Wow before long we will once again be hitting the road. However this year will be way different than any other summers for us. You see, ever since hitting the road back in 2000, we have worked every summer.
Our first summer was at a private park in Ortonville, MN and there after working for varies Corp Of Engineers as gate attendants, ending last year working for Colorado State Park near Grand Junction.
Last summer we had not planned on working, but due to turn of events-a short term stay turned out being a summer time job. This following summer we are determine to finally NOT work and spend time doing some traveling.
So where will our destinations lead us? One of our Corp contracts was out of New Mexico between Albuquerque and Santa Fe and we so loved the land. We took short quick trips on our two days off and always said we would love to go back and enjoy it more. So that is our plan-to enjoy Northern New Mexico.
Plans are to leave the Quartzsite area around the 1st of April. Depending all on weather, will determine our first destination stop in NM. It maybe either Navaho Lake, or Blue Water State Park, or if either of those don’t work then we may hit Villanueva State Park. But like I said-if weather is still too chilly in any of those parks, then we will have no choice but to hold back a few weeks and then we will go to Mohave Lake (Katharine's Landing on the AZ side) during that time.
Since we license out of New Mexico we can purchase a one year camping pass to any of New Mexico’s State Parks. The normal fee is $180.00 (in resident), however with Brian being legally blind, we can get that pass for only $100.00. Which means we can stay at any State Parks at no other cost to us. Now if we decide that we should need electric, then we only have to pay $4.00 a day; but we choose no electric we pay nothing. And the best part is we can stay up to 21 days at any one park, and most have hot showers!
So now comes the planning part. We use all of our resources that we have to us. One being the old fashion way-the Road Atlas Maps. We have purchased another book which has proven to be a life saver to us already and that is: Mountain Directory West For Truckers & RV’ers. Then we go to more modern day technology and we use the Internet and research New Mexico’s State Parks and which ones we want to visit.
Now it’s time to put some kind of itinerary plan into affect. So that we know an estimate mileage, we use Streets & Trips software and, we have purchased the DeLorme North American Topo software to help us know the terrain we will be in.
By the time we leave Quartzsite and end our tour in Fernley NV in Oct we will have nearly 2500-3000 miles on the motorhome. Then we will use the car for all of our side trips and day adventures.
Now will all that said, in the next month, those that follow my blog, you will see a slight change to the blog. It will be done more in a journal format of our day to day adventure. Due to the areas that we will be going in, it maybe weeks before I can get anything publish, but when I do, there will be several published at once. Most times we won’t have Internet or cell phone connections in the areas we are planning on going.
To give you an idea of some of the areas we plan on visiting are: Jemez Falls, Taos & the Red River Area; along with some of the National Forest in Northern New Mexico. We have friends that work for Land & Leisure in Southern Colorado, bordering NM and we might pop in for a few days to say Hello. The state parks that we will be staying at are: Navaho, Heron & El Verde, Coyote Creek, Cimarron just to name a few.
Brian and I are very excited about not working this summer and finally adventuring our great country and can’t wait to see what is up ahead.
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