Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico

We did that with one overnight stop, leaving Cotter and overnighting in Chandler, Oklahoma, which is a beautiful rural area on old Route 66, with some original buildings in the small town itself. There is a crossroads with a little stadium and a sign that says "Denver," but just seemed to be a car wash and a couple of other buildings, I guess there is a school there somewhere. They are proud of their team, with large bright orange Denver Bulldogs logo painted on the buildings. The Walmart about 10 miles away actually sold two styles of T-shirts with their logos, as well as Oklahoma state stuff, which I thought was kind of cool for a big company to do that.

We travelled through Tulsa and Oklahoma City, noting that the dirt is a rich bright orange/red color in this state, then stopped at a rest area right over the Texas line that was a storm shelter built into a hill. It had free BBQs to use that are shaped like the state!

Then we stayed overnight in Amarillo and tried Famous Dave's BBQ, which was pretty good. The thing I love about down here is that they are quick with slamming down another soda or ice tea when your previous one is about 2/3 or less gone. Then they ask if you want to take more soda or fries home with you, no charge. When we were ready to go I still had 2/3 of my ice tea left so I asked for something so I could take it home. He came back and set a big take-home styro cup with lid, already filled with ice tea, on the table! 

Made it to Roswell Sunday afternoon, about 95 degrees F and sunny. Each day's trip was about 5 hours. We are staying here for a week to enjoy the nice weather.

Above:  Lots of big farms in Oklahoma

Above:  In Oklahoma just before Texas state line, a little wind damage

Above:  Inside the storm-shelter rest area

Above:  Through the backroads of the Ozarks in Arkansas

Above:  Bright red dirt common in Western Arkansas and lots of Oklahoma

Above:  Chander, Oklahoma, on old Route 66

Above:  Gigantic Texas-shaped BBQs at the storm-shelter rest area

Above:  Texas rest area storm shelter near Oklahoma state line

Above:  Old place near Roswell, NM

Redneck Christmas

Well, now that all the festivities have tapered off through Christmas and New Year's, I figured it was time to give y'all a taste of what the holiday season is like here in New Mexico.

First off, it wadn't 'sposed to snow like it did.  We literally had 12 inches of snow on the ground over a 2-day period just before Christmas.  Chuck, from Santa Fe, was here over the holidays, and he was shaking his head in disbelief, saying they expect that up north in Santa Fe, but certainly not down here on the desert floor!

Deb and Erin, the RV park owners, cooked up a lavish fare for the Christmas feast we were invited to.  They had a lot of family staying over from different parts of the state.  Erin and Shawn got busy on the big ol' smoker in the backyard and produced two huge smoked turkeys and a mouth-watering smoked ham.  Dinner was served with all the fixin's, including the most delicious pecan pie we have ever tasted in our lives!  Wow, is all I can say.

After Christmas dinner, around 3:00 p.m., everyone jumped into pickups and drove a few miles out to the Pecos River and did a little target practice with their rifles, shotguns, and hand guns.  Here's some pix:

Old-time family Christmas shooting

Above:  Youngest there, she's 12 years old, same age as me when I got my first .22 rifle

Above:  Sunset coming on, still blasting away

Above:  David just entered the police academy here in Roswell

Above:  Yep, that's an AK-47

Above:  Tailgate party New Mexico style

Oldest guy there, Boyd from Montana

Alien Tour

The snow is melting and temperatures are rising again. At least the white stuff here doesn't stick around that long!

We spent some time bumming around the alien district of Roswell the other day. Here's some pix for those not faint of heart, LOL!

Christmas Cheer/Random Acts of Kindness

Yeah, it's still snowing here. Piling up pretty good, too. Had the highway out front closed last night going east to Texas. Apparently it is snowing clear down to El Paso and into Mexico. Oh, and they don't have snowplows here, either.

We went into town for groceries this morning and noticed a lot of vehicles don't have snow tires. Huge slush on the road due to no plowing. Natives here are all excited about white Christmas and can be seen building snowmen and having snowball fights everywhere.

There was a guy in a Santa suit with a big old Suburban parked on the side of the road in downtown Roswell. He was standing out in the 6" deep slush and driving snow with a big homemade sign that read "Free Toys."

We noticed this year that Walmart was promoting layaways for Christmas. Last Friday the owner of a small local oil company 30 miles south of here (little place called Artesia) came into town with a wad of cash and paid off a bunch of Walmart layaways for people he doesn't even know.

Hmm, Nope, You Ain't Shittin Me!

