the Valle Vidal area of the Carson National Forest. Jerry and Charlene offered to let us, along with Larry and Mollie, ride with them on the tour. We entered the Valle Vidal just east of Cimarron. We had not been driving very long when we spotted a bear in the distance. We stopped for a picnic lunch, then hiked about 1/2 mile to the old Ring Ranch. The Ring Ranch was home to a family with seven daughters in the late 1800s. The property is now owned by the federal government and used by the Philmont Scout Ranch as a resupply depot for treks hiking the Valle Vidal.

The old Ring Ranch

View of Baldy Peak from the Ring Ranch

Our next stop was Windy Gap (elevation 9,265'), where you get a great view of the Valle Vidal.


We drove onto Shuree Ponds, where two-years ago we photographed a bear around the ponds. There were no bears this year...just a few fishermen. Larry decided to try with is fishing pole and caught a 16" rainbow trout.

Costilla Creek

On the way back to the campground we stopped at a Mexican restaurant in Questa for some good food and conversation. It was a great day and good times were had by all!

Wild Rivers - Eagle Nest, New Mexico

We arrived in Eagle Nest on Sunday around 1:30pm and were immediately met by the RV Park owners, Bruce and Bridgette Manakas. After a few hugs, we proceeded to park the rig and get setup. Leroy and Lois stopped by to welcome us back. We just finished getting everything hooked up when the obligatory afternoon rain began. Later in the afternoon, our friends Jerry and Charlene returned from an outing...more hugs. In the evening, we got together for some Pegs and Jokers...it was a tie, two games to two.

Today, we joined in on the weekly excursion, led by Leroy and Lois. We drove to the Wild Rivers area to see the convergence of the Red and Rio Grande Rivers. Then onto the Red River Fish Hatchery where rainbow trout are raised for stocking the state-owned lakes, include Eagle Nest Lake. It was about lunch time, so we headed to Orlando's Mexican Restaurant in Taos, for some good food and conversation. As we were leaving the restaurant, the wind "kicked up". Some of the tour group decided to head back to Eagle Nest, while the rest of us headed for the Rio Grande Gorge. We arrived at the gorge and the wind was really blowing! We walked out to the middle of the bridge for a few photos, then back to the cars. It was a bad hair day, but we had a great time. Thanks to Leroy and Lois for leading the tour!

The convergence of the Red and Rio Grande Rivers

Enjoying the view!

The Rio Grande Gorge from the bridge

Geocaching with the iPhone - Raton, New Mexico

We decided to compare the iPhone versus the Garmin Dakota 20 GPSr while searching for geocaches in the area. The iPhone geocaching app has several handy features: ability to find caches on the fly (no need to download them first), attach photos and upload logs directly to Geocaching.com, and view satellite images during your search. Both had about the same accuracy...within 20', it's time to rely on your visual skills. The iPhone uses the battery at an increased rate when the Geocaching app is running. A iPhone car charger is a must. The Dakota 20 is fairly stingy with its battery use. Of course the main difference between the two, the iPhone relies on cell tower signals and the Dakota uses satellite signals. So for the time being, we will use both. Incidentally, we found seven out of nine. Two most definitely had been muggled (stolen).

Here is a couple of pictures of an unique cache container. You aren't always looking on the ground for a cache.

Rig Repairs - Smith Center, Kansas

We arrived at the Excel Service Center (aka Camp Peterson) on Sunday afternoon. No other rigs were there??? We backed up to one of the service bays and hooked up to the electricity. Later in the afternoon, went to the local burger joint, Jiffy Burger, for burgers and ice cream. Around 11:30pm, another rig pulled in. Whew, that is late!

Bright and early, 6:00am, we were up and out of the rig. The service technicians begin at 6:15am. We had scheduled replacement of the roofs on the two large slideouts. The original material was 1/16" luan under the rubber covering the slideouts. It was replaced with 3/8" plywood. Since several rigs have reported "waves" in the roofs and our rig is out of warranty, the service center split the cost 50/50. We had a few other items taken care of, including replacing two drawer rails. On the trip to Smith Center, one of the kitchen drawers came out during travel. When we extended the slideout, it caught the drawer and bent the rails.
Total cost of all repairs...one large!

We met the other couple, who came in late, Terry and Phyllis. They are new full-timers, February 2010. We went to breakfast at our favorite place, The Second Cup for some good food and conversation.

This morning we were getting ready to leave when I noticed the kitchen slideout was protruding out about an inch. The service technician came out and discovered one of the bolts was broken. We went to breakfast while they repaired it. We hit the road around 9:15am and headed for Colorado. We can't arrive in Eagle Nest until Sunday, so we are going to spend a few days in Colorado. Can't wait to get to the cooler weather in the mountains!

Headin' Out - Bastrop, Texas

We plan to leave in the morning after almost four months in Bastrop. We will travel to the Excel Service Center in Kansas to have some repairs on the rig, then onto Eagle Nest, NM for some long-awaited cooler weather.

We have thoroughly enjoyed visiting with our children and grandchildren. We saw our grandson, Tyler graduate from kindergarten, all the grandkids successfully complete swimming lessons, and were blessed to be at the birth of our twin grandsons, Clinton and Jaxon.

We also had our 2nd Bi-Annual Dyer Family Reunion in June. We enjoyed visiting with my brothers and sisters and celebrating Mom's birthday.

Y was able to have arthroscopic surgery on her shoulder. Along with some physical therapy, has had a significant reduction in her discomfort level.

It will be good to get back on the road!