Rex and Nancy's Travels - "ALL WHO WANDER ARE NOT LOST" - JRR Tolkein

We left Albuquerque Monday morning and headed northwest to Aztec where we visited with Nancy’s uncle Lonnie and Aunt Roylene.   We enjoyed visiting and playing “zilch” a great dice game they taught us a few years ago.    We also had to take a trip to Wines of the San Juan to get some of their great wine - Nancy found a nice wine rack to use at our house. Friday morning we headed to Arizona and arrived home midafternoon.   It is great to be home although the house does look different without the big cactus out front which fell down in a storm in August.  

We all left Chama on Thursday morning and headed to Albuquerque for the Balloon Fiesta.   We are dry camping together on the fiesta grounds.   School buses pick us up right here in the RV park and take us to the front gate for every event.   It is wonderful not to have to fight traffic to get to Fiesta Park. We attended the Thursday evening Special Shapes Glow and fireworks display.    We got to see lots of different special shape balloons but the glow seemed to be a bit disorganized.   The fireworks were great. We got up early Friday morning for the special shapes launch.   We had a great time as we really love all the different balloon shapes. There are lots of new shapes – notice the fire hydrant at top right and the fire truck below.   At the bottom left is part of the red fire chief’s hat.   We wonder how some of these balloons fly. Nancy’s favorite from past trips to the Balloon Fiesta

The days are getting cooler and the nights are getting really cold – it has gotten down to freezing a couple of nights so we had to deal with keeping the water lines from freezing. Our friends from Arizona, Tom & Donna, arrived on the first for a visit and to ride the train.   We were joined by their friend, David, from Maryland.   We had a great ride and the colors were still beautiful although it is getting towards the end of the season. We also took a scenic drive and as Donna is a professional photographer Rex got a couple of photography lessons.   He got a couple of great shots of the train.   This one is of a double header crossing the Chama River directly behind the campground. Here the train is making its way up the Chama Valley towards Cumbres Pass - the colors are still beautiful.

September is here and it continues to rain every day! Rex will take over the Docent Coordinator position for the month of September.   Besides his regular docent duties he will be responsible for scheduling the docents and taking care of any problems as they arise.   He has to open the docent office every morning before the train leaves and then again every afternoon when the train from Antonito comes in. We enjoyed a Labor Day cookout with the campground providing hamburgers and hot dogs and everyone bringing a dish to share.   There was lots of great food and good company.   This was the first day since we arrived here that it has not rained – YEAH!    The weather continued to be beautiful after Labor Day - sunshine and very little rain. Nancy’s sister, Carol and her husband, Vince, visited us the middle of the month for a few days.   Carol, Vince and Nancy enjoyed a wonderful ride on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad. The three of u

We left Loveland RV on Monday morning and had a beautiful drive south through the Rocky Mountains to Chama, NM.   We are staying at the Rio Chama RV Park on the north side of town.   We stay here every year and it is good to see the owners, work campers and other friends we have made over the years.   It rained every day in August, sometimes just afternoon showers but we also had some thunderstorms and down pours.   Everyone tells us that July was dry and hot but August was sure wet and cool.   Rex took advantage of a couple of mornings with sunshine to wax the 5 th wheel. Our little garden is certainly liking the cool wet weather – we were able to start using our lettuce and kale in salads towards the end of August. Rex is again volunteering as a docent on the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad.   He gets to ride the train a couple of times a week and enjoys sharing his knowledge of the train and the area with the passengers.

Sunday we continued our trip to Colorado and arrived at Loveland RV Resort just in time for a downpour.   We had to wait in the truck for a while before we could unhook and get set up for our stay here. We spent 8 days visiting with Nancy’s family and also with our good friends Bob and Jean.   We enjoyed out time with Nancy’s son, Chad, his wife, Kim and our granddaughter, Mariah.   Also, we thank Kim for the much needed haircuts. We drove to Longmont several times to visit with Nancy’s parents.   We really miss them in Arizona in the winter. We spent a couple of afternoons with Nancy’s sister, Carol, and her husband Vince.   We greatly appreciate the use of your laundry facilities! We also saw Nancy’s oldest sister, Kathy, and were finally able to see the Condo she bought last year.   We enjoyed our time in Colorado visiting with family and friends.   After driving around Fort Collins we decided we moved away about the right time a

We left Donnellson Saturday morning and continued our trip west to Colorado.   We stopped in Elm Creek Nebraska and spent the night at Sunny Meadows Campground.

We arrived at Donnellson, Iowa where we are staying at Wilson Lake Park, a very nice county park surrounding Wilson Lake.   We have a great full hook-up site with lots of shade trees.   We are visiting our friends, Larry and Pauline, who are snowbirds we met in Arizona.   We spent 2 days driving around the southwest corner of Iowa between the Mississippi and Des Moines rivers. One stop was in Bentonsport which was established in 1836 and was a steamboat port on the Des Moines River until the railroad was built to Des Moines in 1866.   Many historic buildings are still standing like the Mason House Inn which was built in the late 1840s.   It served steamboat passengers and other travelers under a number of owners.   Its barn reportedly sheltered runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad.   It is now a bed and breakfast with 9 bedrooms furnished in 19 th century antiques.   We stopped at a great shop down the road called Iron and Lace which sells Queen Anne’s Lace pott

We left Ohio Tuesday morning and drove to Champaign, IL where we spent the night at D & W Lake RV.