We first began exploring RV travel in late 2009 and immediately fell in love with this freewheeling lifestyle. Over the next four years, we slowly transformed our affairs so we could travel fulltime in a rolling home. The final step was selling our home in August 2014 so we could move into our RV and begin this wonderful new chapter in our lives. This Blog is a journal of our travels and adventures, with an occasional "life" observation thrown in for good measure.
Bandelier is about a two-hour drive from our campground at Kirtland AFB - an interesting and easy drive. We went up through the Santa Fe area, over to White Rock, and then on to the monument.
Bandelier National Monument preserves the homes and territory of the Ancestral Pueblo People. Most of the pueblo structures date from 1150 to 1600 CE. The Monument is 50 square miles of the Pajarito Plateau, on the slopes of the Jemez Volcanic field in the Jemez Mountains.
Over 70% of the Monument is Wilderness, with over one mile elevation change, from about 5,000 feet along the Rio Grande to over 10,000 feet at the peak of Cerro Grande on the rim of the Valles Caldera, providing for a wide range of life zones and wildlife habitat. There are only three miles of road, but over 70 miles of hiking trails.
The Monument protects Ancestral Pueblo archeological sites, a diverse and scenic landscape, and the country's largest National Park Service Civilian Conservation Corps National Landmark District.
We really enjoyed exploring the Pueblo ruins, the cliff dwellings and the amazing landscape. HIGHLY recommended!
We had a super big day today! We started off by going to the Naval Postgraduate School to pick up discounted tickets to the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose - we'll be visiting there in a few days.
Anyway, this facility is just outstanding! The grounds are beautifully landscaped and the main building, Hermann Hall (formerly Hotel del Monte), is jaw-dropping gorgeous! If space is available, military members and retirees can reserve a room at Hermann Hall; if we did not have our rolling home, this would be a fabulous place to stay while visiting the Monterey area.
After picking up our tickets, we went to lunch at the Monterey Fish House, a local eatery off the tourist path. The food was most excellent... highly recommended! We then made our way to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where we spent several hours enjoying the exhibits.
I first visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium back in 1988, and was totally impressed with it! 27 years later and
numerous other aquariums under my belt, the Monterey Bay Aquarium is
still outstanding and a must-see if you're ever in the area.
Today was our last day of sightseeing here in San Diego and we spent the day at the San Diego Zoo. Once again, we parked at the Inspiration Point parking lot, which was a good thing as the upper parking lots were filling up. The Zoo opens at 9am and we got to the Balboa Park Visitors Center about 8:55am to buy our tickets ($5 discount each). Turns out the Visitors Center doesn't open until 9:30 and so we had to wait a while.
The weather was just perfect for this outing! Lots of sunshine but cool, so it was very comfortable to meander around. According to the pedometer on my phone, we walked more than 5 miles while we made our way around the exhibits.
Victoria Crowned Pigeon
I visited this Zoo in 1987, when I came to San Diego on Temporary Duty for some training on the Naval Base, and fell completely in love with it. Now fast-forward 28 years and it's still a great Zoo. But I don't think it's quite as nice as it was... because they've crammed so much into the same space, the enclosures are now smaller, and it's confusing to find exhibits and navigate your way around. There are multiple levels to this zoo and decision points (go left, go right?) every 150 yards or so. All that said, the San Diego Zoo is still a "must see" and we were both very glad to spend the day there.
Giant Panda
It was past 3pm by the time we left the Zoo - a bit too late to visit the Museum of Photographic Arts and so that is on our "Next Time" list.
Tomorrow we leave for March Air Reserve Base in Riverside (east of LA).
Today was BIG fun! First stop was a tour of the USS Midway. We bought our tickets online and got there about 15 minutes before they opened the gates to visitors. We parked by the ship - the $10 parking fee was worth the convenience.
Catapult NCO
I had read that visitors should allow at least 2-3 hours to tour the ship, and we found out first hand that you could spend a lot more time on the USS Midway if you had the energy. Just like most other visitors, we opted to make use of the Audio tour equipment (a headset and handheld playback unit), which was very helpful.
