livingthedreamwithsallyandvic/wp-admin

We’ve been back to Clermont FL for a week now. We had a great Thanksgiving at my sister Holly’s with her husband Andy. Holly prepared a meal with all the trimmings and it was a feast. Holly put on a five star spread.

Dessert was amazing too. My friend Darla, who has a baking business gave us a pumpkin roll, a super yummy concoction.

Now we are working on finding someone to take over our lot with all the structures we have. We are hoping to have that happen by the end of December. After that we will float between military bases, elks lodges, harvest host and the occasional RV park. Next spring we plan to drive up the east coast seeing family and friends along the way. With the solar and lithium we have and also a composting toilet it is easy for us to live off grid. So that’s the plan. Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Stay safe! XO

We stayed 5 days at Ft Bliss in TX. It was easy living with a dog park near by and we needed to wait out some bad weather. Today we are in Sonora TX just for overnight. We drove into town for gas, it’s a very dilapidated sad town.

Here we are

There are guineas roaming around here in a large pack. They are skittish and I couldn’t get a good shot.

Surprise! There are peacocks!

Next to us is a shady grassy area perfect for Zoe walks.

Diesel gas was $3.29, not bad at all!

Next stop San Antonio TX.

Stay safe XO

We are planning to leave tomorrow and head back to Florida.

The Sandhill Cranes have been coming in along with Snow Geese and various ducks.

Before we leave here we have some final pictures to share.

Not sure if I mentioned this before but this refuge is about 57,000 acres. It has extensive gravel roads and many walking trails, also several boardwalks or raised platforms for wildlife viewing. The place is huge, so wonder we’ve seen the variety of wildlife that we have.

We’ve had an enjoyable stay here. Hope you’ve enjoyed our photos.

Stay safe XO

Although we heard the meadows wouldn’t be flooded until the middle of November, we are seeing more and more water every day. We’ve seen snow geese (no good pictures yet since they have been too far out). Here is what we have been seeing.

These deer have enormous ears

We’ve seen several of these pigs. There seems to be a couple of different groups.

We plan to stay here a while longer now that the water is coming into the fields. The songbirds can’t be far behind.

Stay safe friends. XO

This town has one thriving business, a bar lol. No gas station or store if any kind. You have to go into Soccoro, about 8 miles for anything. There is a post office but I’m not positive it’s functional.

It’s got a reputation for great burgers. We met someone who raved about their green chili burgers so we each got one. They were tasty but I needed a fire extinguisher after I ate it.

A few days ago was Road Runner Day. We saw at least 4 of them. They are very shy and elusive.

The wildlife refuge has some interesting animals we don’t normally see (like the black bear in my last post) and the buck elk (too far out to get a good shot) and the bobcat (ran across the road so fast there was no shot of that either. Most of the meadows are dry. Management floods these fields on a schedule. The Sandhills will be migrating in a few weeks and the fields will be flooded for them. We’ve seen many Sandhills and are not waiting around for that.

The visitor center supports birds and Gambel quail with bird feeders and blocks of suet. There is a large area filled with native grasses, cactus and other native plants, with meandering paths, a very nice man-made habitat. This is where Vic got the male and female Pyrrhuloxia.

He also got this adorable Gambel Quail.

Here are some of the animals we saw while driving around Bosque, an area of almost 6 thousand acres.

We are waiting out a heat spike before moving on from here. Our plan is to be on a military base before Nov. 5. No matter who wins I think there will be some unrest and I want to be in a safe place.

It rained hard last night so this morning we set off with high hopes to see what we could see at the Refuge. These kestrels were the only birds but you won’t believe what else we saw.

Vic has been trying to get this bird for years!

He’s so happy we saw this bird. There were actually two of them.

We’ve never seen one here before.

These were all from this morning in one pass around the Refuge.

We stayed two nights in Santa Fe at Elks Lodge 460. Last year we felt so bad from the altitude we didn’t see the city at all. This year we felt much better and spent several hours seeing the area around the Plaza.

If you squint real hard you can see Zoe and me on the steps.

We spent some time walking around the Plaza and seeing all the shops. It rained a little. It was brief but enjoyable.

With several days of rain in the forecast we left this morning for Bosque del Apache NM, a well known wildlife refuge. A man owns 13 acres with a house and an RV park with 25 pull through sites. He’s 75 now and has everything up for sale. Price is 1 million dollars. Hope someone buys it, it’s right next to the refuge. The perfect place to camp and go birding.

The weather here is windy and gloomy with rain possible. Hopefully we’ll get some bird pictures when it clears up.

Til then …

Quiet, peaceful, beautiful landscape and loads of wild animals. With so much to enjoy we decided to stay a few more days. Also, bonus, it’s free!

A person working at the only thriving business in town, namely the gas station/convenience store, told us there are camels in the area. Randomly, the owner of the camels was there at the same time and told us where exactly to go and see them. He rescued these two hump camels from zoos, circuses, etc.

The visitor center is open today. we spent some time chatting with a park employee who told us where to look for hawks. We had fun driving around seeing what follows.

Only one rest area open on 180 mile trip and it was 20 miles before the end. 😡

This place (lake 13) is really off the beaten path, we are the only ones here!!! It is very quiet.

The Aspens are shining and there are lots of birds since there is a good sized body of water.

We drove to the water, the road is designed to protect the animals. It’s raised and only goes a quarter of the way around the water. It ends with a turnaround loop. There was a herd of antelope.

We’ve enjoyed the quiet. It’s been amazing but strange to be the only campers.

We are going to Santa Fe tomorrow for an overnight. The high altitudes have been rough on Vic so I don’t think we’ll be able to do any sightseeing.

Next we are going to Bosque del Apache wildlife preserve in NM.

We wanted to stay another couple of days to enjoy Dawn’s company. Then Thursday morning Vic was checking all the tires and discovered one had a problem. Off he went to get two new tires. One to replace a front tire and one to replace the spare. All in all we have bought 7 new tires in this trip. Ugh

We visited Cheyenne Mountain, a state park. Well, we got as far as the visitor center since the elevation was between 9 and 10 thousand feet. I don’t think Vic will ever get used to the higher elevations.

The first night we were here Dawn did not stay over. On her way back to Calvin’s house where she rents a room she saw a wolf and took this video. We think it’s half wolf and half dog but it sure was scary at the time!

We may leave tomorrow or else Monday. We’ll see what happens.

XO