Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country, Day 5

 
Saturday, September 14

This was our second day at Meteor Crater RV park.  We went to the crater and took the tour--cool!  

In the afternoon we went to Homolovi Ruins State Park, where we saw some cool ruins. Also we checked out the camping area--excellent. I wished we'd camped there!  I don't remember taking any pictures of the campsites, but it was clearly my sort of place.  There were two trails, and the one by the camping area was near the Little Colorado River. There were pottery shards all over the ground--people had picked up pieces and arranged them on rocks, but still more and more to be seen.

 

 Also our little friend

Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country, Day 4

Friday, September 13

The rest area entering Arizona:

 

At the end of the drive we were at Meteor Crater RV Park.

Here's the review of the park; tomorrow I'll post some more interesting details.
Review: Overpriced and not all that friendly 
We stayed here two nights and wished we hadn't.  The highway noise was atrocious.  The site itself was okay and they were paying the water cost to keep a few trees alive, but it was pretty barren even for the desert.  There were no amenities like games or a community firepit; the playground was just a single pre-fab piece of equipment and a bench. No shade at all.  The whole place felt unwelcoming and unloved, like a money-making enterprise run by absentee owners.

There were two huge dog parks (60'x 40' maybe) but they had no shade at all and only a broken bench in each. So for almost all of the day in spring/summer/fall, they are useless. Instead of poop bags they provided a rake and scoop bucket, which was a sensible idea, but I suspect they were just too cheap to spring for bags.

Almost everywhere around the edges of the park are signs prohibiting dogs, which is unrealistic. It's a pretty large park, and how many people would walk all the way to the dog park for every pee break?  Most parks just provide bags and trash cans and accept the occasional mess to clean up.

There were no fires allowed, not even fully enclosed ones.  I wouldn't recommend this place unless you have no pets and you stay indoors all the time while camping.

Things to do
Homolovi had a great campground and a lot of cool stuff to see.
The meteor Crater tour was kind of expensive, but for the price we got a great tour guide who told us all kind of interesting stuff. Plus we got to see the 3-D experience movie. (the dialog and plot was at a 4-year-old level, but the visuals were cool.)

Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country, Day 3

Thursday September 12

On to New Mexico

Grant's KOA in New Mexico somewhere--I can see why this KOA has such high reviews. Glorious mountain views in the distance. Friendly people with food cooked on site, barbeque, pizza including a veggie version, cookies and free breakfast. Dog park of course and a couple of small playgrounds.

And out to the side, a lovely little trail cut through the lava field with a bunch of interpretive signs.  I could see the yellow signs out in the field but assumed they were water or utility lines. But after jogging up and down the street (in the hot sun) a couple of times, Molly and I found the trailhead and read the first sign:

 

 

And we continued on the the end. Probably only about 2/10 mile total, maybe even less. But still better than jogging up and down the street.

Gravel surface campsite; fierce winds including one that blew the sewer hose off the pipe; as expensive as usual.  But very nice.  Sadly, very crowded, too.

Down the road--Molly and I didn't go very far on account of fear of loose dogs--there was a horse farm with a small flock of quail over across the road. Most likely Scaled Quail.  And I saw a Rock Wren on the big lava rock by the camp.

Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country, Day 2

Wednesday September 11, 2024

Written at time:
I'm so tired I can't think. About four hours of sleep last night between aforementioned issues and then Molly needing to go outside at 1:30 am to unleash a big pile of poop. So far, worst trip ever. Even worse than staying at home.

Stayed at the KOA in Tucumcari. Very nice, not too crowded. Saw a tarantula on the "dog walk area" (a lame excuse for a dog walk area, but at least they tried.)  There was also a small, cross-fenced dog play area that we didn't use much--too hot.  Also a small and shallow swimming pool, did not use.

Gravel surface, about $66, pull-through. Convenient to Interstate but that means lots of road noise.

