Albuquerque, NM

We left Hidden Valley Resort this morning and are now in a Casino parking lot near Grant, NM. Willard is inside playing nickle Keno. I spent my limit and decided to catch up in this journal. We are killing time before the Escapees HOP in Williams, AZ. Guess we will stay here tonight, at a Wal-Mart in Flagstaff tomorrow night, then on to Williams to an RV Park. We have had cool nights (40-50 degrees) so drycamping will be fine to save a little money. If it gets too hot for a good night's sleep, then we will stay in an RV park for the electricity to turn on our air conditioner.

Last Friday we had a wonderful day visiting Old Town in Albuquerque. Some of the buildings were origional (since 1700's). We had lunch at a nice restaurant, visited shops (I bought another hat pin), toured a church, and relaxed at a sidewalk cafe while enjoying beautiful music from a group from Ecuador called Amauta HAC. We then visited the Rio Grande Botanic Garden and Aquarium. What a surprise! Both were so interesting we spent the rest of the afternoon there.

Thanks to Mickey and Patty we purchased a Garmin StreetPilot 2620 GPS system. We rode with them to a restaurant near Rend Lake, Ill last summer and they had one. "We have to have one of those!" Willard exclaimed. "Oh, no," I thought, "not another toy! Will we ever have everything we NEED for this lifestyle?" Anyway, we bought one and I can finally enjoy the surroundings on our trips instead of keeping my nose in a map trying to figure out where we are, where we're going, or how we got on the wrong road. We named our GPS system Gretchen. She has been really patient with us as we get used to her telling us what to do. When we do what we are told and turn at 500 ft. we don't get lost. When we don't listen carefully, we inveriably get off route. "Off route," she screams at us "recaculating!" I am just waiting for her to yell, "Ok, Ok, just go where you damn well please then," and turn herself off in disgust! Thanks to Gretchen we saw wonderful parts of Albuquerque that we never would have on our own. We asked her to direct us back to "home" the short way. So, she took through some beautiful neighborhoods. There wasn't much traffic either. We returned safely home and enjoyed the trip without looking a map even once. I love Gretchen...

Yesterday, we just stayed home and relaxed. Willard watched golf in TV and I read my John Grisham book. We took Duster for a walk through out the park and later Worthless took me for a walk around our rig. He got disgusted with me because I wouldn't let him catch any birds, so back into the Rig he went. I actually cooked three meals (Belgian Waffles for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and one of my creative hamburger meals for supper). We had a little jam session before popping popcorn and watching a movie in the evening. We were beginning to have "hitch-up itch" so it was good that we planned on hitting the road this morning.

Of course, we met some new friends. I met Doug and Betty while I was doing laundry. I introduced them to Willard, as they were walking by our rig later that afternoon. They just started fulltiming this year. We found that we had a lot in common. They are from the Houston area, joined most of the same RV clubs we belong to, and are headed to the Western Horizon park in Harrisburg, UT (our home park). We are both going to spend the rest of the summer in Washington and Oregon. I hope we meet them on the road and get to know them better. They seem to be wonderful people. We exchanged personal info. cards. Now, I think I will finish reading my new Gypsy Journal, a little newspaper I love to read. I must subscribe to it for it is packed with so much information on the RV lifestyle and great places to visit.