It’s moving day again and this time we are leaving New Mexico for Arizona. We had a really good time in New Mexico, I think my favorite part was Santa Fe. But today we are on our way to one of the very few “commercial” campgrounds I booked. I found it on a website called Hipcamp. It’s similar to AirBNB but for camping. I needed one day just over the Arizona border so our drive was not too long.
We left camp about 11:00 and took Route 66 through Albuquerque. It goes just about through the middle of town. It was pretty relaxing but too almost 1 ½ hours to get through the city. Then the directions told us to cross the freeway at a specific exit and I missed it. In my defense I couldn’t see the exit number. Well the road we were on dead ended and Keith had to turn the camper and truck around and go back about 5 miles. Oops. Being the navigator is a very hard and thankless job. Most of Route 66 in New Mexico and Arizona is actually on the freeway and the guide book suggests you get off at several exits to see the sites and towns along the way. It was about a 4 hour drive to our next camp which means it takes about 6 so we didn’t get off the freeway much. We also have a very strong cross wind so it was a struggle for Keith to drive. Somehow you knew when crossed from New Mexico to Arizona. The whole landscape changed. The land flattened out and became more desert-like. Kind of pretty.
After about 7 hours of driving (don’t ask) we finally got to the exit for Rainbow Ranch. Which by the way is one exit beyond The Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. I hope Keith will agree to go there tomorrow. We had to backtrack almost 5 miles and then turn on an unpaved road. Then google maps had us turn on a dirt road? (path) As we bumped along thinking we were going to Georgetown (if you know you know) I told Keith to just go over the rise. It should be on the other side. Lucky for me (because there was NOWHERE to turn around. We made it over the rise and there was the ranch. Well ranch is probably a very misleading term. But Jorge was lovely and we had the place pretty much too ourselves. Since there was no electric we tried out the solar panels and they were great. 180W out of 200W. We made chicken, potatoes and corn for dinner. Joey had a bit of a hard time because there was no grass to pee on. Just sand and dirt. But she figured it out. We didn’t unhook because we were leaving first thing so we watched the sunset and went to bed. Rainbow Ranch was pretty neat.
Solar Day 14