Thursday, January 14, 2010
El Rancho Mobile Home Park, Albuquerque, NM: Nov 1-Jan ??
We continue to do the same activities here also: line dancing 4-6 times a week, playing bridge 3-4 times a week; visiting Doug's dad 2-3 times a week, and visiting Doug's brother Bob and other friends. We continue to make friends here, which makes it even harder for us to pick whether to "settle down" in the Boulder area or in ABQ. There are pluses and minuses to both, and as long as we can't decide, I guess we'll just keep on traveling!!
We had to winterize a short fresh-water hose in order to have running water during the colder months. Doug got it done in the nick of time. The weather has been "colder than normal" (as the local residents have been all too eager to point out) and it has not been the most desirable place to be living in an RV, but it's better than a lot of places! The lowest temps have been in the teens, but the highs are rarely over 45. We have also gotten a new (more BTUs) ventless propane heater and two new larger-capacity electric heaters. Now we are waiting for a shipment from Amazon containing three small dehumidifiers to help with the moisture that is produced from the ventless propane heater. It produces a cup of water vapor an hour, and it really condenses up the windows and makes it damp in all the closets and cupboards. We will have to do a thorough spring cleaning when it is warm again to get rid of all the mold hiding in corners.
We have enjoyed being with Doug's family for the holidays, and despite the cold we'll probably be back here next year, although only for November & possibly December, not January. We decided to stay this January so we could play in the Regional bridge tournament. Regional (and higher) tournaments are the only places to get Gold Masterpoints, and you need 50 of them to become a Life Master, so we thought we should start trying for at least a few. We currently have 1.45! However, if we don't get enough of them at the various tournaments we attend this year, we'll just find warmer places to get them in the future!!
One of the highlights of our time here was a brief visit from our friend GB Cornucopia, ranger from Chaco. Since our rig is getting so old, we are reluctant to take it down the bumpy road to Chaco, so we think our days of volunteering at Chaco are over. Luckily, GB has friends in ABQ, so he has many reasons to visit occasionally, and he managed a visit while we were here. With luck, we'll get to see him again before we leave. Our friend Susan LeFever (from Boulder) also visited us and stayed at our place for a night. She would have probably stayed a bit longer, only she was traveling with her cat Pippin, and the cat situation was a bit tense in such a small area!
We managed to find many concerts to attend, including an outstanding program of Arias, Songs and Carols by the Santa Fe Opera soloists, with the Young Voices of the Santa Fe Opera. We attended holiday concerts by the New Mexico Gay Men's Chorus, Polyphony: Voices of New Mexico and Las Cantantes (both women's mostly a capella choruses), and de Profundis (a men's chorus). We attended a UNM student production of "Rent" and enjoyed it thoroughly. We have attended two Lady Lobo basketball games in the (in)famous Pit, a small and very loud basketball venue. We have managed to find plenty of delicious places to eat out and also several wonderful chocolate stores!In addition to the above, we also found time to attend several performances of the Metropolitan Opera Live HD broadcasts, seeing Aida, Turandot and Tales of Hoffman so far. We have tickets to Carmen in January. The broadcasts are almost as good as being there, with some parts being even better. The close-up views and the behind-the-stage interviews are more than you would get at a live performance. The acoustics are outstanding and the large screen gives you a good enough view.
Our travel plans when we leave here will be to go to Carlsbad, NM, for about a month and then head for our co-op lot in Benson, AZ, arriving the second or third week in March. We will spend the first two weeks of April in Apache Junction and play at a Senior Regional tournament nearby, teaming up with a couple from Rapid City. After that, we'll probably go to Canyon de Chelley, visit ABQ briefly, and head for the Boulder area for a month or two starting in mid-May. We hope to see a lot of you along the way or in Boulder.
Jan 1 was our 18th anniversary. We celebrated by seeing Avatar in 3-D, which we both enjoyed a lot, and eating out at a local sushi restaurant.
The cats are doing fine. Trixie just had her fourteenth birthday, but she seems a lot more feeble than our other cats have seemed at that age. She enjoys the cat bed in front of the heater most of the time, and the other cats seem willing to let this be her place. Pandora still gets into anything that we don't remember to put away. She plays with two catnip mice and her "special rope" (a piece of clothesline that we tied a few knots into) a lot and that seems to reduce her need to tear up other things. Jasmine is trying to take the place of Amber, who was a very vocal cat. Jasmine does not have a very loud voice, but she uses it a lot! She seems to get lonely in the middle of the night and need a little extra attention, which doesn't help in getting a good night's sleep!We have both had our major annual doctor visits here, and our health seems to be quite good, too, so we are starting out the new year with good health, happiness and managing to keep warm. We hope you are all doing the same!!
# posted by Doug and Willie @ 8:21 AM 