Boiler Control Panel
The USS Midway was commissioned in 1945 and served until 1992, making it the longest serving carrier in the 20th century. For a while, until 1955, the Midway was also the
largest ship in the world at 1001 feet long, 258 feet wide, and weighing
69,000 tons. Her flight deck takes up more than 4 acres and, depending
on what aircraft she was carrying (this changed over her 47 years of
service), she could carry up to 80 aircraft.
The USS Midway was steam-driven
by 12 boilers that cranked out a top speed of 33 Knots - fast enough to
ski behind. It took a lot of effort to operate and maintain the Midway: the ship had a crew of 4500, including 600 sailors in
engineering, 225 cooks,
200 pilots, 40 corpsmen, 5 doctors, and 3 dentists.
Making our way through the ship's corridors, stairways, ladders, and walkways gave us an inkling of what it would have been like to traverse these areas while at sea: the upper decks of the USS Midway stand tall above the water and the ship apparently rolled quite a bit, often tossing sailors into bulkheads, and low-hanging pipes and gear. Ship doctors apparently spent much of their time taking care of head lacerations, etc.
We both really enjoyed touring the USS Midway; we now know more about aircraft carriers, and have a greater awareness of what our Navy brother and sisters do to help keep our country safe.
The past couple days have been busy. I spent just about all day yesterday working on some preventive maintenance on the motor home, including resealing the front Marker lights, the slide trim pieces, and the glass window in the entry door. I like doing this sort of work; I feel a sense of satisfaction at getting things done, and find comfort in the fact that we are taking care of our rolling home.
F-4E Phantom II
Today was a sightseeing day. We were at the nearby Pima Air & Space Museum by 8:45am, and it's a good thing we got there early - turns out this place is very popular! The Pima Air & Space Museum is one of the world's largest aerospace museums, In fact, it is the largest privately-funded nongovernmental museum of its type, curating a collection or more than 300 commercial, private, and military aircraft. This museum is impressive and I highly recommend a visit by anyone with an interest in aviation.
All that said, our primary purpose for visiting the Pima Air & Space Museum was to get a tour of the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) on Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Although we are both Air Force retirees and have access to the base, the Boneyard is off-limits unless you are visiting in some official capacity. So we went over to the Museum and signed up for their Boneyard tour. Through a special Support Agreement with AMARG and Davis-Monthan AFB, the Pima Air & Space Museum is the exclusive operator of the "Boneyard" tour. Visitors are ID-checked, loaded onto a tour bus, and then driven over to the AMARG Boneyard on the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.
H-2 Huey and other Helicopters
AMARG was established in 1946 to house B-29 and C-47 aircraft. Davis-Monthan Air Force Base was chosen because of Tucson's low humidity, infrequent rainfall, alkaline soil and high altitude of 2,550 feet. These environmental factors result in comparatively little rust and corrosion, and the hard soil makes it possible to park and move aircraft around without having to pave the storage areas. In recent years, AMARG has been designated the sole repository of out-of-service aircraft from all branches of the US government.
AMARG takes care of more than 4,400 aircraft, - I think this makes it the largest
aircraft storage and preservation facility in the world.
Free-standing engines & pod containers with engines
The Boneyard is where old military and other aircraft are stationed either to be (1) stored indefinitely for possible future use, (2) cannibalized for parts to keep the flying fleet in the air (parts are no longer produced for many of America's military active aircraft), (3) restored for service, or (4) recycled for metals and other materials. The organization that owns each aircraft decides what will be done with that asset and AMARG makes it happen.
F-117 Stealth Fighter... or is it?
We both really enjoyed this tour. I saw many old "friends" during the tour, including F-16s, C-130s, C-5s, C-141s, KC-135s, and even a C-20 Gulfstream. I've flown on all these types of aircraft during my 20+ years of service. However, they are just a small sampling - there many, many more types of aircraft from all branches of the service in the Boneyard. For example, we saw an F-117 Steath Fighter... sorta. Hahahaa!