The old cemetery on the way into Lincoln

Up in Lincoln yesterday and the snow started. After we hung out there for few hours with our friends, Linda and Boyd from Montana, we headed up to Capitan and had a late lunch at the Smokey Bear Restaurant. I highly recommend the green chile stew. My bowl had at least 10 pounds of beef in it, and the fresh flour tortillas were awesome!

Capitan is a really small town between Lincoln and Ruidoso. While we were sitting in the restaurant, a working cowboy stumbled in for a quick bite before disappearing back out into the blowing snow. Other than that, we had the town pretty much to ourselves. Capitan is where the real Smokey Bear cub was found orphaned, clinging to a tree branch, a bit singed after a forest fire had passes through in the early '50s. When he died in the '70s, they buried him near the spot they had found him. They have a museum dedicated to him here, too. RIP, Smokey, a true national treasure!

So, it has been snowing here in Roswell since yesterday. It is minus 5 C., and we've got about 5 inches with more to come. Sheesh!

Welcome to where?

This boy is the only one happy about the weather!

Hey, Mike, recognize this pavilion -- sort of?

Truck is froze

RVs are froze

Birds are huddled in trees unhappily

Usually the sound of them merrily singing fills the campground, but not today :(

Tippin' Hats

Everything is yes, ma'am and no, ma'am, as soon as we got into New Mexico, and it will stay that way throughout our trip 'til we get west of the Continental Divide again.

The other morning we came out of the Cowboy Cafe after breakfast.  I went across to the feed store to have a look around, and a couple of guys got to chatting with us about the hitch we have in our truck for the fifth wheel, which, as some of you know, is a special kind that you don't see too often.  One of the guys was dressed in cowboy-type duds, which isn't uncommon around here; as a matter of fact, you even hear spurs jingling on well-worn boots of working cowboys walking past you the odd time.
Anyway, when I walked up to these two guys who were standing by our truck, the guy actually tipped his hat to me!  Then, after chatting for about 10 minutes, we casually introduced ourselves, and he tipped his hat again!  Turns out he runs a chain gang for the local county jail!  My kind of man, ha ha!

Kind of weird, but Tunstall actually came from Vancouver Island, where his father had emigrated to from England, and opened a mercantile there.

Here's to Mike!

Some of us out here on the road are a little hardier than others. A guy pulled into the Roswell campground a few nights ago, just before the snow warning I posted a few entries back, riding a motorcycle and packing a tent. The temperatures have been dipping down around minus 3 Celcius, not including the wind chill. We noted that last night he was hanging out in the wash house until late into the night, which is nicely heated and has a table and chairs and magazines, plus pop and snack machines, to amuse oneself while doing the laundry.

Above: Mike's tent, which he moved into the adobe pavilion last night to try to keep out of the wind and cold a little better :)

We got to chatting with him this morning as he was breaking camp, and turns out he's from West Virginia. He sold his house and is on the road (sound familiar?), only he's traveling alone and hopes to be doing this for an entire year, making his way south, then eastwards, then north through BC to Alaska. He's been doing this for two months so far, and has had some wild shit happen, like being robbed at gunpoint outside a New Orleans blues joint, and having his bike almost stolen outside a Mississippi motel. He was headed west through Ruidoso to Alamagordo, NM, today, just before another huge snowstorm is supposed to hit here tomorrow. Via con dios, Mike! We are thinking about you and wish you happy trails. Maybe you'll be passing through our area of BC this fall, and we'll get the chance to meet up again!

Above: Mike heading out to Alamagordo White Sands this morning

Guns and Other New Mexico Pastimes

Here are a couple of links to a couple of videos that our friends from New Mexico took at one of their favourite past times.  I forget what they call these things, but basically they are shooting competitons with an Old West flair, where they dress in period and take their favourite pistols and rifles out to a range that is set up Western-style, and go through a series of timed shoots with them.  These guys have a blast (groan) doing this stuff, and they have some awesome guns and are impressive marksmen!

The first video is our amigo, Erin, from Roswell, New Mexico.  And here's Chuck, from Santa Fe, New Mexico, who just bought a pistol on an Internet auction the other night while we were sitting around Erin's adobe-fenced yard, huddled around a nice, warm chimeria burning pinon pine and cedar.  It's a collector's gun, worth $4,000, and he got it for $2,500.  Gun laws are a little different down here, you buy it on the Internet, pay for it, and it's shipped out the next day to you.

Here's the crew just coming out of the Cowboy Cafe in Roswell after a great breakfast of good stuff, such as ham and cheese omelets smothered in green chile sauce, hashbrowns, grits, home-made sausage and home-made salsa.  Oh, yeah!

Which reminds me, some of the fancier eateries in town try to keep things a little more civilized: