Category Archives: New Mexico

Spatchcocked Chicken in Taos

So, what’s a spatchcocked chicken you ask? Read on and I’ll get to it. We headed out of Eagle Nest Lake State Park around 11am on Saturday morning. Our route took us south then west on US64 through the Carson National Forest. A few miles past the junction to Angel Fire, we began climbing on a narrow switchback road with a speed limit of 25mph. I may have hit 30mph on the short straights, but you wouldn’t want to take the hairpin turns any faster than 25mph – maybe even 20mph in a motorhome.

After a couple of miles of this, we hit the summit over 9,000 feet above sea level. Having a turbocharged engine is a great advantage at higher elevations. Normally aspirated engines lose power as you gain altitude. The thinner atmosphere doesn’t provide as much oxygen – modern fuel-injected engines sense this through the oxygen sensor in the exhaust and adjust the amount of fuel injected accordingly. Less oxygen requires less fuel and power output drops.

Having a turbocharger or supercharger can mostly overcome this by compressing the incoming charge of air in the intake system, thus providing more oxygen. But there are always limitations. The Cummins/Holset turbocharger on our Cummins ISL engine is supposed to reach full-rated power up to 9,000 feet above sea level. It wasn’t quite there – the drop off was only really noticeable on the gauges – judging by seat-of-the-pants, not so much. Where I usually see the boost pressure top out at 24 psi, it only produced 22 psi at the higher elevation. Also, after deceleration, when I stepped on the accelerator, I could see a puff of black sooty exhaust. I don’t see this usually – it’s from a rich fuel mixture on initial acceleration due to the lower boost pressure. Anyway, we made it over the summit without any issues and dropped down into the Taos Valley.

We checked into the Taos Valley RV Park which sits at an elevation of 6,955 feet above sea level. Taos, New Mexico is a small town with a population of about 6,000. It’s an artsy community with an historic downtown area. The economy is mostly driven by tourism and outdoor recreation.

On Friday night before we left Eagle Nest Lake State Park, we watched an old movie – Easy Rider. Many of the scenes, including the jail where the main characters, Wyatt and Billy, meet an eccentric attorney were filmed in Taos. By the way – the attorney named George Hanson was played by an unknown-at-the-time actor named Jack Nicholson. He took the part for union scale wages which were $392/week at the time. The rest is history.

Taos Valley RV Park boasts long pull-through sites for big rigs. We found our site, number 39 was about 70 feet long allowing us to leave the trailer connected. However, the sites are narrow. They skimped on concrete by laying down two strips of concrete where the wheels are instead of a full concrete pad. The landscaping is native with creosote bushes lining the narrow sites. It was impossible for me to make the turn and line up in our site without scraping the side of the trailer on the stiff, brittle creosote branches. This left marks on the trailer – grrr.

Typical Taos Valley RV Park pull-through site

After we settled in, I set up the Traeger wood pellet fired smoker/grill. Donna defrosted a spatchcocked chicken she bought at Trader Joe’s in Colorado Springs.

Trader Joe’s spatchcocked lemon rosemary chicken

Spatchcocking fowl is an old preparation method dating back to the 1700s. It’s basically a method of butterflying and flattening the bird to allow it to roast quickly and evenly. This is done by removing the backbone from the bird, then flattening it. Some people open it up after removing the backbone and split the cartilage in the breast to make it flatten easier.

I started roasting the chicken skin (breast) side down.

Breast side down on the grill

The chicken was already marinated so there wasn’t much in the way of preparation. I had the Traeger set at 375 degrees. It was windy and this increased the cook time. When the internal temperature reached 130 degrees, I flipped the chicken and set the Traeger to high – 450 degrees. This crisped the skin. I pulled it off the grill when the internal temperature of the breast meat hit 160 degrees.

Nice and crispy

I have to say, this is my new favorite method for roasting a whole chicken. The white meat was juicy and so tasty. The skin was crisp. I’ll need to buy new poultry shears and learn to spatchcock a whole chicken myself. Donna served it with steamed broccoli and roasted fingerling potatoes with kalamata olives. The roasted olives were a nice salty addition to the potatoes.

Spatchcocked chicken with roasted fingerling potatoes with kalamata olives

Spatchcocked chicken with roasted fingerling potatoes and kalamata olives

I paired it with an IPA from Marble Brewing – they proudly claim it’s “Punctiliously brewed in ABQ, New Mexico.” It was a citrusy IPA that was quite tasty.

IPA from Marble brewing in Albuquerque

I bought the beer earlier in the day when I made a run on the Spyder to Smith’s grocery in town. I’m used to answering questions about the Spyder in parking lots or gas stations. This time there was another rig that garnered more attention than the Spyder. I think the passenger attracted some of the attention.

It was an old BMW motorcycle with a side car and a dog for a passenger.

On Sunday, I hung out and watched the Moto GP race from Misano, Italy, then settled in for NFL football. Donna took the Spyder to the Devisadero Trailhead. She hiked up the 3.7 mile trail to the peak at 8,304 feet above sea level.

Sign at Devisadero Peak

Donna’s selfie at the summit

View of Taos from Devisadero

It looks like we’re in for another fine weather day. Temperatures should be in the upper 70s with little chance of rain. Donna is putting together a list of things to do today – we’ll do some sightseeing, visit a natural hot springs and check out the local brewery.

Eagle Nest Lake Trail

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that Donna hiked to the bakery at Eagle Nest village. She had an interesting early morning hike. The water in the lake was glassy. She took several pictures – I like this one from a high vantage point on the trail looking north toward the village.

Glassy water with reflections of the mountains

Looking at this photo of the trail, you can see the variety of terrain in the area. There’s sage covered flatland favored by the prairie dogs, large meadows with rolling hills, pine covered mountainsides and bare peaks above the tree line.

Terrain varies

Our neighbor told me he spotted elk in the meadow across the lake from us. I’m guessing they are bedded down in the shade of the trees on the mountainside in the afternoon and come out into the meadow in the evening. I haven’t heard any bulls bugling though.

On Donna’s hike she encountered deer – a young buck and a couple of does. She also saw a flock of white pelicans on the lake, but they were too far away to capture a good photo.

Deer by the trail

After breakfast, I had work to do. The night before, while I was watching the Broncos-Panthers NFL game, our generator hour meter turned over 1,000 hours.

