Ah, tranquility! How much of it do you get? I’d call my life interesting and generally enjoyable, but only rarely tranquil. This week we started up the motorhome (unlike on my birthday last month) and went to a nearby lake for a couple of days with our dogs. There we met up with friends and had a great time gazing at the water, going out in their canoe, sharing dinners, going for long walks with the dogs, and not going online because we couldn’t. The weather was heavenly, the fall colors coming out on some of the trees. By going to … Continue reading →

Fulltime RVing is a different lifestyle, all right. We  loved the five months we spent last winter and spring, exploring New Mexico and staying in the NM State Parks while continuing to run our internet business and write books. We often talked about the best reasons to be a fulltime RVer,  and  about fulltiming ourselves. Here are the top five reasons to make your home on the road, and then the one that surprised us. 1. Low Cost Living in a portable home tends to be very reasonable in cost. Sure, some rigs are expensive but everyone can get something that … Continue reading →

Our plan for tomorrow is to go home, the first time I can say that since last November. We’re in northern New Mexico, and home is in southern Colorado, so it’s a realistic plan! Kelly and I have been talking about the many beautiful places we’ve been and the great people we’ve spent time with. We’ve been to about a dozen New Mexico State Parks plus an assortment of other spots. We’ve spent quite a modest amount of money. We’ve had decent internet maybe 90% of the time. And we’ve gotten a lot of work done… We both finished books … Continue reading →

Silver City, NM, is a town of something over 10,000 people, off the beaten track in SW New Mexico, about an hour’s drive from Deming. Kelly and I have been in Silver–as people often call it–for almost two weeks now. We had come here once, about 15 years ago, to visit friends who are no longer here. Silver City has a food coop, where I figured I could get some of my favorite foods that aren’t in any New Mexico grocery stores we’ve been to, like ume plum vinegar. The town has a style that reminds us of great alternative towns we’ve … Continue reading →

We’ve just spent ten days at the South Monticello Point campground, part of New Mexico’s Elephant Butte State Park, but some ten miles north of the better-known parts of the park. Why? Several reasons… [1] Kelly and I both love water views, and we stayed in Campsite #25, with one of the best views. We had to use the telephone reservation service and pay an extra fee for our days there, as all the spots with the best views were reservation sites, but it was a luxury we were very happy with. We were parked not far from the edge of … Continue reading →

I could have come out of the thrift store with a fabulous dressy wardrobe suitable for a high-powered office job, but I passed by all those things, plus the adorable size 8 blouse that I couldn’t get into. That still left me dozens and dozens of choices at the excellent Helping Hand thrift store in Deming, NM. The first time, I was there, it was with my husband, and I quickly picked out this top:   Yesterday, when we were going into Deming to do laundry and groceries, I asked him to do the laundry and to leave me at … Continue reading →

Yesterday afternoon I glanced out our motorhome window and saw a medium-sized black dog trotting by. Luckily, both of our dogs were asleep on the floor and didn’t bark. I went back to my computer. I looked up a few minutes later, and a horse was following the route the dog had taken. No humans were to be seen. We were camped on our land, which is in the middle of many acres of undeveloped land a few miles outside of Deming, NM. As it happened, Kelly was out on the land with his camera. I was pleased to see him walking … Continue reading →

We watched a video about people who are living good lives in RVs, vans, trucks, and so on, several of them very happy on around $500 a month. The program is under an hour and it certainly held my attention. I first heard of Without Bound because Bob Wells, one of the people interviewed for this program, has a website and runs a forum at Cheap RV Living. I check in there often and share ideas with others. This program  is well worth watching if you’ve thought of wanting a simpler life. There’s a lot of discussion of how much … Continue reading →

The other day, we drove twenty minutes into Deming, NM, from Rockhound State Park to do laundry, get groceries and a few other things, and have lunch out.  I was surprised to get a life lesson as well: I’ve been a snob. About Deming. My perceptions started nearly twenty years ago, when we were full-timing in these parts one winter, staying here at Rockhound, at Poncho Villa State Park down in Columbus, and at other places in the area. We made some good friends in the Columbus area; two of them have since died and one now lives in Canada, but we do still … Continue reading →

I admit it: we’ve gloated a lot on this New Mexico trip about the weather, that is, about the relatively benign weather we’ve been having compared with the frigid temperatures and numerous snowstorms that folks in our hometown in Colorado are experiencing. When I read a discussion on a Facebook group for the town about what’s been happening as people drive on black ice, I thanked my lucky stars. (I didn’t read about any serious harm done but there were sure some wild slides in cars on the ice.) It’s a lot warmer here. We are about as far south as … Continue reading →

We’re in southern New Mexico now, at Poncho Villa State Park, right on the edge of the small town of Columbus, NM and about 3 miles from the border with Mexico. Yesterday was Christmas and it was very windy but fairly warm. We walked the dogs with new friends, had dinner with old friends, and had a generally nice day. Not the white Christmas that our town in Colorado was having, but that was okay by us. I enjoyed the holiday music we played from the internet, songs like “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow” and “Frosty the Snowman” continued … Continue reading →

“Yes, five million gallons a day come up into Lea Lake,” Joe said. “They go out through that ditch over there, and we have overflow culverts too. From there, they go into wetlands, through BLM lands, and eventually on into Texas.” I couldn’t believe it. Lea Lake, the largest of the eight Bottomless lakes, is about 15 acres in size and said to be about 90 feet deep despite the “bottomless” nomenclature. I had found Joe and Blake, two of the Park Rangers at Bottomless Lakes working near our motorhome, and I was asking them how there could be so much water … Continue reading →

We’ve been camped at Sumner Lake State Park for over a week now, and we love this place. Most nights, our solar panels have given us enough power that we’ve been able to stay right by the water’s edge. The weather has been nice enough for us to be outside more, but even when inside, we’re happy with water views from every window in the rig. “It’s soothing to the soul,” Kelly said. Kelly has been roaming around with his camera, and here are a couple of the results:   Raymond added that the park is on a natural flyway for waterfowl … Continue reading →

“I’m guessing you’re a full timer,” I said to the tall man with a friendly smile who was camped a couple of sites away from us at Conchas Lake State Park in New Mexico. I nodded at his South Dakota license plates, but his camping setup was also a clue. His SUV was loaded with plastic containers that looked organized and he hauled a small cargo trailer. Just beyond it, he had a good-sized tent set up. “Yes, I am,” he said, “Call me Bandanna Dan.” I soon learned that he was from back east and had been camping in … Continue reading →

I woke this morning at first light, listening to the raucous cries of wild geese  taking off from the lake down the hill from our campsite. Finally, we were on the road again, and if I hadn’t been so fixated yesterday at dusk on checking our little device that tells us the quality of our Verizon cellphone and internet signal, we wouldn’t have driven past the entrance to Clayton Lake State Park. As a result, we inadvertently explored dusty back roads of northeastern New Mexico till after dark. Still, we managed to find the state park, get a level spot, … Continue reading →

We had a spring snow right after we bought a 32-year-old Tioga motorhome. Over an inch of snow sat on the roof of the rig, and it was a perfect test of the roof. What we discovered was water dripping down, over the kitchen sink and the sofa.  My husband Kelly wasn’t bothered.  “I expected things like this in an old vehicle,” he said. “It’s not impossible to fix a leaky RV roof.” I was glad he thought so! To the left, you can see a few of the several dozen holes that turned up. Right away, he caulked the dubious places … Continue reading →