Happy Turkey Day!

Wishing you well from a few miles north of Rodeo NM, literally the Middle of NoWhere! We're parked at Rusty's RV Ranch & will stay here a couple more weeks. We're having Thanksgiving dinner with other guests right here at the rv park -- Rusty's doing turkey & ham & everyone's bringing sides to share.

This place is in the desert in SW New Mexico right on the Arizona border & 40 miles north of the Mexican border. It's quiet, clean, well-sited, and sparsely occupied at the moment. We have mountains (Chiricahua, Pelloncillo, and Animas) about 300 degrees around us; Rusty (lady formerly of Denver area) powers the park with a large solar array.
 

 
While there are no malls, Walmart, Costco, etc., there's a lot of hiking & exploring to do: mountain towns, ghost towns, ancient Indian ruins including rock art, a Desert Museum & Art Gallery in Rodeo . . . and it's a birder's destination + it's a Dark Skies Community which attracts astronomers from all over the world. We've really enjoyed being somewhere with NO streetlights and city light pollution; the stars are quite amazing.  Today we'll drive a few miles into the Arizona mountains, just a few miles away, do a little exploring, then come back to the park for pot-luck dinner.

Be Thankful for what you have, and please do what you can to ease the lives of those less fortunate.

Taos Memento

Just finished this watercolor from the Taos Balloon Rally; it's titled 'Mass Ascension'. It'll fit in one of the remaining sloped-roof areas in our living room, across from our reading chairs so we can enjoy it regularly!

The big yellow balloon features the New Mexico state symbol. This is the ancient Zia Indian sun symbol; the Zia considered the sun, as well as the number four, Sacred. The four points of the symbol represent the four points of the compass, the four seasons, the four periods of each day, and the four seasons of life.

Snuggled in The Rocks!

This week we're at City of Rocks State Park north of Deming New Mexico.  This is a delightful find: incredible tufa towers (a soft volcanic rock) with RV sites nestled in among them; grand desert vegetation including some of the most awesome yucca I've ever seen; lots of wildlife, especially birds -- the Chihuahuan Raven and Rock Wren are very entertaining; an observatory which hosts special events (the night skies are reputed to be some of the darkest in the country so there's great star/galaxy viewing - camping sites are named for the constellations); spectacular sunsets; miles of hiking/biking trails; botanical garden; nice clean toilets and FREE showers; all very well-maintained and quite a bargain for $10/night.  That's New Mexico for ya!  After we got here we tried to get our site for another week, but too bad, it's booked! This place is on our 'come back' list.  If you've been here you know what I'm talking about, if not be sure to stop by when you're driving across southern New Mexico.

These pictures are of our Sundance -- note the Sundance doing a Sun Dance ;-) -- nestled in the rocks, many taken from one of the hiking trails, last night's sunset, and a raven scolding me for taking his picture!

Non-Birders, just enjoying!

Went to Bosque (pronounced Boze Khee, think 'Albuquerque') del Apache Wildlife Refuge at dawn to witness the 'mass ascension' of the snow geese and sandhill cranes this morning. The white/light colored birds are snow geese; the cranes are much larger & blue-gray. There are also many ducks. The trumpeting noise of the cranes is incredible!

Adios Taos, bienvenida Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge!

This week we're parked just south of the little hamlet of San Antonio NM & right on the northern border of this incredible riparian wildlife refuge. This is wintering grounds for thousands upon thousands of migrating birds, especially the Sandhill Crane, Snow Geese, raptors of all sorts, a myriad of ducks, and much much more! While it was sad to leave Taos, we will return; our last morning we were treated to one of those famous sunrises over Taos Mountain. And this morning we witnessed incredible rainbows to the northwest -- a storm is obviously passing by but we have sunshine here.