Snowbirding from New Mexico to Oregon: 2009, part 1.
	Our original plan was to leave New Mexico around the 15th of March: we left the 25th of April.

WILDFLOWERS AND DOMESTICATED ORNAMENTALS MIX WELL.

We’d worked in the yard most of the winter, bringing it up to what we feel is the most beautiful property in Columbus, NM. Our iceplant, we have four different varieties one of which is a medicinal. Loving the TLC, they paid us back in beautifying the yard. After our neighbors had seen what our property looks like with all the varied colors, they asked if we’d share. Before leaving we were giving it away by the wheel barrel full for starts in their yards. We also have wild poppies, Scorpion Flowers, and a myriad of other wild and domestic flowers. We’ve collected wildflower seeds over the years and this year our property was in bloom with flowers that hadn’t come to life for many years.

LANDSCAPING OUR RV SITE.

During the winter, I landscaped the north side of the property where our full hookup RV site is located. At one time, a developer came to Columbus, surveyed some of the surrounding desert, had roads dozed through and then apparently went broke. When they dozed in the roads, the equipment operators dozed everything into piles for burning. We salvaged about two dozen barrel cactus from the piles, not an easy job with all their spines, and transplanted them in our yard. Only about a dozen lived but now they’re healthy and producing flowers and seed buds. I used them in the landscaping process along with iceplant, yucca and drought resistant desert plants. Before the landscaping, our front yard consisted of sprawling mesquite, large spined prickly pear cactus and creosote bushes. Now, with the plus of color contrasts and minus of thorny bushes on the pathway edges, the area is much more pleasant.

THE GARDEN HAD TO BE PUT TO REST BEFORE LEAVING.

Besides the flowers and landscaping, new water lines, irrigation systems, propane lines to the rental studio apartment, Celinda’s garden, weeds (lots of weeds), wind, rain and trying to get a video production done that needed three to four days of good outdoor weather in a row to finish, all took their toll on our time and energies. I started the video the end of November and finished it nine days before we left. Celinda had put in a garden when we got back to NM in the early winter of 2009 and finished her garden work the evening prior to our departure. I’d made up my mind not to put in my usual winter garden believing it’d make things too crazy. I was glad I’d made that decision.

FACTOR IN EXTRA TIME...YOU ALWAYS NEED IT.

We were up at 5:30 am on April 25th. I’d gotten everything ready on the motorhome the night before, including removing the jacks and disconnecting the umbilical cords, so we could be on the road by 8:30, we drove out of the gate at 10:00. After gassing up, which is always a time consuming maneuver since most gas station hoses are just barely long enough to reach the center filler if we’re six inches from the pump, we left Deming, NM at 12:15. We’d also unhooked our towed (Nissan pickup), so we could make a couple of last minute stops for items that had escaped our prior have to have lists. The freeway is always the freeway and traveled by people who seem to want to be where they’re going before they leave.

EL NINO AND DESERT FLOWERS.

El Niño winters always bring more wind to the desert than I like but this year, between Deming and Lordsburg, NM on I-10, the wetter than usual winter spawned an incredible crop of wildflowers. In one five mile section of the route, that was about five miles wide to the mountains on either side of the freeway, the desert was covered with a carpet of poppies. Fifty square miles of poppies is a lot of wildflowers no matter where you are and there were eight to ten places similar to that section along that part of I-10.

HEADWINDS ARE LIKE CONSTANTLY GOING UPHILL, MPG SUFFERS.

The wind had been a major factor in our late departure from NM and it wasn’t going to relent that day either. Even though the wind was still blowing directly from the direction we were headed, ten to twenty-five mph was better than the thirty-five to fifty mph. Leaving Columbus was like the video project, we’d been waiting, hoping for and anticipating, a favorable weather forecast that would give us a few days respite from at least part of the wind. I’ve often wondered if weather forecasters ever go outside to see what’s going on in the real world around them, or if they just look at a computer program and repeat what it tells them. Driving into the wind all the way to North Eastern Oregon wasn’t what we were hoping for. Whether we’d get our wish or not remained to be seen.

I WAS TOO BUSY DRIVING TO TAKE PICTURES OF THE PASSING SCENE.

I'm dropping in pictures that aren't relative to the text but thought they'd be pleasing to the eye. Leaving I-10 at Lordsburg, NM, we headed northwest on highway 70 toward Safford, Arizona. The 2010 pre-travel preparations, and the first day’s time snafus, seemed to be copying our last fall’s trip south and our plans changed almost as quickly as the mile posts that were sliding by. During our preparations, and remembering how it has been in the past, we factored in three or four alternative plans just in case. The first day on the road we ate a late lunch in Safford, AZ, which had been one of our possible overnight stops if the wind was more determined than we were.

A QUICK LUNCH IN SAFFORD, AZ.

When we arrived in Safford, it was still relatively early. So, after a quick lunch we started the engine, kept a wary eye out for people doing fifty mph diagonally across the WalMart parking lot and headed back toward the highway and northwest toward Globe. AZ. Once through Globe, we made a right turn on highway 88 at Central Heights with Roosevelt Lake our next planned destination. We wanted to take a couple of days off to unwind at Roosevelt Lake. That plan went by the roadside, literally, when we ran afoul of their bureaucratic system for payment.

