# 16 Retired Tires and a Mayonnaise Cannon

We saw this at Storrie Lake. We want one.

For some reason THEY decided to go back to Storrie Lake after Heron Lake. It was probably a good thing because we had a tire blow out on the way. We girls didn't know what the noise was but then we found out. An inside tire decided to retire on our doghouse. It messed up the mud flap and had it all turned the wrong way. Stew had to saw it off with one of his tools on the side of the freeway and we drove on the messed up tire for about 13 miles to get to Storrie Lake but we still had five tires. We got four new tires in Las Vegas, NM and stayed at Storrie Lake until August 29 when we went to Elephant Butte Lake State Park.

Elephant Butte is named for an ancient volcano which is now an island in the lake, shaped like an elephant. We tried to recognize it but we think there was some ancient elixir that made someone think it looked like an elephant. It is a BIG park with lots of campgrounds. It is the biggest lake in New Mexico. People were still boating on the lake but it was way down.

Sunset at Elephant Butte

One day there was a hot air balloon launch for Elephant Butte Days. People think dogs can't see colors but this was our favorite balloon.

On another day we were taking our mid-morning nap before our lunch nap but after our morning nap. We heard something drop on the floor and were surprised to see stuff flying onto our bed. Well, SHE dropped a jar of mayonnaise and it went EVERYWHERE. Now we are in a small space so when we say everywhere we mean everywhere. It did polish up the cabinets, though. We had never seen a mayonnaise cannon before but we were sure impressed.

We've heard a lot about drones lately. We actually got to see one in person. This is a special drone called a camping drone. As you can see it is more rustic than a regular drone so as to blend in with its surroundings. We watched it watching us but got tired of it and went home for a nap.

Now we are at Uncle Don's winery in Kingman, AZ. We're gonna help do all kinds of stuff here by staying out of the way and taking lots of naps. XOXO Roxy and Abby

# 15 Bluewater Lake, Navajo Dam and Heron Lake State Parks

We put these flowers here first from the Three Raven's Coffee shop garden.
We don't see flowers very often around here.

Roxy Pondering the Blog

Our last post was about Storrie Lake. From there we were at Bluewater Lake State Park, Navajo Dam State Park and Heron Lake State Park. We had terrible signals at Navajo and Heron so we couldn't tell you anything. But we're gonna catch up now. 

Bluewater is by Grants, New Mexico. We didn't know it but there was a big biker rally one weekend in the town of Grants. We innocently went in there to go to Walmart. WHOA! The town was taken over by bikers. All kinds of booths and activities and music and stuff that bikers do. Mostly it seemed they were all checking out each other. They parked and watched other bikers cruise by. We had to go very slow because of all the traffic and sometimes we were totally stopped so we got to gawk, too. We decided not to bark because nobody could hear us anyway. And if no one can hear us, what is the point of barking our alerts. 

We saw these police on a golf cart. We hoped they had really long cords if they had to chase somebody. 

One day we went to Gallup. Ceil HAD to go to Thunderbird Bead Supply there. We did get to eat lunch out. We LOVE our plain McDonald's hamburger. The only bad thing is we have to split it. 

Here's some pictures of Bluewater Lake and the campground. The lake was way down as are all of the lakes we've been to in New Mexico.

The water used to come up to the top of this dam. But there is still enough water for boating. There are wild horses that come around and cattle, too, right in the campground. The horses belong to the Navajos. We only saw one cow wandering around while we were there but there sure was a lot of evidence that horses were around if you know what we mean. We had to watch where we walked. 

We even found a flower but they are rare with the lack of rain even for the cactus. 

You can camp right on the water. This used to be lake bed. 

We crossed the Continental Divide a few times. It was a watershed moment.

We met this lady at City of Rocks State Park, the first one in our New Mexico jaunt. She is a volunteer for the park system. We met her again at Bluewater. She adopted two greyhounds after they retired from racing. This is how she exercises them. She does this every day about 6:30 driving real slow. We would look forward to talking to them. But they had to keep moving otherwise they'd have to stretch again. You know how joggers are.

From Bluewater we went to Navajo Lake. We were there from July 22 to August 1. Navajo Lake is close to Aztec, New Mexico and a little down the road is Farmington. We camped in the Cottonwood campground. There are campgrounds by the lake but they were way too close together. The San Juan River runs right through the campground. That is what they dam up creating the Navajo Lake Reservoir. The road to get here is about two miles of the roughest gravel washboard we have ever been on. Then close to the campground it is paved. 

This used to be the barrier so you wouldn't go over the dam when you were boating.
It is very sad what the drought has done to the lakes in New Mexico. Stew said it looked like cigarettes.

This is the San Juan River Basin area and it is the second largest natural gas producing area in the United States. There isn't a lot of ranching here like we usually see because most of the land is leased for oil/gas production. These oil wells pictured below are EVERYWHERE. We even had one in the park all enclosed by a fence. 

There is a special fishery here on the river. People come from all over the world to fly fish for trout. There are a lot of rules, though. 

One day THEY went to the town of Aztec to see the Aztec Ruins National Monument. They said it has hundreds of rooms and there are still some 900 year old timbers. Some ruins are three stories high. 

They took this photo looking through some of the rooms. They had to duck.

 We got to take walks along the river. This is a crazy rock we saw. Stew said it looks like Jules Verne's Nautilus. We liked walking the trails by the river.

We had a nice spot with some trees close. We had visitors almost every day. We wanted to go and play with them but they just ignored us. 

Wild turkeys that didn't want to play with us. 

