Day one of the trip got off to a slow start. I had installed a new tire pressure monitoring system on the trailer. It had been a pain to set up – it took like an hour of going back and forth in the owners manual to figure out what had to be done to get it working right.
After all of that it started barking at us on route 35 just before we got on the interstate. Saying the tire pressure was too high. I had just guessed at a number and it was too low. I hadn't figured that the air inside the tire would heat up even in the winter due to the heat of the rubber against the road. So I did some quick math and reset the upper limit – problem solved.
I learned one lesson the hard way that first night. I had a new little buddy heater for inside the trailer. I set it on the stove that first night. Figuring that as the heat rose it would not damage the metal vent above the stove. Well the heater was at a slight angle and above the stove is the microwave. The heat caused cosmetic damage to the plastic cover. Yikes. It does not look pretty but it still works. Now the heater goes on the floor.
The 2nd day on the road went fairly uneventful until that evening when we were about 5 miles from our destination – Wichita Falls. A car was merging and I went to the left lane after making a quick glance at the mirror. Suddenly a car zoomed into my view on the left. For a moment we had 3 vehicles across 2 lanes! When we got everything sorted out we saw that the reason we didn't see the car was that he had his lights off! What an idiot. A Texas highway patrol went by shortly after. We theorized that the trooper was looking for him and that was why his lights were off.
I will say that the highways in Eastern Oklahoma weren't too bad. But the roads in Western Oklahoma seemed to get progressively worse. Almost like they ran out of money when they got to that end of the state. After passing over another section of bumpy road, I quipped that no wonder they have so many bronc riders in Oklahoma – They just get a strap and see if they can hold onto their pick up truck for 8 seconds on the highway!
But it was nice to pass through and see the road signs for places you only heard of in country-western songs – El Paso, Abilene, Lubbock, Tulsa, Amarillo and so forth. We played some old time country music on Sirius and it helped put us in a Western frame of mind.
We arrived at Chosa Campground outside of Carlsbad Caverns and set up for the night. This was the 2nd time around for Becky and I, it was Zach's 1st visit. He was interested in some of the formations. Not sure how interested that he truly was, he is from the internet generation so it takes a lot to hold his interest. He did say that he liked the mountains in the area. I think from watching all of the Westerns, he recognizes the terrain.
Next place of interest was the Gila Cave Dwellings. It is a place that you really need to have a desire to get to. It is about 35 miles of winding, twisting roads. It must be an old game trails that got converted over to road. Speeds range from 25 to 35 miles per hour. It would be a great road on a motorcycle, not so much in a pickup truck. You definitely could not relax behind the wheel at all.
Becky wanted to go with us on the walk – despite her mobility problems. I cautioned her that the article I read showed that it was rugged terrain. On we went, and it was struggle at times for her. Both Zach and I had to help at times. Zach was a real trooper though, kicking rogue rocks off the trail and taking Becky by the hand - leading from the front while I trailed behind in case she fell backwards.
We finally made it to the caves. It seems like they would have made a very defensible location and well sheltered. The Mogollon Indians must have been short judging from the height of the roofs. Besides the caves, it was a good location for a settlement. A creek on one side and a spring on the other.
We spent the next day trying to check out Silver City. The museums were shut down due to quarantine and the restaurants were takeout only. We did get some take out from a Mexican restaurant. We were able to check out the humongous copper mine about 12 miles outside of town, that was about it as far as sightseeing. The tourism industry is taking a hit big time from Covid.
With an abundance of caution, we are getting Covid tested before seeing Mom to be sure that we did not pick up anything on the trip here. Then cooling our heels at a campsite in the Coronado National Forest for a few days to make sure no one gets a fever or any symptoms.
The camping area is called Sunny Flats. There is a dry stream bed nearby, but they must get some gully washers. The sign says that if there is rainy weather then the campground may close due to flooding. We are like 10 to 15 feet above the banks of the creek, so they must have some real gully washers.
So if floods weren't enough to worry about, the bulletins by the restrooms give cause for more concern. Keep dogs on a leash and small kids close by – there are dog eating cougars in the canyons. And yes that was cougars with an 's', so more than one apparently. Another posting says to watch for rabid foxes. Then of course to be wary of rattle snakes. Although with the snow on the ground, they are hibernating until warm weather. Anyway as Dorothy said, we are not in Kansas anymore.
There is a hiking trail by the campsite. It says Ranger station one mile – it must be an Arizona mile as I hiked a good ways and did not see it. I did see another couple and they said the trail does not go directly to the ranger station, you have to look for it through the trees. So there is a good chance that I walked right by it.
I did come across something curious on the trail, 2 small stone buildings with heavy steel doors that had a faded warning painted on them “Danger Explosives” both buildings looked to be long abandoned. A long lost mine closeby? Explosives used to clear out rock for the roads? I will have to find a ranger and ask.