YOU HAVE TO BE OPEN TO SELL PERMITS.

You have to have a Tonto National Permit, or something similar to that name. The signs say you can obtain the permits at local businesses. The problem we encountered was the sign was on the entrance road, the visitor center was closed for the day and so were the businesses we tried. We only tried a couple of local businesses because we’re fifty feet long, plus or minus a few inches, and it’s not possible to turn around just anywhere, or back up at all when you have a tow behind. Disgusted, we went to Payson, AZ and stayed in WalMart’s parking lot.

DID PHOENIX REALTORS DISCOVER PAYSON?

The first time we were in Payson, back in the late 1980’s, it was a quaint small town and we considered settling there. Now it’s as crazy as LA with 24/7 everything including drivers who apparently believe if they drive fifteen to twenty mph over the speed limit, changing lanes at least twice per block, and do fifty mph through WalMart’s parking lot, they’ll be able to somehow put a warp in time and be where they’re going before they leave. Time sickness seems to be pervasive.

OUR PLANS CHANGE AGAIN.
	We parked as far out of the way as possible, on the extreme south side of the parking lot, so we’d have a clear exit the next morning without unhooking our toad. That plan was changed for us sometime during the night or early morning hours, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

THE DOG LADY.

The next morning, a lady walking 5 dogs came by and, since we were sitting in front of an open window eating breakfast, struck up a conversation. Her dialogue was about life in general, how bad hers was in particular and the problems related to having five dogs. Before leaving, she said she’d recently gotten all the dogs at the pound, one dog at a time. It would seem if five dogs were a problem for her, after getting number one, two, three or four she’d have had some idea about what having five would be like. She also hinted at wanting to sell one or more of the dogs to us. A cat is all we have room for and she doesn’t like dogs.

THE MEAT MAN.
	Later a man came by and wanted to sell us a five pound tube of frozen ground meat he’d purchased at WalMart with food stamps; he showed me the sales slip. He said he was four dollars short for a bus ticket back home to Sunrise, AZ. We didn’t want the meat but I gave him a $5 bill, whether he used it as he said he was going to or not wasn’t up to us.

DID WALMART TAKE THE MEAT BACK? DID SHE SELL THE DOGS?

Sitting at the small table with the swiveling captain’s chairs where we were eating breakfast I could see out the front windshield. Across the parking lot, the woman with the dogs was talking to a woman outside of a motorhome. Not long after that, I saw the dog lady walking across the parking lot with three dogs and the woman at the motorhome with two. Before breakfast was over, the man with the meat walked by heading toward WalMart, meat still in hand, and the dog lady was down to one when she got in her car and drove away.

RUNNING OVER THE MOTORCYCLE WASN'T AN OPTION.
	We left Payson after unhooking the tow so I could back away from a motorcycle that had been parked in a no parking area sometime prior to daybreak. I’d intentionally parked with the front of the motorhome on the edge the no parking area so we could leave without unhooking.

SOMETIMES I DON'T SEE THE BIGGER PICTURE.
	It all turned out for the best, navigating through the roundabout at the north end of Payson, with its rotating mass of vehicles wanting to make right turns out of the left turn lanes, was simpler without a tow on behind.

ROUNDABOUTS AND MEMORIES.
	I’m not sure about the mindset that considers roundabouts to be time saving or better for lowering driver stress than conventional stop lights and stop signs. My first encounter with them was in London, England.

LONDON AND MY FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH A ROUNDABOUT.

A friend was driving and at the second roundabout I’d ever seen a taxi, that was coming in from our side, slowed down in order to merge with the undulating 24/7 rush hour like London traffic. Not knowing the taxi driver would do something foolish like slow down, the driver of the car following him hit the taxi from behind. It wasn’t a slam banger but the extra boost sent the taxi out into the traffic lane of the roundabout. Tires smoking, everyone managed to come to a halt without any further fender bending but traffic was at a stand still, and soon at a stand still for blocks in all directions. As soon as he came to a stop, the taxi driver jumped out of his car and started yelling at the driver behind him. The driver behind got out of his car and started yelling back. We sat in the traffic jam while they yelled, shook their fists and then approached each other.

FIST FIGHTS, ALLEY ESCAPE ROUTES AND DINNER WITH FRIENDS.

One of them said something that was more than the other could tolerate and a fight broke out. A siren came on in the distance but the police couldn’t get to the scene because of the traffic jam. My friend backed up on the curb and proceeded to back down the sidewalk until we came to an alley. He turned into the alley, which connected with a street at the other end of the alley and we drove on to our dinner engagement with his friends and a couple of relatives.

I WAS GLAD MY FRIEND WAS DRIVING.
	I told him I was certainly glad he’d been driving and he said, “Oh, that kind of thing happens all the time in the city. One gets used to it after awhile.” Thanks but no thanks. I flew out the next day for France where I’d continue my El Camino de Santiago walk through Southern France and across Spain.