Fourth of July Parade

We got up early this morning and drove into the Pagosa
Bakery for breakfast.  We were early enough to get a parking space on the street with enough room to put our chairs in back of our car.  We were parked across the street from this really neat store.  They had beautiful hand woven baskets and pottery.

Patricia and her dog, Camie, joined us as we waited for the parade.  We had good seats for a great parade.  There was a guy flying around in an ultra light as we waited.

To start off the parade there was a flyover by nine planes varying from single wing to bi-wings.

Then came the color guard with active duty and veterans of a lot of different wars.

  

The parade marshal was riding in a beautiful buckboard being pulled by two beautiful horses.

There were elaborate floats all the way down to people walking and lots of horses.  I took pictures of every one of them and then realized that there was no way I could upload them all on my blog so I will pick some of my favorites.

This was the high school band who smartly chose to ride on a float rather than walk.

Pretty horse and pretty carriage.

This was a creative way to have both the flag and the mountains depicted.

  This is a young Apache Indian boy from the reservation south of here riding bareback.

There were several old cars and truck in the parade.

I had never seen a Roller Blade group in a parade before.  They were very good.

This being four-wheel territory, there are lots of them in the parade.

I don’t know what kind of horses these are but they are beautiful.

The Freedom Rides were represented as well.

The dome in the center of this float represents the hot springs that flow into the river.  It really looks like this.

There were even angels in the parade from Visiting Angels, a in-home care business.

There was even a broken-down truck with the participants pushing it.

This float represented the air rescue service that operates here.

Another old car.

 

These people were from the “Painted Lady.”  I don’t know how the lady in blue made it in those high heels.

 

This float was by the Mt. View Housewives advertizing their upcoming auction.

Not many parades have rafts with rafters.

There are lots of places here to take advantage of the hot springs in pools and hot tubs.  These guys looked like they were having fun.

I liked the eagle.

And another old car decorated for the occasion. 

This float belonged to the local hospital.  Note the “doctor” with the saw cutting off the man’s leg.

  This is the company that came out and washed the coach the second day we were here.

   

The parade took about an hour to go by and with a two hour wait for it to start we were ready to go back to the motorhome to get ready for the picnic this afternoon.

Chama to Pagosa Springs, Colorado

This is Chimney Rock which is on the Ute Reservation.

 

We arrived at Pagosa Springs before noon and got set up.  This is the view of the fountain from our site.

Here is the clubhouse with the deck overlooking the San Juan River.

 

And the walkway between two fences to the right of the coach on the left leads down to the water where there is a covered picnic table and places to fish.

The owners of the park, Vic and Mike, and their wives, Diane and Tammie, host a Meet and Greet every evening at 4:30 on the deck at the clubhouse.  The are very friendly and helpful.

Here is a view of our park from the deck at the clubhouse.

As you can see we have a shed with a covered seating area beside the motorhome site.

Wednesday evening we went into town for dinner and on the way back I took these pictures of the San Juan Mountains.

Tonight the owners are providing the main course of an Italian dinner and we are all bringing side dishes.  This is a fun place to be!!

Alabama to New Mexico

We got up Saturday morning in Red Bay, Alabama.  The generator started so we left headed to cooler weather.  We made it as far as Van Buren, Arkansas before stopping.  Unfortunately the generator didn’t make it that far.   Or rather the two inside ACs refused to both work on the generator.  We’re not sure exactly what the problem is.  We stayed at Park Ridge RV Campground where they had a long pull-through so we didn’t have to unhook.  It is right on a river.

We were parked right next to a pop-up camper that I’m sure was not too happy when we pulled out at 6:30am the next morning.  We were trying to beat the heat.

We made it to Amarillo, TX the next night at around 3:00pm.  It was a record day—111 degrees.  We stayed at the Overnite RV Park which also had long pull through sites.  We stayed in the coach to stay cool.  At 7:00 the Big Texan limo picked us up at our site and took us to the famous Big Texan Restaurant.

The reason it is world famous is that you get this 72 oz steak free if you can it it and the accompaniments in one hour.  The record is 8 minutes and 52 seconds.  We didn’t even attempt it.

The decor throughout the restaurant is western.  All of the waiters and waitresses were in great western dress.

 

This is the stage where people who try to eat the 72 oz steak sit and they set a clock for 60 seconds and it counts down as you eat.

There are also country western singers milling through the crowd and singing requests for a fee.

They also had a bar and a shooting gallery.  All the little red dots are what you shoot at.

 

The experience was interesting but the steak left a little to be desired.  We got up early the next morning and headed out towards New Mexico.  The air was cool so we didn’t need the AC in the coach.  We stopped at Clines Corners for lunch.  It is at the intersection of old Route 66 (now Highway 40) and Highway 285/84 to Chama

I had forgotten just how beautiful the drive up to Chama is.  After we got past the smoke from the Los Alamos fires the sun hit the rock formations just right and it was great.

This is the area where the Ghost Ranch is.  It is where  Georgia O’Keefe painted.    Wikipedia, notes, “she returned to New Mexico in the summer of 1934. In August of that year, she visited Ghost Ranch, north of Abiquiu, for the first time and decided immediately to live there; in 1940, she purchased a house on the ranch property. The varicolored cliffs of Ghost Ranch inspired some of her most famous landscapes. In 1977, O'Keeffe wrote: "[the] cliffs over there are almost painted for you -- you think -- until you try to paint them.” 

Ghost Ranch is now a conference center owned by the Presbyterian Church.

We arrived at Little Creel RV park in Chama hoping to see Ray and Ann who work camp here.  We met them when we spent the whole summer here about four years ago.  Unfortunately they won’t arrive for two more days.

This is the view of the river to our back.

Tomorrow we will drive for about an hour to our summer home in Pagosa Springs Colorado.