Saturday we traveled a little farther than we planned, and made an 

unexpected stop at meteor crater glad we did it was very interesting!  We also stayed in a very nice campground with a very   good price, that was needed!

Sunday we decided to go to Sedona, Arizona before we stopped for the night, I guess we should have researched it better!  We had our trailer on the truck and went down a mountain to a very high priced town that had no parking near by for Rv,s so back up the mountain we went, very scary to drive that by the way!

When we got to Flagstaff we parked at a Walmart that had a lot of other stores in the same area, we ate and shopped we also saw a lot of Rv's spending the night there even though it was early in the afternoon.  Some had their solar panels and dishes out, it looked pretty bad, not making us want to try Walmart camping.  During this stop our plug from the camper to the truck was ether pulled out or fell out, we did not know this until we got to the campground.  So today is a day off for us while it is being repaired.  Tomorrow is the Grand Canyon!

Meteor Crater Arizona

Spent Friday night in an awful campground; top dollar and no bathrooms or showers, though we did learn that we could take showers in our camper, would not want to do that very often! We headed to Arizona today and stopped at Petrified Forrest and Painted Desert, it is amazing! Pictures can not do it justice.

Had a chance to stay at a free campground outside the park, but decided that maybe free camping is not for us, a camp site has to have one  if not more of certain things:  shower,picnic table, wifi,or tv signal, last 2 only if there is no place to sit outside, and believe me we have found those sites.

Jack seen a man with a flute, I saw a man with a cane.

None of our pictures could do justice to the petrified wood

Friday, 10-14-11, we headed to the flea market, it was very slow there and we had a lot of conversations with the different venders.  Jack found a piece of jewelry to buy, but I still have not found what I want, I think it will have to find me.  We then headed to Bandielier National Mounument It was worth the trip and all the stairs that we had to go up and down.

narrow steps

There were a lot of petroglyphs, this one looked like an alien!

     WHAT A DAY!!!!!
We headed out this morning to Santa Fe, just 200 miles from were we were, it was a nice ride and it was great to see the landscape change to mountains.  Most of the buildings are adobe and blend into the landscape.  But the city is completely different to drive in then what we are used to, the streets are narrow and seem to have no order.  We decided to go to a State Park in the mountains, not a good idea! We didn't realize what we were getting into, but followed the signs to the RV camping, when we got there the turn was impossible to do the direction we were going, so we had to keep going and find a turn around.  We didn't think there was going to be one, as we were going on there was snow along the road!  We found a turn around, pulled in and heard a not so good noise, there was a big height difference in the turn around and the road, and it reached up and knocked off our sewer pipe and what was left in our tank spilled out, it wasn't a lot but enough that we had to clean it up. So we knew we had to go back down the mountain, we did go through the campground to see what we were going to miss, it would have been a great place to camp.  Now we had to figure out where to go to get the pipe put back on. We could not find any free WiFi, so we called Solomon, in no time he had 2 places for us to call.  The first was near where we were at so we headed there, but he was so busy he could not get to us.  He knew someone else that could do it, which happened to be the other number Solomon had given us so off we went. It was in the suburbs on a dirt road, in a very scary looking place.  Dave was his name, he was just finishing up another repair job, he looked it over and said he could do it, but would have to run to the Home Depot for some parts and guessed it would cost about $220 total.  I don't know why but he seemed  trust worthy and seemed to know what he was doing.he said it would take a couple of hours.  We had not ate all day and asked him how to get to a shopping center, he said we could follow him to the home depot and we would find something there, so we dropped the camper and left.  We ate and headed back, we had the GPS but we hadn't updated in a while, so it didn't know that some streets where completely closed.  It took us forever to find our way back to Dave. When we finally got there he was just finishing and the total price was $168, so far it is looking solid and is working!  Then we left and got lost right away, the GPS wanted to take us up the mountain and on some awful roads, very scary!  That's when we said no more Santa Fe!  We headed to Albuquerque and are sitting in a KOA right now.  We will brave it again tomorrow, no sight seeing in Santa Fe, just can't do it, but will drive by on the highway as we head to a flea market just north of the city, it has tons of artist there, we are looking forward to it.  

On our way to Santa Fe!

Jack had a very nice day today!!!

Roswell, New Mexico

Monday night we did our first free camping, found the site on line at freecamping.com it was a little park on a lake outside of Elk City Ok, it only had 4 sites, but only 2 had working electric.  It was a little scary because anyone could drive through  the park and they did late into the night.  Someone in just a car parked in the space next to us and spent the night.  We left the outside light on all night and the bathroom light on, how that helped, I don’t know but it made me feel better, just as the baseball bat by the door made me feel better even though there is no room to swing a baseball bat in our little camper.

We drove all day yesterday, got through Texas, the highway we were on was where all the cattle yards and slaughter houses were, and you could smell it before you could see them.

We got into Roswell,NM last night and are going out to see all the alien museums and stores today

                                                    Free camping site

                                             Oasis State Park in New Mexico, we did not stay here
                                             but thought it was a great park