Showing posts with label Brantley Lake State Park. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brantley Lake State Park. Show all posts

Thursday, August 27, 2009

A FEW TRAVEL MEMORIES & ANSWERING SOME QUESTIONS

ALWAYS SOMETHING GOING ON IN OUR FRONT YARD

It was almost cool enough this morning to kick on the furnace but we held off knowing the HUGE cost of electricity in this Province. Would you believe that on every Ontario Hydro customer's monthly bill there is a section called, Debt Retirement Charge!! This is to pay for the huge bungling & blatant fraud at the top management levels years ago where CEO's etc were caught with their hand's in the cookie jar, especially the woman at the top who I am sure is continuing her lavish & spendthrift lifestyle somewhere. Millions & millions of dollars greedily scooped up by money grubbing executives & now the rest of us Ontarians are in chains forever trying to re-pay the unpayable debt!!!!!!!!!!

Well, not the nicest way to start off a blog but it just sort of popped out. I shall now endeavour to lighten up do better:))

A VERY SLEEPY LITTLE MOTORMOUSE TRAVELER IN OUR GMC TRUCK.....PRE-MOTORHOME DAYS

Kelly had the day off so we just kind of puttered around at small stuff. I'm going to start transplanting some things & re-doing flower beds shortly now that summer is winding down. Our jungle outside is growing so well that it is threatening to swallow us up. We may even have Rhinosaucerous's & Hippoplotamooses roaming around out there.
KELLY USING OUR LAPTOP IN THE LOBBY OF A HOTEL IN WHITES CITY NEAR THE CARLBAD CAVERNS....2006

Our computer has been slowly slowing down for a long time so to-day we un-hooked it, took it to Goderich & had 2 Gigs of RAM memory stuffed into the back of it. We were back home up & running in less than an hour. Definitely operating faster now. May even have to install a seatbelt on our computer chair. Computer is 3 years old & would like to get 2 more years out of it at least.
Had a couple boondocking questions from a blog follower to-day. "How long do you stay out there and how do you do with water & electric????" REST STOP PARKING LOT IN THE GUADALUPE MOUNTAINS NEW MEXICO

With our 2 solar panels & 4 batteries we could stay in the desert indefinitely. Solar is basically just like having electricity in your house but there are a few things like air conditioners & micro-wave that we would flip on the generator for if we ever used them. During our winter months it is rare to ever have to use the A/C & we only use the micro-wave briefly while maybe heating up a cold coffee or something. Length of stay in the desert is determined mainly by the black water holding tank. This is your toilet tank:)) The bigger the tank you have on your rig the longer you can stay boondocked. We generally get 10 to 14 days out of our tank then we have to take the rig into town or wherever there is a facility for emptying black water tanks. There are books out & an on-line site I think that will tell you where these facilities can be found across the country. RVing folks usually know where they are. For example, when we left Quartzite Arizona last January heading for Casa Grande we knew there was a dump tank facility in Gila Bend because we've used that one 3 or 4 times in our travels. It's behind the Shell gas station just in case your in the area & needing to make a dump. When you get there just give the water hose a salute, open the drain lid, & tell the underground holding tank, The Bayfield Bunch sent you:))
OUT FOR A WALK IN THE GUADALUPE MOUNTAINS WEST OF THE CARLSBAD CAVERNS

Another question came in about Brantley State Park northwest of Carlsbad. Nice park & very clean. It's not a big park though, sits atop a hill, & can get windy. You can find it here....BRANTLEY SP. We stayed in the Limestone campground. There is also an RV Park at the junction of the 62/180 highway & road (Whites City) that leads up to the Carlsbad Caverns. Obviously a nice park at one time but it had fallen into disrepair & neglect when we were there. The ?? Hotel at the junction looks after it now & we were able to get Wifi in the lobby there. The campground had a great hot water shower though. We just stayed the one night so it was fine for us. We left there early in the morning & did a lot of coasting down the Guadalupe Mountains to the west because we were running with a nearly empty gas tank. We never would have made it to El Paso & luckily we found a little gas station along the darkened pre-dawn road. Parked beside the tanks, went back to bed & waited for the gas station owner to show up & open the gas station later. Whewwww, close call!! WAITING FOR THE LITTLE GAS STATION TO OPEN SOMEWHERE NORTH OF EL PASO, TEXAS

We later went through El Paso Texas & finally ended that long day at Pancho Villa State Park in Columbus, New Mexico. Traffic was heavy as we somehow got swept right through El Paso & out the other side. Only pics I have of El Paso were on our return home a few months later when we ran into snow & slushy roads there. Not nice!!!! HEADING EAST OUT OF EL PASO JUST AFTER A BIG SNOWSTORM

I have come across some fellow RV bloggers websites these past few weeks & will list them here. Some of these folks have signed on as Bayfield Bunch followers, & others I've just kind of stumbled across. I would like to put everybody's site on our "Blogs We Follow" but I'm afraid the list would just be toooooooo long. Here they are & if you have time, stop by & say Hello to these fine people. Also want to thank my fellow bloggers & readers again for all the comments. I do manage to get around to pretty well all of the blogs & leave comments sometimes myself but kind of feel bad when I don't. Oh well.....if a Chinaman falls off his bicycle in Beijing I would probably somehow feel bad about that too....................................:(( THIS IS WHERE I GOT MY BLACK COWBOY HAT

http://chrisscorner-chris.blogspot.com/ Welcome Friends to Chris's Corner
http://adventureswithtassie.blogspot.com/ Adventures With Tassie
http://bruceandmargiesfulltimejourney.blogspot.com/ Bruce & Margie's Fulltime Adventure
http://mtnairetravlers.blogspot.com/MtnAire Travlers CORA'S NOT SURE WHO THIS GUY IS WITH THE FUNNY LOOKING THING IS ON HIS HEAD...."MOM, MOM, WHO IS THIS GUY!!"

GROANER'S CORNER:(( And in the immortal words of Sesame Street's Kermit the Frog........"Time is fun when your having flies:))"

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/
The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.