It was all fascinating! See more pics below.
After the Boneyard tour, we returned to the Pima Air & Space Museum and walked around some more, enjoying some of their static displays. Although we could have easily spent the entire day there, we had more sightseeing to do and so we left around noon.
We made fairly good time from the Del Rio area to Big Bend National Park, staying on US-90 until we hit Marathon. Then we turned left and took US-385 south to the park.
This is our second visit to Big Bend; our 2010 trip was cut short due to the heat, and we decided then that we would return one day.
From Marathon to the entrance of Big Bend is a driving distance of 40 miles. And from the entrance of the park to the Rio Grande Village RV Park is another 48 miles. Big Bend is huge and encompasses more than 1200 square miles. The park is bigger than many countries, bigger than the state of Rhode Island. You definitely need a motorized vehicle to properly enjoy Big Bend.
The vastness of this area offers up an amazing variety of flora, fauna, geology, and climate. From the Sierra del Carmen mountains in the east, across and up through the Chisos Mountains (contained entirely within the park), and south west to the Santa Elena Canyon, this amazing area offers rivers, desert, and mountains.
On the road between Panther Junction and Rio Grande Village
The abundance, diversity and complexity of visible rock outcrops in Big Bend is staggering, especially to first-time observers. From 500 million year old rocks at Persimmon Gap to modern-day windblown sand dunes at Boquillas Canyon, geologic formations in Big Bend demonstrate amazingly diverse depositional styles over a vast interval of time.It is a geologist's paradise, or maybe a nightmare.
If you're lucky, you might see a glimpse of the diverse wildlife such as a Mountain Lion, a Mexican Black Bear, a band of Javalina, or a lone coyote. And the bird life is equally as rich, including Vermillion Flycatchers, Golden Eagles, Roadrunners, Mexican Blue Jays, and Woodpeckers.
We arrived Monday afternoon and left Thursday morning. We would have preferred to camp at the Rio Grande Village campground but it was pretty full and I wanted to be sure we had a place to stay when we got there. I was able to make reservations at the Rio Grande Village RV park, which is essentially a parking lot with hook-ups - but still, it is in Big Bend and surrounded by the great outdoors.
One thing I really enjoy about Big Bend National Park is that it is never crowded. You can be alone in the park. No lines, no traffic, no noisy groups. It is serene.
After we arrived and got settled in, I decided to assemble the new bike rack. This proved to be easy enough, and then we loaded the bikes onto the new rack. We wanted a day or so to drive around with the new rack before disposing of the old one, to be sure it is tough enough for our bouncy driving.
When we entered the park, Lynda went into the gateway Visitor Center to check in and she picked-up several pamplets. One of them was about the town of Glenn Springs, which had been established next to Glenn Spring - a natural source of water. The town of Glenn Springs was long gone, having been dissolved in 1946, but we thought it would be fun to go and look at the area and whatever remnants of the town that might still be visible.
Ruins off Hot Springs Primitive Rd
We looked at the map of Big Bend and decided to go to the site of Glenn Springs via the Hot Springs primitive road - our Honda CR-V has all-wheel drive and a fairly high clearance. So off we went. We made it about 2 miles before we had to stop because there was a very deep trough in the road and I was afraid the car would get hung up. Then we realized the road was blocked with boulders.
Soooo.... plan B. We back-tracked to the main road and went toward Panther Junction to turn left onto the
Pine Canyon primitive road. Long story short, we finally made it to
Glenn Springs, although we weren't sure at first because there was no
marker or exhibit. We confirmed with a ranger later that afternoon that
we had, indeed, found the old town. Anyway, that drive was quite an
adventure... It took us more than two hours round trip (approx 20 miles). I don't think Honda intended the CR-V to do what we did
with it that day. Hahahaa! And the new bike rack held up just fine.
