Who's idea was it to head South?

Oh my gosh...it is HOT!!!  If we hadn't just started traveling, I'm sure Richard and I would both agree to stay put in Colorado with the beautiful weather.  But someone (me) decided to take a Housesitting position in Texas.  So be it, south is where we are headed and we are taking our time to get there by deciding to spend a few weeks in New Mexico.  So here we are in the dry desert

If you can take your eyes off the surrounding mountains for one second to notice our house hiding behind the bush on the right, you can get the feel of what our 360 degree view was!  Although it does look and was very dry, fortunately, it rained here everyday around 7 pm putting on an exciting lightning show every time and helping to keep the temps down in the 80's.

We also were very happy with the park that we settled in at as it is run on solar.  Genius!

We were here for 2 weeks and while we relaxed mostly, there were things we wanted see.  We made it to Los Alamos

to visit the museums that house the Fat Boy and the Little Man.

The scooter is doing not so surprisingly well with all of the climate and altitude changes.  As usual...my husband does know what he is talking about when he buys new and helpful "toys"!  We wanted to make it to the volcano but in the pictures that we saw it just looked like a sunken in patch of grass, so we "settled" for this view instead.

On our way back to the RV Park, we came across this rock...

Hey Camel!  I wanted to climb on it but they have it fenced off just for people like me.

We left Santa Fe on August 6th to arrive at our housesitting assignment on the 7th.  We drove straight through to Ingram, Texas to spend the night at Armadillo Junction Rv Park...practically a steal for $15

We tried to sleep in the next morning but we were overly excited about reaching our destination.  Can you imagine...after living in 385 square feet for over 2 years, we were about to move in to a house that has 3 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths, a butlers pantry, a pool house with a swim spa and hot tub, and 34 acres of unaltered Texas Hill Country.  We were in over our heads!!  This is a beautiful home at the top of a hill that our house would not be making the trip up so we parked it in the meadow and give it a friendly wave when we leave to go grocery shopping.

We have truly appreciated all of the opportunities that we have been able to experience over these past 5 months and look forward to spending the next 2 months learning wether or not we miss living in a house or just miss living in "our house"!  

Just one week of living under a roof not made of rubber, we decided to take our house on a road trip to San Antonio.  We found this great park called Carefree Travelers RV Park that was less than 10 minutes away from the Riverwalk.  

They had Palm trees lining their paved streets (it is VERY difficult to find an RV park that is not just another gravel road) and their pool was heated and kept at the perfect temperature that seemed to go well with any flavor of beer!  The public transportation system AKA the bus stop was right across the street from the park so for $1.10 per person...we were free to roam around downtown and catch a ride back sober or not.  Of course after a night of dinner, drinks, and dancing we headed back by midnight and made it home just fine because the bus was empty, we were apparently the only crazies out that night.

We returned to Kerrville only slightly poisoned from the weekend and decided to rest a few days before going to explore.  Our first stop was the infamous Luckenbach, Texas

 We didn't stay to dance but will have some fun pictures when we return from our next visit.  We drove through Fredericksberg on our way home, stopped to have some barbecue but skipped out on the downtown shops because it was stinkin' hot and we were ready to jump into the pool!

Other than just hanging around the house and catching up on Redbox movies (pick up Limitless, Bradly Cooper is smokin' ), we have been pretty quiet for the past week.  That is until last night when my hubby took me out for my pre-birthday dinner to Mamacita's.  Upside down beer with frozen margarita!  Yum!

This was after my day of pampering at Salon De Ricardo where I got my hair colored, my shoulders massaged and my toenails painted... Happy Birthday to me and a big thanks to my honey, Love you Babe!

What are you doing here?!?

It's the funniest thing, being out on the road and meeting up with people from back home.  We left the green hills of South Dakota to head towards Loveland, Colorado.  We found a RV park that was at the base of the Rocky Mountain National Forest.  I do believe that it is my favorite spot that we have been to yet. This was our "backyard"

We would keep our back windows open at night and listen to the river rushing by...awww, peaceful.  We only stayed here a few days, so we had a lot of things to pack into a small amount of time.  The first day, we made the Meep meep do all the hard work.  We took her all the way to the top of the mountain.

Thank goodness we came equipped with sweatshirts!

As Richard played in the snow,

I was busy checking facts about this beautiful place, and of course trying to get close enough to the furry creatures but no such luck...those suckers are quick!

We called it a day at about the time that we could no longer feel our faces and headed back down the mountain.  For those of you who know Richard really well, you know he is not a fan of heights.  So I recommend that anyone going to the top of the Rocky Mountains with him should go in a vehicle with 4 wheels and make sure that he not intrude on the oncoming traffic, or suggest to the park rangers that they install a guardrail!

The next day, we went back into the forest to go on a hike.  This is me at Bear Lake and in hindsight, we should have just hiked around the lake but I had to go up the mountain to the glacier...

That's me up there in the distance.  Rich says he fell behind to take a picture but we know the truth.

So if we had just stayed around Bear Lake, I wouldn't be out of breath right now because what was suppose to be a nice walk turned into a 3 hour hike.  But, we finally made it!

That was great and everything, but now we had to get back down.  Thankfully, Richard is thoughtful enough that he packed a baggie of pretzels, peanut M&M's and a delicious bottle of water when I wasn't looking, so we had some soul food to get down the mountain on.  Upon our much desired return to solid ground, I found this cutie

Not only did he come right up to me, he then SNATCHED the pretzel from my fingers.  Then the little bugger sniffed it, threw it on the ground and had the audacity to come back and ask for something different.  Well, I wasn't going to give him a M&M so he was out of luck with me.

We left Loveland, Colorado after 3 days and headed to Creede, Colorado.  There we stayed at Antler's Lodge and met up with these folks...

I would like to introduce you to Shawn and Jen from our "old neighborhood".  They were having a family get together and we were invited to join.  Good times with friends and great hamburgers is what we like to do, so for 2 days we had a fantastic time hanging out in the mountains.  After Antlers, we drove 22 miles up the road to stay in Southfork, Colorado for the next week.  Peaceful little community full of ice cream socials and domino tournaments.  Out of the blue, a different set of friends called up and said they were on a road trip and were headed our way!!  Lucky us!  A small taste of home in a beautiful mountain setting!  Jeff and Christy stayed with us for 3 days as we explored Pagosa Springs. 

Where, I had to touch the water,

and make Jeff pull over and take in the serene waterfalls

After they left for home, we headed to a reservoir to take in some sun and fresh air.  Although the water was freezing, the beach area was nice to lay out on.

After one week in Southfork, we sadly decided to leave Colorado and head to Santa Fe, New Mexico to study up on our WWII factoids.  Watch out...I'm coming for you Fat Boy!