It was awfully hot during the day, but a thunderstorm came through up to the north of us and cooled the air down. We didn't get more than a hint of a mist at the site, though. We took an afternoon drive over to Ute Lake State Park.  I wishe we'd stayed there!  The south loop had some very good sites, very empty of people. Only 30-amp but that would be okay. The lake was pretty but a little low and on the green side. A few birds; nothing special.  But of course, we were there in the mid-afternoon.

 

 

On the other hand, staying in Tucumcari meant we could eat at Las Chaparitas. Excellent!  They had 4.8 stars in reviews and now I know why. Ed had a big "lava bowl" filled with sausage, chicken, beef, onions and a spicy sauce that was to die for. Also a big ol' jalapeno pepper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had cerviche, a kind of cold soup with chopped shrimp (I wanted fish but they were out) and cucumber. It was very, very good and almost too spicy. Sadly, it wasn't quite filling enough for my appetite that night, but at other times it would have been perfect. 

Magnus Goes to the Red Rock Country

Tuesday, September 10, 2024

It's going to be hard to write about this trip. It was long anticipated and should have been very exciting, but there are some unmentionable annoyances causing me to be alternately anxious and despairing. It's nothing that anyone else in the world would consider the slightest bit important, so I won't describe it here--you'd think I was an idiot.  But I fully expect it to overshadow the whole trip.

So we got a very early start for a rather long drive (5 hours 12 minutes on Google) to Longhorn RV park in Alanreed, TX.  We made decent time and got in fairly early.  The lady running the place wasn't there, the office was locked and I couldn't get hold of her on the phone. But eventually she came out of her house and checked us in.

It turns out that AT&T has very little/poor service out there, so my phone kept dropping the connection. Her Verizon phone worked fine. Starlink worked, of course, no obstructions as far as the eye could see.

I don't think there was a dog exercise yard, so Molly got lots of walks around and around the RV parking lot. No stickers that I recall.  Molly's human spent her time staring off into the flat distance. Time well spent.

 

Review posted on campgrounds.rvlife.com:
Basic, inexpensive RV park in an overgrazed short-grass prairie
Longhorn RV Park, site 11, $30 cash

Gravel surface; very open and windy.  There was a county burn ban going on, but we were allowed to use our little charcoal grill cautiously, with a hose close at hand, to make steak and fish.

Very few trees and would be hot in the summer. Saw a horny toad in the field next to our site. Lost of big red ants for him to eat. Horses you can pet. No birds.

Convenient location to I-40. The owner was very nice but the office was locked and I couldn't get hold of her on the phone. It turns out that AT&T has very little/poor service out there, but her Verizon phone worked fine. Starlink worked, of course--no obstructions.

Review: Birding Under the Influence

Birding Under the Influence: Cycling Across America in Search of Birds and Recovery
by Dorian Anderson

Slightly misleading title, unless he meant "the influence of obsessive behavior syndrome."  Because he is clearly an obsessive nutcase--in a pleasing sort of way. Addicted to alcohol and controlled substances, basically anything he could
get his hands on, he manages to quit and stay quit. Only to substitute a new addiction--bicycling across America in search of the ultimate "Bicycle Big Year" goal of 600 birds.

Very enjoyable to read and I wish it were longer. He interleaves the cycling adventure and the bird sightings with long peeks back into his past.  Both are fascinating to read about, but I would have preferred more birds. Not less memories--that part was about perfect--but more birds. But then, I'm a bit of bird watcher myself.

Recommended to anyone even if not interested in birds. And a rare glimpse into the good and the ugly of america, as seen from a lone guy on an overloaded bicycle.

Review: The Cold Dish

Longmire #1 by Craig Johnson

Having read one of the later books and liking it, I decided to go back and read the first in the series and possibly complete the whole thing.  So now, having finished this, will I?

Don't know. It was awfully interesting and even a little on the "gripping" side at times. But during his snowstorm recovery section, I got awfully bored--it seemed to be repeating the hallucinations (visions?) over and over--and I skipped forward a good bit. Not pages at a time--more like reading the first line of a paragraph and skipping to the next.

But it was certainly a wild ride. A little slow, but enjoyable.

So I'll try one more.