After
our off-roading adventure, we went to the Panther Junction Visitors
Center and checked out some of the exhibits. Then we made our way to
the Chisos Mountains Basin to enjoy the views and have lunch at the Chisos Mountains Lodge restaurant.
Going up to the Chisos Mountain Basin
Old phone booth in the Lodge store
View from restaurant
Finally, we returned to the
motor home to see how our four-legged friends were doing, and they were
fine - I must say that Sydney, Barley, and Celia are very well-behaved
traveling companions.
We were just taking a break and puttering around when Lynda found a fellow RVer who was happy to get our old bike rack, so we did not have to throw it away after all.
Sunrise and Sunset in Big Bend are S.T.U.N.N.I.N.G. We decided to go up
to the Boquillas Canyon Overlook to enjoy the sunset - this is only
about 10 minutes from the RV park.
Golden Sunset on Sierra Del Carmen
The Rio Grande looking East
The Rio Grande looking West
Just as we had encountered in 2010, there were two sets of "offerings" of handmade articles at the Boquillas Canyon Overlook, each with a note listing prices and a jar in which to place your money. These items are left by Mexicans from the other side of the Rio Grande for tourists to buy on the honor system. We know they really need the money, but it’s illegal to purchase these items and the border patrol is very serious about enforcing the law. We left everything untouched.
Earlier in the day, I had been saying to Lynda how great it would be to see some Javalina... that spotting a band of these peccaries would be the "cherry on top." Well, we were driving back to the RV park from Boquillas Canyon and what should we see? A band of nine Javalina crossing the road right in front of us! Yeah! Unfortunately, it was dusk and we could not get decent photos.
Later that evening, when it was fully dark, we watched the stars. I cannot adequately describe the night sky at Big Bend, other to say that it is beyond anything I've seen before. Because there is essentially no ambient light at Big Bend, every star jumps out at you from the night sky. I could even make out the Milky Way. Amazing!
On Wednesday, we got up early to drive over to the other side of the park by 9:30AM - we wanted to attend a two-hour "Geology 101" program. We met the volunteer
Interpreter and other interested visitors at the Sotol Vista Overlook
and enjoyed a very nicely presented introduction to 500 million years of
geology in Big Bend.
Then we drove to canyon overlook to learn more about the effects of
rivers on erosion and canyon formation.
After that, our group went to
Tuff Canyon for a closer look. It was a very interesting time.
After the "Geology 101" program was finished, we made our way to Santa Elena Canyon. Along the way, we stopped to look at ash hills, formed by volcanic ash.
Then we made a stop at the Castolon Visitor Center for lunch - a sandwich and potato chips from the store. Then on once more to the Santa Elena Canyon.
Santa Elena Canyon - 1500ft Cliffs
The majestic Santa Elena Canyon is perhaps the most impressive in Big Bend National Park - it is visible for over 10 miles away, as the Rio Grande changes direction abruptly after following beneath the straight Sierra Ponce cliffs for several miles and heads due west, cutting through the mountains via a deep, narrow gorge - the cliff walls are approximately 1500 feet high. This sharp bend in the river was formed by movement along the Terlingua fault zone that crosses the park.
Sierra Ponce Cliffs
Lynda looking westward, into the canyon
Looking from the canyon towards the east, into Big Bend
During the two full days we toured around Big Bend, we put more than 230 miles on the car. Visitors sometimes forget how vast this park is, and poor planning can result in running out of gas. After this busy day, we were low on gas by the time we got back to Panther Junction and filled up.
We were pretty tired out by the time we got back to the motor home this afternoon, and have just been relaxing.. We leave tomorrow for El Paso, where we will spend a couple days on our way to Arizona.
I highly recommend a visit to Big Bend National Park. Best timeframe to go is November through March, otherwise it is too hot for most people to enjoy. Check the park's website for information about places to stay, eat, get gas, etc. Big Bend is
not a developed park such as Yosemite or Yellowstone and so you need to
plan ahead. You also might enjoy this video:
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