It snowed during our stay – about 6 inches is my guess. It is supposed to warm to 60 by next week, bu t we will just have to hunker down for now. No cell service in this canyon, we have to drive about 8 miles or so to check email and such. So very primitive conditions for this era.
We got our Covid tests back as negative and so we proceeded to the ranch. There is substantial excavation where they appear to clearing the brush and making it into pasture. New barb wire and posts are up. They tore down the old wooden windmill that stood beside the road back to Mom's. It was sad to see a pile of rubble where it once stood. Progress I suppose, but for no more room that it took it seemed that it could have been left there or moved. It was part of the history of Rodeo.
Mom's truck wouldn't start – and it was right where we had parked the trailer last time. Close to the electric pole where we could plug into the outlet and power up the trailer. After trying unsuccessfully to jump start the truck, I got a chain and pulled it forward about 20 feet and we parked for the night. We did go inside and see Mom for a bit before turning in. Seemed to be in fairly good spirits and we had a few spirits ourselves before turning in.
The next day I had to run Mom to a pain clinic in Las Cruces. It was a long drive. They had her take a couple of Xanexs to steady her nerves before her pain shots. I think it was 1 to many as she slumbered all the way home and seemed unsteady when I walked her into the house. Hopefully the shots are beneficial, we will see in a few days when they kick in.
Zach was gung ho as a ranch hand while I was gone. We had discussed some things we could do to help out around the place the night before. So he went ahead and got a start on the projects. Getting the outside straightened out and getting a wood pile moved from the front yard to the back. I got home around 5 and he worked until dark when we brought him in for supper.
Grandma Susan has some health issues. She waited for us to get here on this visit so that she could be driven to a pain clinic for a shot. Then she got a corona virus vaccine. But we found that she had low oxygen from a COPD issue. So we had to take her to hospital and now she is on oxygen all of the time. She is a very reluctant patient. She has been very independent and now she is tethered to an oxygen tank.
Our tourist activities are in the background for the time being – at least until she is stable and has adapted to this new situation. She really wanted a back pack unit for mobility. But the small unit was not able to produce enough oxygen. So they did say they would try it again in a week and see if there was any improvement.
So Zach and I are getting some things done around the ranch, clean up, fixing fence, etc. We are doing some local sight seeing and looking for interesting rocks and minerals here and on the gravel roads. There was a giant volcano millions of years ago and created a lot of the rock formations and mountains in the area.
One local store that is worth noting is a mercantile store in Animas. It is an old timey general store that has a little bit of everything. Milk, eggs, fencing, hardware, just about anything that folks living in the middle of nowhere might need. While I was in there a couple of cow hands from a local ranch came in there. Had they not driven up in a big pick up truck, they would have looked like they rode in from the range circa 1885. One was huge – like a size bigger than me, the other was a Mexican fellow – both wore cowboy hats and boots. I felt like a greenhorn as compared to them.
I was surprised to find a town named Cotton – and yes they do grow cotton there. There were also several groves of pecans, a few irrigated hay operations and the always present cattle. I spoke to one of the nurses while waiting for a doctors visit to finish and found that she and her husband had about 300 cattle scattered over about 28 sections of land. Out here it takes many acres to support just one cow.
Part of the reason we came here was to give her rides to some medical procedures where she needed a driver. So we started making the rounds and early on we found she had low oxygen. So the 1st hospital we took her to put her on oxygen and released her - I think this was on Tuesday.
Then she got worse later this same week and we finally had to call for help and they took her by helicopter to another hospital. She was not in the best condition that morning, but she did ask for chicken soup and sat up in bed to eat it. But later that day she got less and less responsive. Finally I called 911.
She has had COPD and she now had some respiratory problems with fluid in the lungs and pneumonia. She was in pretty bad shape and we were fearful that this may be it. When the doctor is asking about do not resuscitate documents, you know it's serious.
But she is a tough old bird. I was surprised to get a call late last night from her. She has no memory of the helicopter ride. She let me know that she is getting better and we talked a little.
When we took her in, she seemed to be knocking on deaths door. Could barely speak and move. But she has done a 180 and is on the mend. She has not been released yet, but she should be going to an assisted living place for rehab in the next few days. We are still waiting for a long term prognosis - will she need oxygen from here on out or ?, how long will she need to stay in assisted living, etc.
Not happy with that 1st hospital, but I am satisfied with Gila Regional in Silver City. Also I have empathy with others who can't visit ill relatives due to Covid.
At the 1st hospital in Deming I had to sleep in the parking lot - she was not released until 4:30am. At that point, why bother releasing her, right? Then I also had to deal with a hyper vigilant guard in the parking lot who was not happy where I parked to get wifi. I finally just left and went to a truck stop to browse a little and finally drift off to sleep.
