Manzano Mountain State Park, NM

Katie and I spent a little more than a week at Manzano Mountain State Park in New Mexico.  This was our first visit to this park, which has been closed for a few years because of fire danger.  It's not near anything, so if you visit it, make sure you have enough food and supplies.  They do have a dump site and water and trash removal, and a very nice couple who are camp hosting.

It's a small park nestled in trees - the electric sites are on a loop.  Most of the reserved electric sites are nice and looked level, but the non-reserved sites were pretty small and not level.  I circled the loop three times when we arrived looking for a good non-reserved spot, but couldn't find one, and the overflow area was chained off.  A park employee told me it was closed because a group of 150 (boy scouts and their families) were expected for the weekend and they didn't want anyone parking in their spaces.  The camp hosts were in Albuquerque for the day, and so I took an open "one-night only reserved" dry site and talked to the camp host later that day.

He said he would have the Ranger take down the chain so I could get back into the overflow primitive area and choose a site at the end.  There were seven sites in an end loop that were available for campers not attending the group events.

This is our site for the first night.  Nice and level, nice shade structure with a table and a fire ring.

The next morning we went back into the overflow area - I liked that area better, but there were only two sites with enough sun to keep my solar panels in the sunshine all day, and this is the one I chose.  I actually had sun on the roof all day long - it was a very good site.  Kind of hard to back into, though, without hitting trees.  It was pretty level.  We were NOT in the desert any more!

We had some good critter activity here - first here are photos of Katie's favorites - look at the dirt on this guy - he has a hole in the soft dirt at the base of the tree right next to The Palms.  Katie could see him coming and going from her car seat:

Here he is climbing up the tree:

Below is the another lizard - he almost looked wet.  He looks pretty round around the middle, too, and I wondered if it was a she with baby lizards in her tummy. :

Below is Katie checking out the lizard hole, and of course, I made her get away from it. I didn't want her getting bit on the nose.

And so Katie just stood nearby, guarding it. (This is what she looks like when she guards me while I'm in the kitchen.)  Notice she's facing away from the lizard hole holding up her right paw.  Watching for enemies!  :)

And we had some good hummers, too:

The sun caught this guy just right in this shot:

Chirp, chirp, chirp:

This park has Ponderosa and pinyon pines, and alligator juniper trees.  Looking at the rough trunks on the alligator junipers, it's obvious how they got their name:

I was planning to stay here the full 14 days, but one morning I woke up and decided to leave, and 2 hours later, we were at Costco in Albuquerque.

It was really nice to camp in the forest with the great pine tree smell, but I think Manzano Mountains State Park, as nice as it is, was just too small for us, and the spaces, even the overflow spaces, were too close together.  With that many trees it's hard to find a spot that will work with the solar panels.  This park is pretty out-of-the way, too, and I don't think I'll use the gas to come back next year.  It's an about a two hour drive to Albuquerque.  I'm glad we visited this once, though. 

By the way, the 150 campers with the Boy Scout troups were so quiet, even though they were right  next to us I hardly knew they were there.  They were always working in small groups at different campsites, earning badges I think.  It was a pleasure to camp near them.  I honestly don't know how they kept those boys so quiet for the whole weekend. Some of the families had small children, too. Super well behaved! 

I took a photo of a camp stove one family had on their table, isn't this a good idea?  It has an oven and two burners on the top.  It's propane powered.  Very cool, so I looked it up on Amazon.com, and if you're interested here's a link:  Coleman Camp Stove.  Expensive...

I also saw a new bird while there - it's a Band-tailed Pigeon and it sure looked big flying from tree to tree:

At first I thought it was a dove, but my field guide shows that the Band-tailed Pigeon has that iridescence on it's neck, and yellow legs and feet.

Goodbye from:

From me and Katie, have a great Sunday, everyone!  :)

Touched by Charms jewelry - my order is HERE

I ordered jewelry from my Granddaughter, Kennedy's business, Touched by Charms, which is a part of Origami Owl Custom Jewelry.  I had two orders, first from Kennedy's Launch Party and then from the Jewelry Bar party that my daughter, Kristy had.  Daughter-in-law Trish and Kennedy flew up to Northern California to Kristy's house to host the party.  I ordered two lockets and some charms and they are HERE.

There are really beautiful - and you can check out what is available and see good photos of all the lockets, charms, etc., HERE. Unfortunately my photos aren't that good, but you'll get an idea and see what I've ordered.  I have to say, I just LOVE the small locket.