Generator panel inside the coach

That meant it was time for service. I like to perform preventive maintenance on a regular schedule. Onan recommends oil and filter changes every 150 hours and air and fuel filter changes every 500 hours. I had a gallon jug of Chevron Delo 400LE 15w-40 oil in the trailer and I had oil, air and fuel filters as well.

I figured it would be best to get the job done here in the park where there aren’t any rules against it. Many private RV parks prohibit working on your rig in the park. Draining the oil is easy, but removing the oil filter is always a chore. It’s hidden behind a trap door, mounted horizontally behind the generator shroud. I can’t see the filter – I have to remove it by feel. Of course, it was too tight to remove by hand. Every time I do this, I tell myself I need to buy a new oil filter wrench. The strap wrench I have is a real pain to fit into the small area where the filter is.

Onan doesn’t make it any easier with their filter design. Most oil filters are dimpled around the cap of the filter housing. This allows a cap-type filter wrench to grip it. The Onan filter is smooth – no dimples for a wrench to grip.

Cummins – Onan oil filter

I wrestled with the oil filter for half an hour before I got it off. Installing the new filter was fairly easy – again I was working blind and had to screw it on by feel. After re-installing the drain plug though, I discovered a problem. The gallon jug of oil I had in the trailer was only half full. I’d forgotten that I used it to top off the oil in our Cummins ISL diesel engine. I needed three quarts of oil for the generator, but I only had two. I carried on and changed the air filter element. The old element did its job well – the intake tract was clean as a whistle.

Old and new air filter elements

I poured the two quarts of oil into the generator, then filled the empty jug with the waste oil. After a quick clean-up, I took the waste oil to recycle and rode the Spyder to the NAPA store in Angel Fire. They didn’t have Delo 400 oil in quart containers, only gallon jugs. I thought I would be paying too much for the oil, but I didn’t have a choice. I got lucky – the gallon of Delo 400LE 15w-40 was on sale and I bought it for $14.00 including tax!

After I returned, I topped off the oil level and fired the generator to check for leaks. Job done and now we’re good for another 150 hours of run time. I didn’t change the fuel filter – I made the mistake of trying that once before and ended up with diesel fuel running down my arms all the way to my shoulders. I’ll have it done next time we have the engine serviced at Speedco.

After cleaning up, I rode my mountain bike over the same trail Donna hiked. I took a picture of the lake from the same high vantage point, but I was looking east across the lake.

View from the trail

I rode to the far side of the village and back – about four miles. The trail was fairly treacherous on a mountain bike – I had to keep a constant watch for prairie dog holes. Some of them were up to a foot in diameter – dropping a front wheel into one of these wouldn’t be fun.

I’ll end this post on a sad note. On September 6th, I lost another friend. Andy Sigler died suddenly and unexpectedly. Andy was the bass player in my friend Gerhard Rauch’s band, Backtrack. I spent many hours in Gerhard’s basement learning songs with Andy, Gerhard and the rest of the band. Andy was truly a kind and gentle person. I can’t recall one instance of him losing his temper or even getting the slightest bit angry at all. I’m glad I had the chance to meet and get to know Andy. I learned about Parrot Heads from him – he was an active member and attended many Parrot Head events. He’ll be missed by many for sure.

I need to get out and do my usual pre-road checks. We’ll kick the tires and light the fires later this morning and head over to Taos, New Mexico for a few nights.

By the way – there’s glitch in the latest WordPress update that’s not allowing e-mail notifications to go through. I’m hoping we can get it fixed soon.

Angel Fire Vietnam Memorial

It’s so quiet and peaceful here at Eagle Nest Lake, we decided to extend our stay two more nights. Donna hiked down to the Six Mile Creek day use area on Wednesday. Later we rode the Spyder to Angel Fire. We had pizza for lunch at the Angel Fired Pizza place and I needed to stop at a hardware store. Google maps showed Lowe’s right next to the pizza restaurant.

Lowe’s turned out to be a local grocery store – Lowe’s grocery. I found a lumberyard that’s also a True Value hardware and bought Gorilla glue for a project I needed to attend to. The support for the hanger pole in our closet broke. There’s a lot of weight on the pole from our clothes and some of the bumps on I-25 were pretty harsh.

Broken hanger pole support

I applied the glue and then screwed it back in place. I added cross screws for additional strength. I hope it holds up. Otherwise I’ll need to redesign the attachment. Our friend Dave Hobden had to rework his – he posted about it at UrbaneEscapeVehicle.

On Thursday morning, we woke to clear blue skies and the promise of a sunny, warmer day. I tried the panorama function on my Samsung Galaxy smart phone in an attempt to capture the beautiful view of the lake.

Panoramic view of Eagle Nest Lake

Here are a couple of signs by the visitor center giving a little information on the area. Click on the photos to enlarge if you wish to read them.

Donna said she thought she heard coyotes yapping in the distance before sunrise. I didn’t hear a thing. The nights are very dark and absolutely silent. I wouldn’t be surprised to find coyotes in the area. There’s an abundance of food sources for them – rabbits and prairie dogs are constantly on the move in the campground.

Ozark the cat amuses herself all day sitting in window sills or on the door step watching the prairie dogs.

Prairie dogs and their holes are everywhere

The park is home to a large prairie dog colony.

In the afternoon we rode the Spyder to Angel FIre. On the way we stopped at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial State Park. This was the first major Vietnam Memorial in the United States. It was started by Victor and Jeanne Westphall after their son, Marine First Lieutenant David Westphall was killed in an ambush along with 15 other soldiers in Vietnam on May 22, 1968.

In the ’60s, Victor and Jeanne purchased the 800-acre Val Verde Ranch and intended to open a resort. After David was killed, they built a chapel dedicated to his memory instead. This grew into a five-acre memorial site. Over the years, they sold off the ranch land to fund the memorial, which Victor mostly built himself. The chapel was completed in 1971.

Amphitheater behind the chapel

The memorial is now operated as a state park and is open year-round with no admission charge. It’s the only Vietnam Memorial State Park in the country. In 2014, New Mexico governor Susana Martinez announced the addition of 10 acres of adjoining land south of the chapel had been donated and is designated to become a rural veteran’s cemetery built to federal standards.

Sculpture of a soldier penning a letter

One of the most widely recognized aircraft of the Vietnam War era was the Bell Iroquois UH-1 helicopter – popularly known as the Huey. In 1999, the New Mexico National Guard brought a Huey to the memorial. This Huey served with the 121st AHC and is maintained by current and retired Guardsmen.

