Tombstone

"One boob says to the other, if we get any lower they'll think we're nuts"  ...The funniest thing I heard all day. 

Can't say who said it cause he would be too embarassed since within two seconds of him saying it I told him I was putting that on the blog and he turned bright red.  Today we went to Tombstone and saw some big double D's today in Big Nose Kate's Saloon.  I wondered if this poor lady when she gets dressed up everyday like a 1880's prostitute to go to her waitressing job and looks in the mirror just shakes her head at herself.  They were short on staff today and she was literally running around in this skimpy outfit, glad she didn't hurt herself.  Tombstone was really really cool except for the STALKER.  More about that later.

Tombstone court house.

The mail stage, a fee gets you a ride in it!

Lowell, Tom, Vicky, George, and neighbor playing Sunday afternoon!

The outlaws in the courthouse, Lowell, Bobe, Vicki and Tom.

Me and Bobe in the courthouse. Whenever I see myself in a picture I still think who is that gray haired lady??? Oh..its me.

More courthouse...

more historic courthouse, blah, blah, blah...

Ride'em cowboy Tom Smith.

This big scary guy came by wearing this bird and gave him to Vicky and this bird started necking with her right away, look at her face, she almost had a hickey when they were done.

Bobe just confessed that he have the scary guy his last five bucks.

Downtown Tombstone. 

The graveyard.

Tombstone has wooden sidewalks.

Okay so when we arrived there this weird guy  was standing there like he was waiting for us to get there and started following us right  away.  He followed us right into the restaurant where we ate breakfast and he drank breakfast and everytime I looked at him he was STARING at me.  I thought.  Everyone got up to leave and I went in the restroom and when I came out he was waiting for me and walked me to the door, and I said to him "Have a nice day" as the hairs on the back of my neck stood up he said" Are you sure"? in a foreign accent.  I rejoined the group on the sidewalk and he followed us into every shop until someone mentioned him (creepy man following us around) to one of the store owners and he had a talk with him and we didn't see him again for a while.  When we went into Big Nose Kate's Saloon for lunch I looked over and there he was sitting right near us at the bar.  CREEEEEEPPPPPYYYYYY.
Tomorrow I will add more about our ride yesterday.
Bobe's two cents:  Tombstone was pretty cool but big tourist trap.  I would go back and go through all the stores next time we go down there we will stop in Bisbee.  It looked like snow out here today when we got home from Tombstone.  It was just hail.  See y'all later.

Tucson

Arrived in Tucson just a little over 24 hours ago.  Sitting here under the awning in SHORTS and T-shirt with bare feet and white legs.  AHHHHH, this is what we came for.  Went riding this morning in 40-50 degree weather turned to almost 75 within a couple of hours.  Saw every kind of cactus on the planet I think.  It is like another planet here, vegetation wise.  Beautiful.  Everything here is sporting prickers of varying sizes so you don't want to stick your hand out to touch anything while out riding, even the trees.  You carry a comb and pliers with you to pull the stickers out of you or your horse.  But we are surrounded with mountains.

This is the Catalina State Park about 3 mile horseback ride from here.

Lowell and Vicky

How cool is that thing??
More later...

Onto Tucson

Good Morning,  Well, we are on the road once again.  We have been staying at Hugh and Jeanne Bishop's house, camped in their barnyard for the last couple of days. 

 The sweetest people ever, wouldn't take our money for camping.  They are very high up Mounted Shooters, world champs even.  They have one of the superstar horses of the sport who was featured in Shooting Magazine.  They sold us two bales of hay for $9.80 each.  It was all Terry and I could do to carry them to the trailer, the size of a coffin and over 100 lbs each.  I wasn't sure I could even lift my side of it but we wrestled them into the trailer and now have  hay for a good while.  We haven't touched the hay on top yet so we are doing good not overfeeding Lady and the Tramp.

This is in Jeanne and Hughs back yard.