I wanted a medium gold locket and a mini rose gold locket - which is my favorite.  I decided not to purchase a rose gold chain, thinking I could put either locket on the gold chain I wear every day.  After wearing the small rose gold locket for a week or so, I've decided to get a rose gold chain. I don't think it looks as good on the yellow gold chain.  I've put the dangling heart charm on my chain, too.  It looks really good!

This is what I ordered:

The round circle with the heart goes into the gold locket, and I think I want a yellow "plate" of some sort, too.

I can fit three charms into the mini rose gold locket, so I put in the saguaro palm (for living in the desert most of the time), the small heart - just because, and the dog paw charm (for Katie).  I can switch them out with the cross (for my faith) and the "blog" (that's obvious), and the palm tree (for The Palms, and also because I most recently lived in San Diego, where there are a lot of palm trees).

They will all fit inside the medium sized locket, or the large size, which I didn't get.  In the photo below, I just noticed I have the palm tree backwards, oops. 

I have a little shopping list that is growing - one rose gold chain and a few more charms and one gold plate.  They are offering new items all the time, so I'll check their website from time to time until I have enough to order.  The charms are only $5, so it's pretty easy to add to my collection.

Kennedy, I LOVE my new Touched by Charms Origami Owl Custom Jewelry - thank you!  :)

WELCOME to our two newest Follows: Rebekah Ketterman, and Jan.  Neither has any information to pass on to you, but if they let me know about blogs, etc., I'll do that. 

Welcome aboard to both Jan and Rebekah - thank you for following along with me and Katie!  And let me know if either of you has a blog, so I can check it out.  :)

From Me and Katie, have a great Sunday, everyone!  :)

Katie photos

I have a bunch of photos of Katie and I'm just going to publish them all here.  Sometimes she is pretty funny.  

Here she is resting on the padded box I have at the end of the bench seat across from me where I store my printer.  Just dozing off...

And then the camera clicks and her eyes open...

Here's Katie snuggling her "baby" while she rests.

I had a large rawhide chew toy and she worked on it for two days. She usually stays right on her blanket when she eats treats or plays with her toys, but she was pretty excited about this big chew toy and I had to move her back onto her blanket.

Here she is playing with her ball.

Little by little it went down until it fell on the floor and she forgot about it.  Sometimes she'll toss it around by herself.

Walking along the concrete berm.

Here's Katie sleeping.  She often sleeps on her toys, this time she's got her ball with her.  That can't be very comfortable!

Her ankle is still swelling up, and on this morning I taped it up before our walk to see what happened.  It didn't really do much good.  See her right rear ankle with the tape?

Waiting for a treat after our walk. She's pretty patient - I always hang up her leash and put the camera away, etc. while she waits.  A few times I've gotten busy and forgotten her treat, but she'll stare me down until I remember.  Look at that tail wagging!

And here's Katie during our walks.  You can see how much room she has in the stroller - enough to stretch out her tail.  She usually sits while we're walking, but if I visit with someone, she'll lay down and rest.  If she bugs me, I put the top down and she'll usually turn around and face the rear of the stroller.  Trying to tell me something?  :)  

Her license plate, because of course, Katie is a Princess!  (See her swollen ankle on the right?)

Here we are in shadow as the late afternoon sun goes down. 

Katie loves her walks - whether on foot or in the stroller.  We've been walking a lot more since we have the stroller - usually we'll take a walk on foot in the morning, and by the afternoon we're using the stroller.  I keep an eye on her ankle, but she seems okay.  I'm not going to take her to the vet until her regular appointment in July, then we'll have it checked out during her annual exam.

She's a happy girl!

I wanted to thank all our readers again for purchasing through our amazon.com links.  It's such a nice thing for you to do, and Katie and I really appreciate it! Whether you click through to Amazon.com through the search box or a link on the side bars or through The Palms Shop, it all adds up for us.  Thank you!  :) 

From me and Katie, have a great Sunday, everyone!  :)

A little cabinetry repair and a big windstorm

I have four large lower drawers in The Palms, and they have all failed.  It's the only thing I've had a problem with in The Palms that I can think of.  The two dinette benches have long drawers under them, that's where I store miscellaneous things and electronic stuff.  They went first; I could still open and close them, but it was obvious they were off the tracks or the plastic rear mounting brackets the tracks fit into at the back were broken.

Then the large drawer under my fridge, which only holds long pants - jeans, khaki slacks, sweats, etc. came off the track.  Finally the drawer under the stove that holds my good, larger pots did the same.  They were still all opening and closing, just with a little difficulty and honestly, I don't open any of those drawers that much.  I seldom wear long pants and I have a smaller pot and pan that I store in the oven to keep them handy, and I use them for most of my cooking. 

