Santa Rosa

Here I am in Santa Rosa. It is about 60 miles S.E. of Las Vegas. Again I am staying at a State Park, but only signed up for two days this time. I met a really nice couple at the Las Vegas campground. She is an artist and does about 23 shows a year all through western US. He helps with the framing and setting up, etc. She seems to do mostly water colours and they were very good. Her and I played our guitars one evening...taking turns with the songs. It was a lot of fun and having a few Coronas made the music sound pretty good...to us, anyway. They are going to the balloon festival in Albuquerque the first weekend in October and really encouraged me to go. However, that is quite a big city (over 1/2 million people) and it is apparently difficult to get a reasonably priced campsite during the festival. I'll think about it.

This campsite is also by a lake. Too bad I don't have any fishing gear. Not that I know the first thing about fishing. Des' kayak would be fun! My site is fairly shaded, which is good, as it is hotter than it was at Las Vegas. I am in what they call a Primitive site, which means no hook-ups. There seems to be a lot more insects here at night and before bed I try to kill most of them. There are no overhead lights at this site, so when it gets dark...it is dark! I just love those signs posted in the washroom warning about snakes! My favorite highway sign is "High Wind Area".

I am about 7 miles from the town of Santa Rosa. I had supper at a little restaurant on the old Route 66. It advertised authentic Mexican food and it was good. It was very much like what you would get at Los Palmeros in Red Deer, and the prices were about the same. Next time I will choose a small local restaurant. I drove around town seeking out the library and didn't find one. As it was getting late in the day I decided to wait until tomorrow.

I'm getting low on propane so guess I'll have to have that topped up soon or I won't have any hot water to shower with. Bummer!

Friday....found the library. Stopped at an antique dealers to ask directions to the library and visited for over an hour. The woman had moved here 6 years ago from Las Vegas, N.M. and is helping her daughter get her business off the ground. She had a ton of stuff, mostly still in boxes waiting to be put out.

I spent some time planning my next move. Tomorrow I will head off for Roswell, which is the big UFO area. Some of you may have seen the documentary about Roswell, stating that they had actually found an alien. There is a big UFO museum there. Then I will go to Carlsbad, which is famous for its caverns and bats. I will skip some of the caves as according to my info you have to crawl on your hands and knees for quite a distance to reach the caverns and I don't do confined spaces well. In the evening you can join a tour with the rangers to watch the bats take off at night...thousands of them. Could be worth seeing.

Until next signal....