Then I had to rely on phone calls to nurses and doctors to get statuses at the 2nd hospital - no visitors allowed. Next, I will have to talk through a window at the senior center when she is moved there.
Well Mom is not happy at all with the senior center. But we want to be 100% that she is stable and that the doctor OK's her release. They finally agreed to release her on Thursday. She still needs oxygen, so that looks to be an ongoing thing.
In the meantime, we took Zach on the long promised trip to Tombstone. He seemed to like it OK. We had a good meal at the Longhorn Saloon. Becky got a few items from the tourist shops. Zach was not interested in the shopping, but tolerated it well. We are going to do day trips during our stay so that we are close to Mom and aren't gone for an extended time.
We are making good use of our time here. Cleaning up both inside and outside. Keeping up with the horses and dogs. Adding rails to her steps and replacing some bad boards to make them more stable and safe. So things should be in good shape when she returns.
We did some exploring as well. We thought Mom's road was bad until we went down the way. The road goes into a T and we explored both ways. And we ended up turning around on both legs. We went left first and that dirt road continued into the mesquite. We had one place where the mesquite raked against the sides of the truck. Then there was a steep gully and it looked like the trail beyond was fairly nasty so we backed to good place to turn around and did so.
The other leg wasn't too hateful in the beginning. A bit rocky in places though. Then we came to a small washout where it was about a foot wide and maybe a foot deep. I wasn't going to take a chance on damaging the truck – it may have made it, then again maybe not. So again we turned around. The interesting thing was that at that washout you could see recent tracks where someone had gone over it. Wider tires with a deeper tread. There was a house a bit further down the road – very hardy individuals must live there.
Another day trip was to the Coronado National Forest. We went on paved road, then gravel, then dirt. There was melting snow from the mountains and so some of the roads were a bit muddy. I had put new tires on the truck the day before and that turned out be fortuitous as the terrain was challenging at times. No guard rails to speak off and there were some places with steep drop offs that were a bit scary. We went through a town named Paradise that had at most 12 houses in it. A very remote place, about 7 miles from paved roads. But the scenery was beautiful and the rugged rock formations made for great camera shots. So it was all worthwhile.
Mom was finally released from the senior center. She seemed a bit subdued, but pleased to be back home. She is still on oxygen so she have to adjust to that. She does seem to have more energy so the oxygen must be helping. We cleaned the house and moved stuff around – hopefully we did not disrupt things too much.
Mom has had a chance to get re-acclimated. She seems to have energy in bursts. So the oxygen is helping. Zach and I set a new post and gate, we are getting to be regular ranch hands. Mom has a friend that lives on a family place. The grandfather worked on cars and it carried forward through the generations. They all also accumulated old cars through the generatons. So behind the place is well over 100 cars from the 1950's on up. There are even 3-4 from before that. Lots of potential car and truck projects laying about, but they all take time and money.
We took some time to do exploring and went to the South of Mom's place. It was rugged going and finally made it to our destination. Zach wanted to check a rock formation at the top of the mountain. Since we were about 1/3 up Becky told him to go ahead. We found a few interesting rocks and then we saw that it was close to suppertime – and still no Zach. We had seen him at the peak earlier but it had been like an hour.
So I started going up the mountainside to search for him. When I got about 200 yards from the top, he finally responded to me shouting for him. He has young legs, despite my headstart – he beat me back to Becky. I congratulated him on scaling the mountain. He made it to the top of a mountain before me.
We saw a neighbor of Mom's, her name is Tato. She is 72 and rides a horse pretty much daily to check up on some cattle down the way. She said she used to rope calves when she was younger, but doesn't do that anymore. It is calving time so that is keeping her busy. She is spunky and spry for 72. When Becky asked, she said that she has not seen many gemstones the only thing she has seen is Apache tears near the base of some of the mountains.
I have been trying to walk a little each day. I keep my eyes open for unusual rocks for Becky's collection and also arrowheads. I was rewarded the other day when I found an Apache arrowhead about 200 yards to the NE of the house. I knew it was Apache because it was the same design as others that we saw at the Apache museum. So that was pretty cool to find one right here. Becky got lucky a day later and found two Apache tears on the property as well.
We have had to do a lot of driving to go to doctors, hospitals and pharmacies. Rodeo is fairly isolated – nothing is close by. I told Chelsea that imagine if you had to drive from our house to Columbus every time you needed anything. Walgreens, Walmart, TSC, the hospital – all well over an hours drive away. So lots of windshield time and if a prescription is messed up or there is some sort of snafu, then it was a wasted trip – that has happened a time or two.
The effort to get this one particular prescription is a story unto itself. We get a prescription and I drive to CVS in Douglas (one hour drive) to get it filled. I am informed once that I present the prescription that they cannot fill it - that the insurance company won't allow that drug for that particular problem. That we need to go back to the doctor and get something else.