Yesterday my jeans drawer came completely off the track and then the track came off the drawer -  so I pulled it out and couldn't put it back until it was fixed.  I put it on the couch wondering how in the world was I going to fix it.  I just didn't feel like even going there at that point.  Having that big drawer sitting on my couch, though, was taking up a lot of room and I needed to fix it soon.

This morning the pot drawer fell apart.  The bottom came completely off.  I was able to pull the side structure of the drawer out - and then got the bottom out and pulled all the pots out of the drawer opening and placed them on the floor.  Obviously today was the day I had to do some repairs.

The photo below shows a "before shot."  This was the best I could do closing the dinette drawers before the fix. The problem with these drawers is that they are long and can't be taken all the way out, the couch is in the way.  So I took the cushions and backs off the bench seats, then removed the plywood that holds the cushions to get to the inside of the drawer space.

There was a lot of wiggling around to get the right positions to do the fixes, some tracks were off and I had to bang on the sides with a hammer to force them back into the tracks, and also the mountain brackets that hold the drawer tracks were broken, so I did some work-arounds to make the tracks stay in place.  Surprisingly, it was easier than I thought it would be and they both work great now.  I'm thinking a good wooden brace going from side to side under the tracks would be a good idea to hold things in place.

The next photo shows the mounting brackets that the tracks fit into.  I think the weight of the filled drawers is too heavy and some of these were broken and/or the screws were out and the bracket wasn't connected to the wood, so they needed to be fixed and screwed back in with longer screws.

This is what it looked like after the fix - the drawer closes completely flush and it runs smoothly on the tracks:

The photo below shows the two drawers in the kitchen - one under the fridge and one under the stove.  They were both fixed, as well as the dinette seat drawer on the kitchen side of the table:

Below is the pot drawer - I had to nail the bottom back on - it was stapled on before - what a horrible way to put cabinetry together!  Especially in a kitchen - where one would put pots, pans, maybe even cans of food.  No wonder the bottom fell out.  Then I screwed the track back on with longer screws and it's all holding just fine now and sliding in and out as it should.  It's so nice to have all the drawers working again!

So...  if you have some drawers that aren't running smoothly, it's not really a hard fix to get them "back on track."  And if your rear mounting brackets are ruined, you can get new ones to install.

Elephant  Butte Lake was covered in white caps during our big windstorm - there were even little waves coming up onto the beaches.  Boy, the wind and gusts were really something!

I didn't see a single boat out on the water all day.

Katie and I stayed inside as much as we could, with just a few short potty walks when necessary.  It was time for a little comfort food, so I made on of my favorites, New York Pie (I just named it -I make it so often, it deserves a name). It's a dish I ordered when I was in New York City at a vegetarian restaurant.  One of my friend's sisters worked there and she recommended it.  I've posted it before, but here it is again: 

Cook some rice and put it on the bottom of a plate, add a layer of cooked broccoli and cauliflower pieces on top of the rice.   Pour some Marinara sauce over the top, cover with grated cheese (I always put a LOT of cheese) and microwave until the cheese is melted.  Then top off with sour cream.  OMG, I love this dish and it's so easy to make!  I always cover the plate with it, thinking I'll save half for a leftover meal, and I always finish the whole plate.  YUM!

Below is a photo of the western sky the afternoon of the big storm.  I thought there was a fire in the west and the sky was filled with smoke, but it turned out to just be dust.  That's how fierce the winds was.

There was a pretty moon rising amid some clouds in the eastern sky, which was mostly a pretty blue.  The western sky was dark and dust-cloudy and the eastern sky was pretty and blue.  Weird.



















As the sun was setting, it glowed in the orange sky.









I took a bunch of photos of the sun as it was going down. I used a couple of different settings; don't these almost make your eyes feel like you're looking right at the real sun?

We know it's not safe to look directly at the sun, and the last time I took photos like this I did some research and learned it's not safe to look right at the sun even through the camera lens. 

And the sunset skyline with the dust clouds all around:

Here's The Palms in the glow of the orange sunset as the clouds were blowing east over the lake:


WELCOME to our newest Follower, Jan!  Jan is one of our followers who has no information and no photo, so I can't give you the scoop.  Katie and I appreciate you following along with us - Welcome Aboard, Jan!  :)

From me and Katie, have a great Tuesday, everyone!  :)