Jeanne's shorty neighbors, check out their heavy winter coats.

Lady and myself, the weather was absolutely perfect that day for riding, cool air and warm sun!  We rode through a million pricker bushes out there, the horses were good sports though.  We rode by a few beautiful adobe type houses sitting on the top of the hills.

Bobe and The Tramp.  This morning when I went out to feed, The Tramp was playing kissy face with Jeanne's gelding.

To get out of the pricker bushes, we took this road quite a ways.

A short video, let me know if any of you can see this.

We walked up the hill to Bishop's house and turned around and shot this pic of our campsite, can you see the trailer? The little town of Gila is just to the left, there is a po, 3 churches and a store.

Bobe's two cents:  We are heading into the Texas Canyon in AZ and it is 55 degrees.  It looks like the old western movies with all the gigantic rocks.  The sun is shining and it is a beautiful day.  We are surely making memories.

Gracie and MaryJean are doing great traveling with us.  Yesterday we went to Silver City to get dogfood, a computer thingie, went downtown in the historic part and found the best antique store.  It was the perfect mix of antiques, jewelry and art.  I bought two heavy glass turquois colored small wine glasses for  the trailer.  The town is full of artie hippies, they leave dogs in the back of pickups in town and many businesses claim to be dog-friendly including dog water bowls on the sidewalk.  One store had a cute gray cat and the owner made beautiful glass beads.  We had a lovely day in town, went back to the ranch and had happy hour (3 hours) with Jeanne and Hugh before saying goodnight.

We are pasing the Tombstone exit right now and plan to come back here to ride through town.

Tuesday

Not sure what happened but the second half of my post didn't make it so this is a continuation of today's earlier one.

Now we are in Las Cruces, NM, It is one gigantic long strip mall. 

Back to coming out of the mountain this morning. We managed to bull#@%^ long enough with our host Kent and his son Cole that most of the snow had melted before we left. The roads were dry and fine and Bobe did a great job driving us out.

The road out from where we were camped.

More of the road out.

See that white patch way out there, that is White Sands National Monumont.  Up close it looks like a gigantic white sand box out in the middle of yellow grass desert.

All of the sudden the mountains were right there and we went through this little tunnel.

We are off to Gila, NM today for a couple of days riding there near Silver City then off to Tucson, AZ by Friday where we meet up with some Michigan friends.  Looking forward to shorts weather and taking these darned long johns off finally.

Out of the mountains

Good Morning all readers,  We have left Mayhill, NM heading towards Silver City, NM.  We woke up to 15 degrees, a frozen water pipe and the realization that we would have to drive out that mountain road on snow.  It only snowed a little though.  Lady and the Tramp were happy and warm in their warm blankets although when Terry went out to feed them last night they were very agitated and scared of something that was OUT THERE.  So I did wonder what it was that was OUT THERE.  Between the elk, deer, wild hogs, coyotes, wolves, wild horses, loose cows, mountain lions and who knows what else I figured a cow came near them and they freaked.  They are the horse versions of "City Slickers".  What one isn't afraid of the other one is.  Hopefully after this trip they will learn to be brave.

Into Thin Air

Yes the speed limit in Texas is 80.

Camped at the Fairgrounds in Ft. Stockton, TX FREE

This is the fairgrounds and it is in the middle of nowhere and quite a dustbowl.