So we get a 2nd prescription after consulting the doctor and this time we have it sent to Walgreens that is about an hour and half away because I have to take Mom to that town for another doctor. I go there and... they are out of stock! I find out that Silver City has it in stock so I drive there the next day (hour and a half one way).
I go there only to find out that the copay is pretty darn high. Something like $250 as I recall. Well its your mother, so what do you do - you pay the price. Mom couldn't believe that it was that high, she said lets get the money back. So we go there like a week later because she has another doctors appointment in Silver City. They said that it had to be returned within 24 hours for a refund. We explained the distances involved and so forth to no avail. So that was an experience that was totally frustrating all the way around.
After Mom was back home and doing better Becky and I went on a weekend excursion to Wilcox, AZ. There are several wineries in the area that we wanted to visit. It was a good weekend. We started with a visit to a winery at the edge of town and then an Apache museum. We did a bit of antiquing and then ate at an authentic Mexican restaurant.
Our server was only 15 years old, but was very good and she helped correct our spanish when we tried to use the lingo. The food was great. They needed better signage though. Our GPS said we arrived and we looked around and there was a small sign on front of a building that simply said restaurant. I told Becky that this must be it – this looks to be the only restaurant on this block. But nothing with the actual name of the restaurant could be seen.
The next night we went to a place where 3 wineries went shares on a building and so you could taste wines from all 3 wineries without having to drive around. So that was very convenient. We bought a bottle of wine from each winery. That night we went to a local steakhouse – great reviews online, but our experience was subpar. My steak was not that good and my potato was cold. So you roll the dice and sometimes it comes up snake eyes.
But Wilcox on the whole is a nice place. And plenty of tourist activities. Several small museums – both singers and actors have come from Wilcox, we had no idea – we were only there for the wine! Rex Allen and Marty Robbins both have museums. Tonya Tucker was from there, she was from our era so that was interesting for us. Definitely worth a visit and I know we will be going back some day.
Zach wanted to see Bisbee,AZ since his mother had been there. Zach was not enthused about all the little shops there. But Becky sure liked them. We did the Queen mine tour which is always interesting. We did eat at a cafe in Bisbee – there are nice little cafe's sprinkled all over downtown. We have been there a couple of times and have not been disappointed either time. The museum was closed due to covid, so we will have to see that another day.
We did get to see a real cowboy on the trip. There is a huge cattle operation that has 3,500 head of cattle. They will sell hay – cash only. Mom needed some hay, so off we went to get some. It was such a huge place. They use front loaders to mix the cattle feed in a huge hopper that grinds/mixes the feed. While I was there the 1st trip a few cattle had gotten out of a pen and were on the gravel road.
And like a scene from the old west, a cowboy comes barreling down the road on a mustang. He passes the cattle and heads them off. He stops the horse hard in front of me in a cloud of dust. The mustangs front feet are braced in front, its haunches are low in the back as it slides to a stop with dust billowing and gravel flying. He wheels the horse around and with a whoop races back down the road to turn the cattle back to the pen that they had escaped from. It was worth the trip just to see that - a taste of what the old West was like.
On a later trip I got to talk to him, a really nice guy. His name is Nathen and he has been working cattle all of his life and is happy there on the ranch. I think that as long as they kept him fed, he would work there for free – as long as he got to ride his mustang, he was more at home riding it than riding on a front loader.
We put a lot of time into riding Mom's Mule – the vehicle, not the animal. We needed to stay close to home to keep an eye on Mom, so we did a lot of exploring locally. We would take off driving for an afternoon and go a different direction each day. Found lots of interesting rocks and minerals. Thank goodness that it is 4 wheel drive, there were several washouts where it was treacherous to cross and a 2 wheel drive vehicle probably would have gotten stuck. Becky wants one now and those things aren't cheap.
Overall the trip seemed to do Zach some good. He enjoyed the quiet and serenity of the desert. He liked to go on walks and also drive the Mule down the gravel roads in this area. He said that he would like to go back again – which we plan to do.
We got to see lots of wildlife. There was a small herd of pronghorn antelope that were grazing next to the highway one day. Javelinas – mostly from a distance, but one morning we saw a big one next to the highway. Bobcats – twice; once when we were driving back to Mom's at dusk. “Hey look two cats crossing the road, hey wait – they don't have any tails, they must be bobcats.” Then the one I kicked up out of his den when I was climbing the mountain. All kinds of birds: quail, road runners, hawks, cranes, etc. Small lizards on the mountain climb.
All in all a good trip and the weather in New Mexico beat the winter cold of Ohio. Mom felt bad that we didn't get to do quite all the side trips that we had planned because of having to care for her, but I told her not to worry that we were where we needed to be.