Bell UH-1 “Huey”

From the high ground of the memorial, I could see the runway at the Angel Fire airport. I was struck by the length of the runway – you don’t see runways this long at most small general aviation airports. Then it occurred to me – Angel Fire is 8,400 feet above sea level. On a hot summer day, the density altitude could easily exceed 10,000 feet. It takes a lot of airspeed to generate enough lift to take-off in this thin atmosphere. That means a long take-off run before the plane can rotate and also means touching down at high speed when landing. Thus the long runway.

That’s a long runway

We continued on to town and found the Enchanted Circle Brewing Company.

Angel Fire is a town of only about 1,200 full-time residents. But it’s a popular winter ski resort and has over 500 acres of ski slopes. Its mild summer climate brings mountain bikers and hikers, golfers and hunters come to the area in the fall. Hopefully this brings enough customers for the 20-barrel brewery with a 50-seat tasting room. The brewery opened in April of this year. The owners had the vision and built the place, then they advertised for a brewmaster! That’s right, they built it then they hired a brewmaster to create the beers.

We found their beers to be very good. I had a few small samplers then settled on the Glory Hole IPA. Donna had a plum sour then had a pint of stout.

Beers on tap

Donna had tempura battered veggies and I ordered hand cut fries with house made tartar sauce to go with the beer. It was worth the ride to town.

Today looks like another beautiful day with clear blue skies. Donna headed out at 7:30am and walked along the lake trail to the Eagle Nest village. She bought pastries at the bakery there and just returned with them, so I guess it’s time for breakfast.

Site 16 at Eagle Nest Lake

We’ll spend one more night here, then move on to Taos, New Mexico tomorrow.

Eagle Nest Lake

We got a late start leaving the Elks Lodge in Colorado Springs. Donna wanted to go for a run in the morning. While she was out I puttered around and cleaned the HWH hydraulic leveling jack rams with WD-40. By the time we filled the fresh water tank and dumped and flushed the holding tanks, it was after 11am.

Our first stop was just a few miles down I-25 at the Walmart where I picked a couple of cases of drinking water and Donna bought a few groceries. Then we hit the road in earnest. A few miles down the interstate – near the field where Brad landed the Heart’s A’Fire on Saturday at the Mesa Ridge exit, there was a bad accident blocking the northbound lanes. It was a visual reminder to be alert and drive defensively. A smashed car was being loaded onto a flat-bed truck and a high-cube type delivery truck was lying on its side across the lanes. Traffic was completely stopped as the State Patrol directed all northbound traffic onto the off-ramp.

We’d decided to head down to the Cimarron Canyon area in New Mexico. Our route took us down I-25 about 160 miles to the New Mexico border at Raton Pass. This pass is part of the old Santa Fe Trail in the eastern Sangre de Cristo Mountains and has an elevation of 7,834 feet above sea level. On the south side of the pass, we encountered rain.

We stopped in Raton for fuel at a small truck stop. The pumps weren’t the high speed nozzles I’ve become accustomed to at Pilot/Flying J. It was just a standard automobile type and it took about 20 minutes to pump 63 gallons of fuel. I can usually fill up in five minutes or less using two high-speed nozzles.

About 10 miles south of there, we left I-25 and hit US64. This took us past the NRA Whittington Center and through the town of Cimarron. Donna found sites at Cimarron Canyon State Park that appeared to be big enough for our rig. She phoned the ranger and he told us we should check out the first campground – it had the longest sites. The State Park system here uses Reserve America for its reservation system. One of the issues I have with Reserve America is it doesn’t allow you reserve on the same day as you arrive – you must make reservations in advance.

Not all of the sites in New Mexico State Parks are reservable though. They keep a number of sites in each park available for what they call “walk-ups.” We were counting on snagging one of these. Since it was day after Labor Day, we expected most of the campers would have gone back to their workaday lives.

Before we got to Cimarron Canyon State Park, Donna found another park about 10 miles further down US64. It was called Eagle Nest Lake State Park. She hadn’t seen this park before and it isn’t listed on our Rand-McNally RV GPS. We decided to take a look at Cimarron Canyon, then proceed to Eagle Nest Lake and make our choice. Eagle Nest Lake sounded good – long pull-through sites with lake views.

The sites at Cimarron Canyon weren’t too appealing. So we continued on to Eagle Nest Lake (map). The entrance to the state park has a visitor center and a self-serve kiosk for day use and camping. At the stop sign, the sign above the kiosk warns not to enter the park without paying first. Here’s the thing – the self-serve kiosk at the entrance is about a mile from the campground. When you fill out the self-serve form, you’re supposed to enclose cash or check and drop it into a lock-box. So far, so good.

I filled out the form, then the last blank said to enter your site number. What? How could I know my site number if the campground is a mile away? Even if I’d been here before and knew what site I wanted, how could I know if it was open or if another “walk-up” had already taken it? The visitor center was closed, so we drove to the campground and made a couple of loops to check the sites out. We decided on site 16 – a 62-foot-long curved pull-through that easily fit our 64 foot rig. It also has our door facing the lake. Nice.

I drove back to the park entrance, Donna wrote our site number on the form and dropped it in the box. We paid for two nights but will likely extend. Campers are allowed up to 14 nights before they have to leave the park for a minimum of one week. We’re dry camped – there aren’t any hook-ups here. The cost is $10/night and they have a fresh water fill station that we’ll hit when we leave.

We’re at an elevation of 8,215 feet above sea level, so It’s a lot cooler here. Plus light rain was still falling when we arrived so we didn’t get to explore.

Sunset at Eagle Nest Lake

Overnight the temperature dropped to the 40s and we were comfortable under our down comforter and blankets. It’s totally quiet here – almost eerily quiet after spending the past week in a city. I’m loving the change of pace.

This morning, it’s about 60 degrees as I type this at 10am. The expected high is 72 degrees with partly cloudy skies.

Lake view from our site

Another view from our site

The camera perspective doesn’t do justice to our view. It’s a beautiful spot. Eagle Nest Lake has a small village a few miles from the campground. We plan to take the Spyder out and look the place over. At some point, we’ll head west on the Spyder about 30 miles to check out Taos, New Mexico.

