Church on the Hill & Yuma Territorial Prison

We have been looking at the Church on the Hill across from Pilot Knob RV Park all week, so today we went to have a look. When we got to what we thought was just a little church on the hill we found a whole interesting center with Central Store, Restaurant, Pyramid, monuments, and of course the church. We were told that it is the center of the earth and they had the original spiral stairs from the Eiffel Tower. The monuments were granite slabs with the history of the US, California, Arizona, humanity, and they have 5 acres to develop.
After the church we visited the old Yuma Territorial Prison and seen the history of how the prisoners lived and worked. The graves were just piles of stones like you see in the old westerns and the cells were just holes in the walls with six inmates in each cell and no frills.

Yuma, Az

Two days in the desert boondocking was great fun. We met some other B.C.er's and enjoyed some beautiful sunsets. We moved into Pilot Knob for the next week and waited for our friends Chuck and Shirley to arrive. It was great to see them again and we enjoyed a chicken supper on the ronco. Today was Mexico to see what we missed in the last seven months.

John F. Kennedy Park & Del Sol Casino

Today was J.F. Kennedy day. We visited the park and watched the fishermen enjoying their day at the lake as well as toured the picnic park.

We went for a hike in the desert with a guide froim the resort and had lunch before returning.

After a bit of Christmas shopping (yes, Christmas shopping) we decided to have supper at the Del Sol Casino. As it was we missed the 2 for 1 prime rib that they have on tuesdays and we will not be here for the seafood buffet on saturday. Along with that we also left some money for them.

Biosphere2,Oracle, Az

Today we went for a tour of the biosphere2 just outside of Tucson. This unique stucture was created to better understand how natural environments create habitable conditions for human sustainability. It is a unique facility that can be used to understand the role of life on Earth and the effects of climate change. Biosphere2 consists of five of Earth's biomes, plus a human habitant and a large ecological experiment facility. The University of Arizona manages Biosphere 2 since 2007.

Arizonas-Sonora Desert Museum, Tucson, AZ

The desert museum is a world-renowned zoo, natural history museum and botanical garden, all in one place. They have displays of living animals and plants native to the Sonoran Desert region. We went into the hummingbird Aviary, walk-in aviary(different birds of the area) ,cactus gardens, reptiles, earth sciences center, etc, etc. all while Chase was having a day at the groomers. We even managed to find a super Walmart and a casino that we plan on spending some time in tomorrow.

International Wildlife Museum, Tucson, AZ

What an interesting place. They have animals from all over the world starting with insects and butterflies to lions, giraffes, and even mammoth, of course they are all stuffed but very realistic. The museums motto is conservation, education and preservation. It was a very enjoyable day. On our way back we stopped at Old Tucson that was built for the movie Arizona and also used for other films after that.

St Clair Winery, Deming, NM

Today we decided to sample the wines of New Mexico. We went to St. Clair Winery here in Deming, New Mexico and tasted some very good wines and of course we had to have some for ourselves. The weather was great again and we planned our route for the next week. We decided to spent it in Tucson, Az at Diamond J's RV park. It is a few miles out of town but we want to have peace and quiet after the trains in Deming.

City of Rocks, Deming, NM

Woke again with a beautiful day. We went to the City of Rocks just outside Deming, New Mexico. It was amazing. There are campsites within the hugh shaped rocks and lots of hiking trails into the desert and mountains.
From the city we drove to Silver City to check it out. It is a fair size city but not much to see close to the city.

Las Cruces & While Sands

Another great day. We arrived in Las Cruces at Sunny Acres RV park. It is an adult park with lots of trees. We went to White Sands Missle Range and White Sands dunes. There were missiles from the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s. At the White Sands it is amazing how the sand looks just like piles of snow. They even plow it when the winds blows it across the roads. They have picnic tables throughout the park and it even makes you feel cool looking at it. We walked the dunes and took some pictures even though it was getting dusk. We went for the walk at sunset but it wasn't on today.

Elephant Butte & Truth & Consequences, NM

We are having a great time in Elephant Butte and Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. We toured the Elephant Butte State Park and Truth & Consequences yesterday and had lunch at a pub/restaurant overlooking the lake. There were dozens of houseboats, motor boats, parasailers, fishermen, ATVs in the 33 mile long state park. You can easily see that this is a busy place in the summer as there are boat and rv storage everywhere. It is said that the towns doubles in the summer.
Today we visited Chloride, as old silver mining town. The silver is not so profitable now so they have discovered a white substance in the soil that is used in kitty litter. There are only 10 year around residents in Chloride and some rancher in the area.

Terry Bison Ranch & R.V. Park, Cheyanne, Wyoming

We found this great ranch just outside Cheyanne that has everything. There is a small town atmosphere with small children's fair, train trips around the farm, gift shop, pub, restaurant,bison, camels, horses, etc. Alot of the things are closed for the season but they have activities going all summer and it should be a fun time then. They sell bison meat at the store. It was abit expensive but well worth it.

Conestoga Campgrounds, White Sulphur Springs, Montana

We traveled to White Sulphur Springs, Montana for our first day across the border. It was a good campsite but right out in the open and windy. We woke to chilling temperatures and got under way.

Visit with granbson

I took two weeks off from Manning at the end of August to fly to Ottawa to visit with our daughter and son and family. Gramma put our grandson, Sam through training at gramma camp. We visited Gordon (from Thomas the train), spent time at all his favorite place. I had a great visit and I was able to help our youngest daughter get her condo ready to sell. She sold it to the second people that looks at it and that was good as she had already purchased a house.

Sam (4 yrs) helped gramma get around Ottawa whenever we got lost. He would say turn here gramma.

Tanya and I also drove to Barrie, Ontario to visit my mom for her 89 birthday. We had a good visit and found her in good spirits.

September - October, 2009

We spent time with Herb & Maureen, Denis's brother and family in Quesnel catching up with everyone. Thanksgiving was great, we eat thanksgiving dinner at friends and then another at our daughter and family in Williams Lake. We bought a different vehicle that we can tow behind the motorhome and Denis (and I) are happy to be rid of the dolly.
We spend time with Denis's cousin in Cranbrook and they are traveling down in January and we plan to meet up with them in Quartzite. From there we spent time in Castlegar with our other son (hockey player that stayed with us about 20 some ago. We hadn't seen him for two years and enjoyed his wife and 2 children. He gave us some Elk and Deer meat that we had to bring across the border. After that visit we traveled to Calgary to visit Denis' sister and brother. When we were leaving we discovered that we had some trouble with the motorhome so were delayed until Denis fixed it. We made it to Milk River, Alberta last night (halloween) and crossed the border (without any trouble)at Sweetgrass, Montana to arrive at White Sulphur Springs today. We encountered some snow passing through the Lewis and Clark National Forest but we were 7000 ft up so what would you expect this time of year.