Sunday, April 3, 2011

We made it to Tucumcari, New Mexico…

We were up at 6:30 this morning, and a little cooler than normal for us at 53 deg. F.   We were all hooked up, so once we had breakfast, and took the Shaw Direct Dish down, we were ready to roll!

From the get go, there was a major wind blowing to the East… Thank goodness!   We had this wind behind us all day!   I bet it doubled our mileage… hopefully!  

As you cross Arizona, there is not too much to see at all, kinda flat, however once you make it into News Mexico, you start to see better rock formations, like below…

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With all the wind, you are going to have a dust storm… here it is, lucky for us it did not slow us down…

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Judy took all these pictures from the passengers seat today, and it took her about 15 tries to get this show below of a “Tumbleweed”… she had to get it!   When you run over them, they turn to dust!

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Well, back to Death Valley, we took a hike up Golden Canyon… a great spot… 1 1/2 miles in and then out.  Here Judy is starting on what appears to be pavement…  ???? … it is!  In the 1970’s they had part of it paved and you would drive up… it all got washed out in a major 4 day rainstorm…

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Erosion does strange things to the canyon walls…

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It is a beautiful hike… it was kind of warm also…

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I came across this guy below, and he could run pretty fast… don’t have a clue what it is… looks like a scorpion.

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They call this the Cathedral…

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It got to be more of a challenge at the end…

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We made the end…

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Back in the 1920’s, the Harmony Borax Company, mined Borax in the Valley… they have a mini museum we toured…

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This was a sort of smelter used to refine the borax to a useable state…

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The famous “20 Mule Team” would haul the Borax out of the Valley, 163 miles to the Town of Mojave in California… (we stayed there when visiting Edwards Air Force Base…) in these wagons, so it could be put on the trains!

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We have 3 new followers tonight on the blog, so I would like to welcome Maryjo, Pat, and Mark and Chris to RVlifeonwheels…

So, tomorrow we are off on the road again and will head into Texas! 

Till tomorrow…

4 comments:

  1. safe travels as you head to Texas!..hope the wind will still be at your back!

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  2. Remember that old TV show, "Death Valley Days" sponsored by 20 Mule Team Borax? I loved that show. Ronald Reagan was host for a year or two.

    Your photos are so enjoyable. That is a fantastic area with so much to explore. Thanks for sharing.

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  3. Because of the prevailing westerly winds we have noticed it generally costs a little less for gas going home than coming down in the fall. Gotta love those great big western tail winds.

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  4. Thanks for the shout out. I'm still back in your early months reading forward. I read one of your posts about an old GM motorhome they made in the 70's. You had a picture of it. Yesterday, I think I saw one in a storage lot. It was in bad shape.

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