Long, Lonesome Highway

After getting up around 4am for nine straight days to crew at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, it felt good to sleep in past 7am on Monday. We took our time preparing to move on from The Vineyard where we’ve been since September 30th. In 12 days of dry camping, we used less than four gallons of water a day. But then again, we were away for 7 hours a day, only prepared meals a few times, and had access to showers at the community clubhouse.

We paid up at the office and said our good-byes to Larry and Ruth, then pulled out around 1:30pm. It was a short hop back to High Desert RV Park west of Albuquerque on I-40. We decided to go back there as it is fairly inexpensive and I would be able to dump and flush our tanks thoroughly and fill with known good fresh water before heading to Arizona.

After we set up, I took a shower. But I had a problem – the shower head was cracked and leaking. By the time I finished my shower, the crack had opened up and was spraying water all over.

The next morning, Donna went for a walk while I took care of the tanks and fresh water. Then we pulled out and went directly to Camping World across I-40 from the RV park. I knew I could find a new Oxygenics shower head for less money online, but we needed it now. I like the Oxygenics because it uses less water than most shower heads and still provides a good spray. Camping World had the shower head in stock so I bought it and we hit the road.

Our route took us about 60 miles west on I-40, then south on NM117. This took us through the Malpais National Monument and the Acoma Indian Reservation and across the Continental Divide. There were many interesting looking bluffs and rock formations. Donna amused herself by taking a few windshield view photos with my smartphone. At one point, we pulled off at a scenic viewpoint – a large lot with vault toilets.

Donna wanted to hike to the arch rock formation but I vetoed the idea. I wasn’t dressed for hiking and by the time I changed my clothes and shoes, made the hike and got into comfortable driving clothes again we would have burned up an hour. I wanted to keep moving knowing that we might encounter a change of plans along the way and it could be a long day. We wanted to find one of several boondocking sites Donna had researched.

High desert rock formation

View from roadside lot with trail to rock arch

Another view from the roadside lot

Highway 117 undulates – the surface contnually dips and rises over what are essentially ripples with an interval of a few seconds. At some point, Ozark got carsick from all the motion. We stopped in Quemado and Donna took Ozark out of her crate to clean up. This is the first time that has happened.

While we were driving, I heard a loud thunk from the rear of the coach. Donna went back to see what fell. She said it looked like the shower head came completely apart and was lying on the floor of the shower.

Once we hit US60 and headed west, we were on familiar ground. Donna and I traveled this route in 2005 when we rode from Mesa, Arizona to Datil, New Mexico with a group of Moto Guzzi riders. Donna and I had Moto Guzzi touring motorcycles before we switched to BMWs.

Once we were in Arizona, we climbed the White Mountains and crossed the Cerro Montoso Summit at 7,550 feet above sea level. We also gained an hour when we crossed the state line.

Rolling down that long, lonesome highway

Do you remember the show “Then Came Bronson”

We discussed our options for the night and settled on Scott Reservoir Campground near Show Low, Arizona. This is a National Forest campground in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest that allows up to five nights of free camping. You must camp in a designated site – there are 15 sites with tables and fire rings – and there aren’t any hook-ups, but you can’t beat free. And the air here smells of the pine trees all around.

Pulling into the narrow dirt road from Porter Mountain Road (map) was a little scary. I didn’t know what I was getting into and hoped I would be able to get turned around. We followed the washboard surface for about half a mile, then found a turnaround. It wasn’t big enough and I had to jockey back and forth a few times before I could complete the turn. There was a large tree in the center of the turnaround and I scraped the left rear of our coach against branches. I hope the scratches will buff out!

We backed into a large, fairly level site and were set up in no time. I was surprised to find a Verizon 4G signal with full bars! I went to the back and looked at the shower head. I found the source of the loud thunk. It wasn’t the shower head – it was the handle that turns on the shower and regulates the hot/cold water flow. The set screw had backed out and the handle fell off. Next I found that I had misdiagnosed the Oxygenics shower head problem. I didn’t need a new shower head – the crack was in the fitting on the hose connecting to it. I could have bought a new hose for a third of the price of a new Oxygenics shower head kit. Doh!

I re-installed the shower handle with thread locker on the set screw and replaced the shower hose while Donna set off on her second walk of the day. She hiked a trail around the lake and then, when the lakeside trail petered out, followed a horse trail she found that led to a road that intersected with the road we came in on.

Ozark was feeling much better after we settled in – I believe it was the constant up and down on NM117 that made her queasy.

Ozark feeling better and playing

Although it was in the upper 70s when we arrived yesterday, it’s cool this morning. Our current elevation of 6,700 feet above sea level means cool nights. It’s 47 degrees outside as I type this and a cool 59 degrees in the coach. It felt good to sleep under a comforter with the windows open. The day will warm quickly under clear skies to the mid 70s. We’ve decided to spend another night here before we go to Payson for a few days to wait out the heat wave in Phoenix. We’re hoping things cool down there and we can move to Mesa by the end of the week.

Enjoying peace and quiet in our free site

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta – Day Four

The alarm on my Samsung Galaxy S5 gently woke me at 4:25am again this (Tuesday) morning. This can’t become a routine I thought as I realized it already has. As the fog cleared from my brain, I remembered that today was my birthday – yesterday I was 58 years old, today that’s no longer the case. How does the time fly by?

Yesterday, after we returned from the balloon fiesta field, Donna started preparing a carrot cake. She chopped and mixed the ingredients then took the bowl of batter to Jim and Barb’s place to cook it in their oven as she needed to bake it in a pan that was too large for our oven. I made a Costco run for bottled water and liquor.

When we walked to Larry and Ruth’s place this morning to ride in their van to the balloon fiesta park, it dawned on me that the carrot cake was a birthday cake. Donna made it to share with the rest of the team at the tailgate party that happens after the balloon comes down and gets put it away.

Today was another competition day at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. Our pilot, Brad Rice, would compete again in an accuracy competition. The object once again was to drop a bean bag on a X in the balloon fiesta field. During this morning’s pilot briefing, I heard that competitors are required to launch a minimum of one mile away from the target. The competition would open at 8am and close at 9:30am.

We drove to the same launch site we used yesterday. This time the area was overrun as many pilots thought this was the place to launch. Donna made the trip today – unlike yesterday’s miss.

