And now for something completely different...

We returned from Arizona to Hidden Valley Ranch at the end of March.  The wind was blowing and blowing and blowing.  Miserable weather.  

Was it time to do something else?  In the past two years, we've only been at Hidden Valley for about four or five months.  The remainder of the years we were on the road or in the park in Arizona (last winter).  With increasing age, it gets less attractive for us to wander around the country, taking the risk that if one of us has a health problem, we can find adequate care.  In the past couple of summers, we've seen most of the major national parks in the west and last summer we wandered around in Utah, riding off-road trails.

Deming gets unbearable (in my opinion) temps in the summer, lasting until mid-September or later.  This year it hit 107 degrees the first week in June.  Too hot to stay there.  About 70 miles away is Burro Mountain in the Gila National Forest.  There is a very old park, originally a homestead settled in the early 1900's.  Altitude is 7,000 feet so it's substantially cooler.

Burro Mountain Homestead

Just down from the lodge is a metal sculpture of a buzzard.

There is NO hunting inside the park.  The outcome is that mule deer have free run of the park and have absolutely no fear at all of humans.  Even though every incoming camper gets a copy of the rules stating DO NOT FEED THE WILDLIFE, dummies insist on doing it anyway.  

We had only been in the park for a few days when we made a run into Silver City, about 20 miles away.  On the way back, we were about two miles from the entrance to the park (up a 7 mile gravel road to Burro Mountain) when I looked at the gauges and saw that my right rear tire was losing air at a frightening rate.  

We limped into the park and made it to our site and saw the tire had failed.  Since we hadn't tried to change a tire on this truck, we had a horrible time trying to figure out how to drop the spare tire.  Some neighbors saw us struggling and came over to help, as they have the same truck.

Years ago, Larry Downey told me that RVers are the nicest people in the world.  If they see you might need help, they stroll over and volunteer.  In this photo, Kevin is lying on the ground to Mike's left, Jane at Mike's right is getting ready to crawl under the truck.

After all this excitement, we decided to make a run to another local peak.  More interesting experiences.  Jack's Peak is miles down a county road before you get to the road up the peak.  So it is a boring run.  We made the turn at Gold Gulch Road, proceeded a mile or two and saw CRIME SCENE tape.  

Across the road was another sign on a post reading WARNING:  BAD BEAR IN AREA.  Okay, what happened here?  

We went on to Jack's Peak, took a few photos, and went back the way we came.  I went into the office and saw they had posted a sign warning of a bear attack on a camper (a stupid camper, I might add).  The Continental Divide Trail runs through this part of New Mexico.  A very inexperienced camper had food in his tent.  The bear wanted it.  The bear got the food and the camper got a trip to the hospital.  Last I heard, rangers were looking for the bear to relocate it to a more remote area.  

Speaking of wildlife, it abounds here.  One of the park managers told us that there is an adult female cougar in the area and two juveniles and to be careful about the dogs.  We have seen javelinas, wild turkeys, and lots of mule deer.  It's no surprise that there are cougars; when you have such a large population of prey animals (the deer), you will have large predators.  No wolves left but there were once wolves here as well.   

Both of us liked the park so we signed a lease for a year.  The 22 foot Lance is just too small to live in for an extended time.  On a whim, I checked an RV dealership in Hatch, NM, 150 miles away and the nearest dealer.  I had heard they did not take the longer trailers as they were too hard to resell so I didn't expect to find much.  Voila!  They had a 2017 38 foot trailer which served our purposes.  I will post photos in the next blog.  

We drove down to Hatch, looking forward to eating green chili cheeseburgers at a famous restaurant down the road when we finished at the RV dealership.  Imagine our disappointment to find we had hit a day when the restaurant was closed...  But we did close a deal on the trailer so the trip wasn't wasted.  The dealership took the Lance on trade and delivered and set up the new trailer.  All I had to do was get out of the way.

I will get this out and start another post.  With any luck, I will get it finished in less than a couple of months!

Life at Burro Mountain Homestead

In the last post, I gave a quick overview of Burro Mountain Homestead.  Here's a bit more detail.

We have a site which is on a ridge above the main campground.  No one behind us, as you can see from the photo.  Lots of trees, junipers, pines, oaks, and others I can't identify.  A dramatic contrast to the view at Hidden Valley of desert and Cooke's Range in the distance.

  

There is a game trail which passes behind our place, just downhill from us.  The deer use it as a pathway from one end of the ridge to the other.  

We have one doe who likes to come onto the site to visit us.  She is so tame she would eat from our hands if we gave her the opportunity.  When we have had the dogs out and she has wandered in, she is not intimidated in the least by the barking.  She just sneers at them.  

I asked one of the park managers what happens to these deer when hunting season opens.  They have no fear of humans at all.  He said as soon as the first rifle shot of the hunting season is heard, every deer in the county comes into the park and stays until hunting season is over.