Howdy all,  Sorry we dropped off the radar screen for a few days but we landed Friday in Mayhill, NM at Gillespie Ranch, a 200 acre cattle ranch butted up against the Lincoln National Forest.  The air is thin there about 8000 feet I am guessing and no cell service.  On the way there from Spicewood, TX, we drove through the middle of nowhere, for those of you who have seen Lonesome Dove, when they are in west Texas and Gus says "Not even a chigger could live out here", that is where we were.  You could see forever in every direction as it was completely flat and nothing can grow out there.  A little creepy if you ask me.  Anyway, so we are driving out of that and into the mountains and are on this crazy dirt mountain road about 5miles from the ranch we are going to, no guardrail and no signs.  We weren't sure we were even on the right road and it was steep and windy.  I started to get that "WE COULD FALL OFF THIS ROAD WITH OUR RIG FEELING" in my stomach.  I was thinking about Pocahontas not loving that road either.  Well we finally got there after crossing numerous cattle guards (yes they hold a lot of weight) and seeing loose cattle.  Once on the ranch we had to drive up this really steep swithchback just to get to the campground and I was wondering, "Holy Crap, do people really come up here with a rig like this and we have to drive out of here in a few days and is there a flat spot of ground in this whole county"??????  We made it, thanks to Bobe.

Camped at Mayhill, NM on Gillespie Ranch

Awesome horse accomodations.  Mayhill is about an hour south of Ruidoso.

Looking out the other way from our campsite.

We woke up to snow!  As we were riding down this trail we spotted a huge coyote just staring at us as we passed, it was not afraid of us one bit and I was concerned for Gracie.  The dogs did great going with us, it is mountain country, very rocky but nice wide trails, wide enough to drive on.  Not scary at all just really beautiful riding in the Ponderosa Pines.  We are so far out here that the ranch has the last electricity and phone service in the area.  They get the water from up on the mountain and pipe it in with a black plastic pipe that just lays on the ground.  He did drill a well for the cows and it is 800 feet deep!  He says there are elk, deer, mountain lions, wild boar, coyotes, wolves and a few big snakes.

Beautiful view out riding.

short video

In the little town of Mayhill, we had breakfast here and it really is still a hotel.  There were about 4 businesses in the whole town.

Driving to Ruidoso from Mayhill

I am still standing here in the laundry may writing on my blog. Tomorrow we are off to Silver City then onto Tuscon by Friday.

Friday

Bobe's two cents:  We left Austin and I drove all day with the sun in my eyes going west.  About 60 some degrees, finally seen some out west country.  Camped at Fort Stockton, TX  a free fairgrounds once again.
Nugene's 50 cents:  Okay so we were driving today, and saw gazelles, 6 camels and some big red deer with white spots.  It's a jungle out here in Texas.  None of these creatures were housed at the same location and those weird red deer weren't in a pen, just beside the highway.

Since I am late in blogging today due to lack of signal all day while traveling we have to back up two days.  We went to see the Alamo.

Bobe in front of the Alamo.

Nugene behind the Alamo.

This huge memorial is right in front of the Alamo, I took this picture so you all could read it.

This lovely lady stands over those remembered.

The side.

The other side, isn't that carving amazing?

Just so you can get a grip on how big this thing is, here is yours truly standing in front of it.

For those of you who don't know,  the Alamo is right smack in the middle of downtown San Antonio. (if you come from here it is pronounced SanAnTone)  So it was all I could do to stay downtown very long after we saw the Alamo.  I did manage to get him to walk the riverwalk and eat lunch there outside next to the river before he couldn't stay in the city ONE MINUTE LONGER.  Back to Spicewood we went, about 1-1/2 hour drive.

Yesterday we, meaning Terry, Carrie and myself went to Fredericksburg, TX, a quaint German town with an amazing museum, the Nimitz Museum/Pacific War Museum and George Bush Museum, all in one. Also great shopping especially the Dogology Store.  We toured the museum while Carrie went shopping.  It was a great place but we got museumed out before we got to the George Bush part so we'll have to stop in there again.  When you buy a ticket it is good for 48 hours and now I know why.

Riverwalk

This was in Fredericksburg and I took it for my very special Aunt.  You know who you are.

The museum.

Well we had a great visit with Tom and Carrie Scrima, founders of ACTHA.  Check out their website for a fun and friendly trail competition.
Goodnight for now, tomorrow I will post pics of our lovely campsite at the fairgrounds.