Busy launch site and lots of balloons over the field

We had tight quarters as we prepped the balloon. There was more ground wind than we’ve had up to this point. Holding the lines to the envelope was a challenge – Donna jumped in to help Aaron who was struggling to hold the lines across from me. She was wishing for heavier gloves as the lines pulled hard. I was holding the bottom of the envelope open as Brad hit the burners to inflate it. The wind was quartering toward me. By the time we had the envelope fully inflated and upright, my left forearm was singed and red. Those burners put out a lot of heat!

After we launched, we drove to the large parking lot behind the Presbyterian Administration Center. This is where Brad landed the Hearts A’Fire balloon yesterday. From the west end of the parking lot, we had a great view of the field and target area.

The scale and number of balloons is hard to imagine

Brad took his time, but he made his pass over the field before the 9:30am time limit and made a great drop. We watched as he passed low over the drop zone, then continued a few feet above ground level to land in the south field. We hauled out of there to recover the balloon.

After packing up, we met at our assigned launch site – H7 – to tailgate and enjoy the birthday carrot cake, mimosas and beer. What a great way to celebrate a birthday.

Days Two and Three – Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

We’re three days into the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. The past two days illustrate just how unpredictable the world of hot air balloons and ballooning can be. On Sunday morning, we were in the van and heading to the balloon park at 4:45am, just like the day before. We went to breakfast at the Pilots’ Pavilion building again. We found that breakfast can be a real adventure. They had waffles, however there was a delay serving them. They usually had six waffle griddles going to serve hot, fresh waffles in years past we were told. But on that day, they only had three and most of the time could only use two because the circuit kept overloading and blowing the breaker. Plus, they forgot the syrup. Waiting in a long line for a dry waffle wasn’t for me.

We headed over to the hot breakfast table. At the fiesta, they serve some out-of-the-ordinary dishes for breakfast. Sunday morning’s hot breakfast entree was a creamy chicken green chile soup! It was actually quite good, but not something I’m used to eating at 5:30am.

After breakfast, we walked in the dark to launch site H7 where “our” balloon Hearts A’Fire is stationed. I hung out at the site and watched the Dawn Patrol balloons set up and skipped the pilots’ meeting.

Dawn Patrol beginning to inflate balloons

I was surprised to see them remain tethered for the duration of the pilots’ meeting. The day before, they launched during the meeting. They are equipped with special lighting that allows them to take to the sky in darkness.

As the meeting concluded and everyone made their way back to the launch areas, I saw the Dawn Patrol balloons beginning to deflate without any of them ever launching.

After standing by, the Dawn Patrol starts deflating at sunrise

Our pilot, Brad Rice, told us that everything was on hold due to an unusual situation. There wasn’t enough wind. This is a rare occurrence according to Brad – usually they have concerns about too much wind. With little wind to move the balloons, they would essentially go straight up. Coupled with a low cloud cover, we would have balloons stacked on top of each other – a dangerous situation.

To further complicate matters, what little breeze we had would steer the balloons over the Sandia Indian reservation. The Indians do not take kindly to hot air balloons landing on their reservation. They make the pilots and crews jump through hoops to pack and remove the balloon from Indian land, often making them stay in their baskets for hours until they can be released. The entire city of Albuquerque embraces and supports the Balloon Fiesta, but the tribe uses the event as an opportunity to flex their muscles. I don’t get it.

So, we were standing by. Our pilot told us to start unloading the equipment around 7:30am. He said we would inflate and display the balloon if we weren’t allowed to fly. We started setting the equipment out. At 7:45am, the green flag went up – we were going to fly! Everyone scrambled. More than five hundred balloon crews raced to be airworthy in the hopes they could be released to launch.

Some ballons have been released while other crews are working madly to get airworthy

Some balloons have been released while other crews are working madly to get airworthy

You can’t release your balloon into the air without an official granting permission. This is necessary to maintain safe clearances between the balloons. We had our balloon ready quickly but Brad could see we had a problem. There were too many balloons within close proximity that were also at the same stage of readiness. Finally he lit the burner and we finished inflating the balloon.

Looking up the center inside the inflated Hearts A’Fire

Then we were in a waiting game. Brad and two passengers were in the basket. We leaned our weight on the perimeter of the basket to keep the balloon down. Brad had to periodically fire off the burners to keep the hot air envelope fully inflated. We stood by like this for nearly an hour. Waiting burned a lot of fuel. Finally we had a clear lane – we took our weight off the basket and held on. The basket rose a few inches and we walked it back about twenty yards into the clear lane and were given the signal to release. Hearts A’Fire was airborne at last.

As Brad gained altitude and caught a current, another balloon was right next to him. Their envelopes made contact – this is referred to as kissing by balloonists. Having the fabric kiss isn’t a problem. The problem is when the basket and another envelope make contact. Scary!

Hearts A’Fire and another balloon kiss

The two pilots were able to talk to each other and maneuver to safely separate. We drove the chase vehicles to the east – the direction all of the balloons were going. Brad set the balloon down in a parking lot in a small industrial complex – it was closed and there weren’t many cars there. We held the basket down while his passengers got out and two new passengers climbed aboard. We released the balloon again.

We drove to the east side of the freeway and found our balloon again. We made our way to a residential area just south of the Indian land, near where Brad set down the day before. He put the balloon down in the street in front of a few houses. Several balloons landed in the area. When so many balloons release together on a day without much wind, they tend to float along together and land in the same vicinity. Unfortunately, some of them were on Indian land and were held up by tribal police.

Mass landing

After we returned to the park, we tailgated at another pilot’s site. Larry’s wife Ruth is on the crew for Endeavor piloted by a guy named Colin. We hung around there and had some food and drink before heading home around noon. I spent the rest of the day watching NFL football.

On Monday morning, we were at it again. We pushed our departure time back to 5am. I reset our alarm to allow an extra 10 minutes of sleep. There were far fewer cars on the road although there were plenty of people at the park. At the Pilots’ Pavilion, the waffle situation seemed better, but they ran out of syrup before 5:30am. Once again, I passed on the dry waffles. The hot breakfast table had green chile stew with beef. It was tasty but again, not my first choice at 5:30am. We had fruit along with the stew – Donna and I both passed on the Krispy Kreme donuts that are served every morning.

I went to the launch site while Donna went with Ruth and Barbara to shop at the midway. There are a number of vendors there in a carnival-like setting. I attended the pilots’ meeting with Brad and the rest of the crew. Today was a different twist. Some balloons would release from their normal sites with the goal being to have them all airborne by 7:30am. Others were entered in a competition. The object of the competition was to drop a bean bag on an X marked on the competition field. All competitors would launch away from the park and fly back to it to make their drop. The time limit was 10am. If you couldn’t make the drop by then, it was game over.