On August 1 we went to Heron Lake. Heron Lake is up by Chama in what they call the Rocky Mountains of New Mexico. We had probably our prettiest campsite yet. They were spaced nicely apart and we weren't right on top of someone. We had a great place to walk and we could see the lake from just a few steps away. There were big Ponderosa pines up here so we knew we were up in the mountains. It is 7,850 feet here so we didn't need air conditioning very much.  Winters are as bad as Minnesota only they get a lot more snow. But it gets just as cold. They ice fish on Heron Lake which gave us a little chill. It was starting to feel like fall there already. 

Our campsite at Heron Lake.

We took a little ride to the village of Chama. It is pretty small, a few shops but the big draw is the Cumbres & Toltec narrow gauge railroad. 

There was a Family Dollar store in this little village which didn't quite fit the image of the old west. We had seen a guy riding a horse up the street and he tied it up at the Family Dollar store. So we had to stop and get a picture. You can't see the store but the fence was right by the driveway. We felt better about something so new in a rustic village like Chama. 

One day THEY went to a little town called Tierra Amarilla. There is a coffee shop there that is called Three Ravens. So THEY had to go there. SHE saw it on Trip Advisor. It was real cute, THEY said. There is a garden and a porch to sit on. The coffee was good, too.

See the three ravens on the roof? They are metal sculptures.

One day we all went to another State Park called El Vado very near Heron Lake. The lake was way down. 

We had thought about staying there. The campsites are nicer at Heron Lake, but the lake itself was pretty. 

This is the boat ramp and what used to be a marina at Heron Lake.

So on August 12 we came back to Storrie Lake by Las Vegas, NM because we need to get some tires on the motorhome. We will talk to you soon. XO Roxy and Abby

# 14 Storrie Lake State Park, New Mexico

We want you to know that we help decide where we are going to go next.

We got to Storrie Lake on June 20. It was a six hour drive from Leasburg Dam State Park. We like to ride and look at stuff and sniff. Storrie Lake was really small but it used to be real big. It has shrunk from the drought. They used to windsurf here and boat and fish but now the boat ramp is closed and all that we saw out there was one lone canoe the whole time we were there. It is really something to see how the drought has affected everything. When we lived in Minnesota it's something we didn't really think about. One little town in New Mexico has run out of water. It has to be trucked in and they get shipments of bottled water. And they say there will be more like that. Of course just about everywhere is under extreme fire danger which means we girls can't sit around a campfire or grill a steak. But we understand. 

We thought it was real nice that we were warned there was a dangerous lake. 

Storrie Lake was real close to Las Vegas, New Mexico so THEY would run into town to see stuff where we couldn't go. One day THEY went to an old railroad depot. THEY were impressed that the town didn't tear it down like a lot of places do. They remodeled it and made it into a cool visitor center, THEY said. Of course, a lot of this stuff is unverified by us girls. 

The train depot remodeled for a visitor center. Amtrak still stops  here
once a day.

There is a lot of history here in Las Vegas but we girls didn't get to see much of it. The old Santa Fe Trail ran through here, some civil war battles were fought around here, and tons of movies were made here and still are. The old plaza is pretty cool, too.

Getting ready for the 4th of July in the Plaza

Old drug store on the plaza with our rock climber out front. 

One day we did get to go for a ride to see a little town called Mora, just like in Minnesota. Right before that was Salman Ranch which has a lot of history. There's an old church and roller mill and the store is in one of the old buildings. You can pick raspberries here in season. SHE went in and bought some raspberry jam and we were real interested but she said we couldn't have any. We are so deprived. 

Stew found something none of us had ever seen on our way here right by Las Vegas. It was only a little way from the park. It was a pallet farm. Now we know they grow a lot of things like chiles and pecans and all kinds of crops here but we didn't know they had pallet farms. There were little ones and big ones but we're not sure when they are harvested. But if you have never seen one, here you go. 

Pallet Farm, Las Vegas, New Mexico

We like to sit on the back of the sofa and look out the window. 

This is something we saw looking out our window. A bluebird
sitting on our water spigot.

# 13 Leasburg Dam State Park

We all got to Leasburg Dam State Park on June 10. It was so hot that we didn't do much outside. We had to hang out with the two-leggeds a lot. 

The park is about 15 miles from Las Cruces, New Mexico. This is major farming country here. We drove through miles of pecan groves to get to our camp. There are a lot of chili growers around here, too. New Mexico is the largest chili producer in the country. 

We had seen pictures of people walking up to the dam but it
was roaring this time of the year for irrigation. 

The two-leggeds went into Las Cruces a couple of times but it was too hot for us to go. It was really too hot for them to go but we girls were out of treats so we said go ahead and go. Usually if they don't take us with them we will want to go out at about 4:00 a.m. We don't really like to get up either but we have to communicate and we think this is a good way. This time we let it go since they were getting treats.   

Another thing we really like is FRESH water. The pic up there reminded us of that.  We don't like beard-wash-residue in our water bowl which happens every time we get a drink. We buy spring water in jugs for all of our drinking water, since sometimes the water isn't the greatest at some campgrounds. Now Abby is really good at getting us fresh water. She has figured out how to get the water jug to flip over getting immediate attention. And we don't want that water bowl just rinsed. Nope. It has to be wiped to get any little speck removed from that bowl. Then we are happy. 

 We are getting off the subject but we thought in case you ever get to meet us, you'll want to know how to get water for us. 

This was our campsite with a neighbor visiting. You can see  us
in one of our favorite spots for watching what is going on. 

There was a really nice picnic area but it was too hot for anyone
to be there.

We saw some great sunsets.

We had a cute adobe shelter. This is looking out of one of
the openings. 

Now we are at Storrie Lake State Park right outside of Las Vegas, New Mexico. It's a little cooler here so we'll let you know what we're doing real soon. XOXO Roxy and Abby