We've Struck Silver!

After the Geogia O'Keefe museum in Santa Fe we had lunch with Milton and Bobby before heading south toward Albuquerque. Camped in Bernalillo, just to the north of Albuquerque where we met a family from Hawaii traveling the continental states for a year. Had a good chat and got some ideas of western spots to camp from them. Headed south and stopped in Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. We saw thousands of snow geese, ducks a plenty as well as a spotted towhee and a pyrrhuloxia, the desert cardinal.

Moved on south of Truth of Consequences to Percha Dam State park for the night.

In the evening, Mr. Fix-it had better luck with the fuel filters and grease job than with the lights!

In the morning we were up early to catch the migrating flocks of sand hill cranes. A truly amazing sight as hundreds flew over for an hour or more. Scott got a close up of one on the dam take flight. We also got an early start of our daily drive.

We left the freeway at Hatch, which must be the hot pepper capital of the US. There were dozens of pepper vendors along the road. We did stop and smell the peppers....WOW!!!

We traveled around the low road to Silver City, not tempting luck to be on the high passes if the forecasted storm came early. Here we are now enjoying the wonderful Southwestern sun reflecting off "the rare" snow storm! All the locals credit us for this phenomenon. With more coming tonight and a lingering cold spell. And we mean cold!

Arrived at Susan and Marc's in the sunshine. They are grand hosts. We have hiked from their back door, toured downtown Silver City, with it's art shops and a real food coop, met great crafts people and neighbors and eaten wonderful meals. Many thanks to them both!

After several days we are now headed south to Douglas and up to Bisbee for the night. Then on to Tucson.

Til next time,

Scott and johnney