The Dawn Patrol went up during the pilot’s meeting, so that part was business as usual.

Monday morning Dawn Patrol

After the meeting concluded, we went back to site H7 and everyone started piling into vehicles. Brad told me to jump in the back of his Infiniti SUV. We were entered into the competition and were heading offsite to launch. Donna wasn’t back from the midway so I phoned her and told her to stay with Ruth and Colin’s crew.

Brad had sussed the wind directions – yes, plural – the wind shears and changes directions in layers as you move up and down in altitude. We went to an open field near the freeway that was blocked off and had several police on the corners. We were allowed in to use it as a launch site. Several other balloonists showed up after we arrived.

On just my third day of crewing, I’m obviously gaining the trust of our pilot. Brad had me straighten out the lines and connect the basket – I wasn’t just lending muscle, I was actually setting up. There are some intricacies involved with the task. Certain links have to be oriented properly and having the lines connected properly is obviously very important. Brad checked my work and gave me the thumbs up.

Trying to come in over the target would be tricky. Up high, the wind was blowing to the northwest at about 10 knots. This took the balloon past the field. Then Brad descended until he caught a breeze blowing southeast – but this breeze only moved at a snail’s pace. They came back toward the field slowly at about 1 knot. A minor miscalculation meant going up again and blowing back northwest, then descending for a slow pass back to the field. After two hours, Brad was low on fuel and called it a day.

Balloons participating in the competition

When we returned to the park, Larry and I found Donna and Ruth along with Jim and Barb. It turned out that Colin had trouble with the burner on his balloon and put down on the reservation. The Tribal Police wouldn’t allow all of the chase crew to enter – so Jim and Barb made the long trek back to the park on foot. I wonder how long Colin was held up by the Tribal Police. We’ll find out tomorrow.

There are a lot of balloons here with unusual shapes like something out of the Macy’s New Year’s Day parade. I snapped a shot of an unusual and funny balloon.

This hot air balloon makes a political statement

We’ll be back out there Tuesday morning – a perfect way to celebrate my birthday!

Day One – Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

The past few days have been eventful for Donna. On Thursday morning, I walked her out to the front gate at The Vineyard and used a card key to open it so she could get into the taxi cab waiting for her. She was off to the airport for a trip to New York City via Atlanta. It was a long day of travel made longer by the rehearsal she had at the studio Thursday evening for Friday morning’s satellite media tour. I tried to get a little more sleep after she left and managed to doze off for a short time.

Around noon, Larry, our host here at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, picked me up and we drove over to the Balloon Fiesta Park (map). We drove into the park and walked to the new building which replaces the tents that were used to house all of the registration tables and provide meals. Larry introduced me to several key players and I met the owner of the Heart’s A’Fire – the balloon we would be crewing for (article about the Balloon Fiesta and Hearts A’Fire here).

After Larry dropped me off back at our coach, I rode the scooter back to the balloon area to check out the RV park there. It’s a huge dirt lot across the street from the Hot Air Balloon Museum. It was only about 1/4 full but RVs were streaming in. I found Paul and Nina’s coach (WheelingIt). I didn’t see them around and their door was closed so I left.

On Friday morning, Donna made her appearances on 20 TV stations around the country. She was interviewed about fall cleaning and organizing tips. I went back over to the RV park and found Chris and Cherie (Technomadia) and stopped for a quick chat. They were setting up their 600 watts of portable solar panels to go with the 800 watts on their roof. They said I just missed Paul – he was out and about on his bicycle. I didn’t want to be a bother as they set up – I figure we’ll get a chance to catch up later, so I left. I went to Paul and Nina’s site and had a short chat with Nina. Donna and I met Chris and Cherie and Paul and Nina when they were lighthouse hosts at Cape Blanco our first year on the road.

RVs were continuously pulling into the RV lot. Most of the sites are dry camping – so water conservation and electrical usage are a factor. I don’t know how many sites there are, but it has to be four figures.

The RV lot is huge and quickly filling up on Friday – Hot Air Balloon Museum in the background

Donna’s flight back from New York City had an hour delay in Atlanta – she finally made it home at 11:30pm. I met her at the gate to The Vineyard so I could let her in. We slept fitfully until my alarm sounded at 4:15am for our first day as balloon crew. We left Larry and Ruth’s place at 4:45am and were in the park a little past 5am. Six of us were in the van – Larry and Ruth, their neighbors Jim and Barb and Donna and me. Breakfast is provided for pilots and crew members. We went to the new building where they were serving breakfast burritos, Krispy Kreme donuts, juice and coffee.

Breakfast crowd

We were there early but it was already getting crowded. By the time we finished our breakfast, the line went halfway around the building.

We met Steve at breakfast. Larry, Steve, Donna and I were on the crew for Hearts A’Fire. Ruth, Jim and Barb crewed on a different balloon.

I wasn’t able to capture the nice photos you can find of this event – I was busy most of the time and I didn’t have the luxury of gaining a nice vantage point for maximum photo opportunity. Our balloon was at site H7, so regardless of lighting, that’s where I took my photos when I had a chance to do so.

First we attended the pilots briefing at 6am. The dawn patrol was setting up and the balloons glowed when they hit the propane burners to heat the air in the envelope.

Dawn patrol morning glow

The dawn patrol goes up first to check and confirm wind conditions.

Dawn patrol launching

Most of my duties entailed grabbing a handle and lifting. We lifted the gondola (basket) out of the trailer and set up the superstructure that holds the propane burner. The gondola with three propane tanks is heavy – five of us lifted it, put it into position and set it up.

Setting up on the “H” line

Once the burners were connected, our pilot Brad Rice checked everything over and test fired the burners.

Test firing the propane burners

Next the balloon – more properly called the envelope – was unloaded and stretched out on the grass.

Envelope on the grass

We tipped the gondola on its side and connected the cables from the envelope to it. Next a fan driven by a small Honda gasoline engine was fired up. We grabbed the envelope along the bottom and held it open. The fan forced air into the envelope which inflated but still stayed on its side on the ground.

Inside view of the partially inflated envelope

We held station for quite a while waiting until balloons lifting off ahead of us were airborne. There’s a lift-off schedule. The pilot cannot be released until an official wearing a striped shirt – like a football referee – gives the signal. Of course everyone refers to them as zebras. As our time drew nearer, we picked up the gondola to a 45-degree angle. Brad hit the burners and flames shot through the opening in the bottom of the envelope. This quickly heated the air in the 90,000 cubic foot balloon. The hot air caused the balloon to further inflate and rise. The fan was shut off and we tipped the gondola upright. Several of us leaned on the perimeter of the gondola to hold it down.

First wave of balloons taking flight

Two passengers joined Brad in the basket. Brad told us to take our weight off the gondola but keep our hands on as he checked the balloon temperature. The safety tether was disconnected. The balloon rose slightly and we walked the balloon away from the trailer to his launch point. He hit the burner and told us to let go on the launch signal and he was on his way up.

Hearts A’Fire in the center after launching

We drove out of the park to begin our chase. We lost sight of the balloon and went west, then turned north scanning all of the balloons in the sky. There were over 500 balloons and we couldn’t locate Hearts A’Fire. We stopped on the side of the road and I climbed up a short brick wall to get a better look. I still couldn’t find it. We circled back south, then east. Near the park entrance, I spotted the balloon low and well to the east of us.

We tracked it down. It looked like Brad might put it down in a large field that was part of the Indian reservation. This would be bad. It takes special permission to remove the balloon once it lands on Indian property – this can take hours. Our other chase vehicles arrived. I got out and walked to the barbed wire fence marking the Indian land. Brad called down to us to go to the next road to the east and turn left. I ran back to the van and told Larry where to go. It turned out to be a gated community but someone was able to open the gate for us. We pulled in just as Brad was setting down in a cul-de-sac.

Hearts A’Fire coming in to land

Once again we held the gondola down. It took a coordinated effort to safely deflate and guide the envelope onto the street without snagging anything. Then we disassembled the balloon in reverse order of set-up. We had a large crowd of spectators from the gated community.

Hearts A’Fire down in the cul-de-sac – note the light post behind it which Brad avoided

Once we had everything loaded in the trailer, we all drove back to the launch site at the park. Tables and chairs were set up and it was time to tailgate. We had food, mimosas and beer before noon!

We were back at our coach by 12:30pm and ready for a nap. Donna really needed the rest and slept for a couple hours. I dozed for about 30 minutes, then I read a book.

Tomorrow morning we’ll do it all over again. The opening Saturday is when the balloonists have the most support crew. On the weekdays, some the crew members will have to work and we’ll have fewer people. Hopefully the weather holds out although the current forecast calls for rain by noon tomorrow and more rain on Tuesday and Wednesday. We had showers this afternoon as we left the park but it cleared up after 2pm.

I may be publishing my posts at odd hours for the next week as the balloon schedule has me occupied in the mornings.

Roadrunners and Ribs

Tuesday was our last full day at High Desert RV Park in Albuquerque and it was a full day. We planned to have a visitor for dinner – Donna’s friend Hazel Thornton would join us. I rode the scooter down to Smith’s Market on the corner of Coors Boulevard and Central Avenue – across from the Albertson’s store. I stopped at Albertson’s the day before and looked at the baby back ribs. Albertson’s had a buy-one-get-one-free promotion. But here’s the catch – they were frozen, didn’t look very meaty and were priced at $8.99/pound! I didn’t buy them.

At Smith’s, I found fresh baby back ribs that looked excellent for $3.99/pound. Now we’re talking. I bought two small racks – about three and half pounds each. I brought them home and seasoned them with a brown sugar – bourbon dry rub and wrapped them in cling wrap to rest in the refrigerator for a few hours.

Dry rubbed with brown sugar – bourbon rub and ready for the refrigerator

After putting the ribs in the refrigerator, I saw a large calico cat stalking across the road toward our coach. Our cat Ozark jumped up to the bedroom window and was watching outside. I saw what the cats were interested in. There were two roadrunners in our site. They ran down the road, then came back and circled our coach. One jumped up on our picnic table, then they ended up in the tree next to our site.

Roadrunners visiting our site

They hung around our area for a while. The cats – both Ozark inside our coach and the calico outside – were mesmerized by them but had no chance of catching them. Roadrunners have been clocked at speeds greater than 20 miles per hour and they can fly. They generally feed on beetles, grasshoppers and crickets but they are also fond of lizards and snakes. Sometimes they’re called a chaparral bird, but I’ve always known them as roadrunners. The roadrunner is the state bird of New Mexico.

Donna had a delivery at the office – the new walking shoes she’d ordered had arrived. On her walk back from the office, she stopped and chatted with new friends from RVillage, Denny and Veronica. We became RVillage friends some time ago but never had a chance to meet before. Donna invited them to join us for happy hour. They came to our site around 5pm and we got to know each other over a drink. They are young full-time RVers who also have full-time jobs. They have virtual office capability – so as long as they can get online they are as good as being in the office. Their blog is RVOutlawz.com. We had a fun time talking about our travels and the RV lifestyle. Like us, they’ve been on the road since 2013 and are here for the Balloon Fiesta. They seem like a really fun couple and we look forward to our next meeting down the road. It turned out the calico cat stalking the roadrunners was one of their two cats, both of whom like to roam.

Denny and Veronica had some shopping to do so we said our goodbyes and shortly after that Hazel arrived. Our baby back ribs were just about done on the Traeger smoker/grill.

Baby backs looking good

Donna prepared scalloped tomatoes using the last of the green chile sourdough bread from the growers’ market and steamed fresh green beans to go with the barbeque ribs. It was a nice combination.

Baby back ribs with scalloped tomatoes and steamed green beans

Donna gave Hazel a tour of the coach. Hazel brought gifts for Ozark – she’s a cat person. We had a fun evening together.

Wednesday morning I had to get down to business. The trailer still wasn’t packed. I had all of our chairs, the Weber Q and Traeger and the awning mat still out. I also had to put away tire covers and windshield covers and dump and flush the tanks. This may not sound like a lot of work, but it takes time. It was nearly 11:50am when I fired up the Cummins ISL and rolled the coach off the pads I had under the rear tires. By the time I put the pads away and made my final walk around, it was just past noon as we drove up to the office.

The office closed for lunch at noon and I needed to settle up my electric bill for the week. Luckily the girl who works in the office saw us and came back to the office so we could pay and leave. I had taken a photo of our meter before I hooked up our shore power and took another photo after I disconnected. I compared that with the meter readings they were billing. Apparently they read the meter after we hooked up and before we disconnected. They showed slightly less usage than I figured. Our electric bill for the week was just over $23. Not bad considering the high temperatures and a few hours of air conditioning each day.

We made the 25-minute drive to The Vineyard (map) where we’ll be for the next 13 days. This is a 55+ community with about 200 manufactured homes. Our hosts, Larry and Ruth, live here. They’ve set us up with a dry camping spot – 30 amp electricity but no water or sewer – for the duration of the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. There are showers and toilets at the clubhouse and we have access to that. Larry and Ruth coordinate volunteers to crew for balloonists – that’s what Donna and I will be doing starting on Saturday. I’ll post more details once we’re fully involved and I know more of what I’m talking about.

One issue arose as we set up. My Progressive Industries Electrical Management System (EMS) detected an error and wouldn’t allow shore power to flow to the coach. It displayed E-1 which means the polarity at the receptacle is reversed. Not a good thing. I saw a guy that works here at the community and told him about it. He said I would have to talk to Kurt, the owner. He drove me to the office in a golf cart and I told Kurt about the issue. Kurt grabbed a couple of tools and walked with me to our coach. I showed him the error message on our EMS and he opened the 30-amp panel. In short order we had the hot lead and the neutral lead correctly wired to the receptacle and all was good. He said he has many friends that stay overnight here in their RVs when they travel through Albuquerque and no one ever mentioned the reversed polarity. These things can go un-noticed but they contribute to an early demise of components like microwave ovens or other electronic devices.

Our spot at The Vineyard for the next two weeks

The schedule will be a rough start for Donna. This morning, she met a cab at the gated entrance at 4:55am for a flight to New York City. She’ll be at the TV studio late this afternoon for a rehearsal. Early Friday morning she has a satellite media tour that will have her on various TV stations around the country talking about organizing and preparing your home for the winter season. Then she’ll fly back and arrive here late Friday night. Saturday we’ll be up early and head to the Balloon Fiesta Park at 5am.

With our volunteer duty requiring us to head to the park at 5am every morning, I don’t know what my blog post schedule will be over the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned – I’m sure to have some photos and descriptions of a unique adventure!

*Just so you know, if you follow one of my links to Amazon and decide to make a purchase, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

Jersey Jack’s Problem Solved

A few days ago, a nice coach pulled into a site near us at High Desert RV Park in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was a 2009 Foretravel Nimbus with two slides. The Foretravel company came about when C.M. Fore built a coach for he and his wife to use in 1967. In 1974, they introduced the first commercially available diesel-powered motorhome. By the 1990s, Foretravel was well-established as a manufacturer of high-end motorhomes. Foretravel is one of the few RV manufacturers to build their own chassis. Their factory in Texas turns out four models in limited quantities.

2009 Foretravel Nimbus

Another view of our neighbor’s Foretravel

Our neighbor’s 2009 Nimbus is 40 feet long and has a tag axle. He told me he stopped at Camping World and they were interested in trading straight across for a new Entegra coach. He decided against it and I don’t blame him.

Yesterday I noticed water dripping from the compartment in front of his rear wheels. The compartment door was open and so was another basement compartment toward the front with tools in it. I walked over – it looked like water was coming out of an overflow hose.

Later, I saw him poking around in the rear compartment. I walked over to see what was going on. I introduced myself. His name is Jack and he’s from New Jersey. He told me he had the valve for the fresh water fill replaced. Now his fresh water tank slowly fills to overflowing whenever he’s hooked up to city water.

On my Alpine Coach, there’s a valve that diverts fresh water from an outside source to the fresh water tank. It’s a manual valve in the wet bay that I turn 90 degrees to fill the tank. When it’s in the fill position, the rest of the plumbing isn’t pressurized. Water just flows into the tank. We can access fresh water from the tank by turning on the water pump. When I close the valve, water no longer flows into the tank and the rest of the plumbing is pressurized by the city water hook-up.

Looking at his fresh water supply plumbing, I could see his set-up was similar – but heaven forbid an owner of a Foretravel having to manually operate a valve! His valve was operated by an electric solenoid. He could divert water to fill his fresh water tank by pressing a button inside the coach which activates the solenoid and opens the valve. When the tank is full, the solenoid is de-activated and the valve returns to its normally closed position. This is a $300 solution to the inconvenience of manually opening the valve!

Electrically operated valve

This valve had to be the source of the problem. There’s no other path for water to enter the freshwater tank unless the check valve in the pump was allowing water to back-fill into the tank. I didn’t think this was the case because he had a filter with a clear bowl in the line by the pump and no water was moving through it.

Jack removed the cover plate from the brass valve assembly. I saw right away that the valve was assembled incorrectly. There’s a circular plate inside the housing that has a seal around the perimeter to seal the case and an O-ring set in the center to seal the fresh water inlet. A spring on the backside pushes the plate against the fresh water fill opening, sealing it off with the O-ring. Energizing the solenoid pulls the plate back against the spring pressure, opening the fresh water tank fill line and closing off the rest of the plumbing. This plate was put in backwards – the O-ring was on the side where the spring closes the valve. The backside of the plate was closing against the fresh water fill line without the sealing O-ring. No wonder water seeped past it and slowly filled the tank.

I told Jack to flip the plate over so the spring works against the flat plate and the O-ring fits against the fill opening. He reassembled it that way and it was job done!

Later I went online and looked up the solenoid operated electric valve. These things are usually used in marine applications where you may not have easy access to plumbing. A solenoid operated brass valve like the one on the Foretravel costs over $200. At that price, you’d hope for better quality control and not have to disassemble the part and reassemble it correctly.

Today will be a warm day with the temperature approaching 90 degrees. I plan to start organizing the trailer. Later I’ll see if I can find baby back ribs to cook on the Traeger. Donna’s friend, Hazel Thornton, will be joining us for dinner.

Tomorrow we’ll move to Larry and Ruth’s place at The Vineyard (map). I won’t post tomorrow as we’ll be busy packing, traveling and setting up.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Category Archives: New Mexico

Spatchcocked Chicken in Taos

Eagle Nest Lake Trail

Angel Fire Vietnam Memorial

Eagle Nest Lake

Long, Lonesome Highway

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta – Day Four

Days Two and Three – Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

Day One – Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

Roadrunners and Ribs

Jersey Jack’s Problem Solved

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