Rig Washing, Card Making and Snappy Dandy Sunset

Our poor motorhome still has a layer of Wisconsin Road Salt on it!  The snow at Elephant Butte last week wasn't enough to rinse it off.  There hasn't been much of any rain either.  

Steve asked the host if he could discretely wash the motorhome, one section at a time, without calling a lot of attention to the fact that he is doing it.  She said sure, just don't appear to be "wasting" water.

My "Clandestine Undercover Rig Washer" got out his handy-dandy scrubbing brush with a long telescoping handle.  He only uses a bit of car washing soap in a bucket of water and that is it.  The brush is very soft and doesn't scratch the finish on our rig.  There isn't any wax on our motorhome, just a very thick clear coat and Mercedes paint.  No waxing needed.  So he did a good scrub a dub dub and quick rinse with the hose on each section before moving on to the next section.

Soon our Safari was gleaming with cleanliness, 

and reflecting the desert landscape in the shiny sides of his hard work.  

What a guy! 

While he was busy doing this thing, I was inside doing a few loads of laundry to catch up.  Our onboard washer/dryer unit spins better when crammed full to the hilt than if we only do small loads. With small loads it goes off balance too easily.  So I wait until we have enough to get a bunch done at once.  I can cram in 15-20 t-shirts and it makes one load.

The desert air dries things so quickly that it isn't worth it running the dryer (except for our unmentionables) ...  We hang a lot of our t-shirts on hangers in our closet anyhow, because we are limited on drawer space. This way of doing laundry by hanging them up on hangers when wet, by the time they are dry, we just have to take them down and put them in the closet.  I use clothespins to keep the hangers separated on the lines to make spaces in between and keep them from sliding all to the center.  There.. Pfundtner Laundry Service is complete!

We made a late breakfast after our tasks were done... sometimes it's nice to only have two meals a day, a late breakfast and then an early dinner.  It feels better and we can enjoy the day without having to stop and make lunch! 

After a walk around the campground, I headed over at 1 p.m. to the main park exhibit building.  A craft project was being offered by Josephine, a volunteer with the park system. She was showing us how to make these neat southwestern note cards!   Here are her samples to show us what we will accomplish and give us some ideas. 

She first showed us how to rip apart pieces of paper into chunks and add some water in a blender!  You make up a "slurry" of fibery mush and push it down against a screen that is held in place by an embroidery hoop.  Pushing down with a sponge works well to get a lot of the moisture out.  This circular piece of rough paper was to be the sun (or moon) on our cards. 

Josephine had some extra circular pieces already made up for us, so we didn't have to wait for our slurry to dry.  Although, in this arid land of New Mexico, it probably wouldn't have taken too long to dry.

Next, we were to rip pieces of colored papers and tissues to make our layers of the mountains for the foreground.  We had a lot of colors to choose from and by ripping with our fingers, we could make interesting terrain to each layer.  Fellow RVer Gloria from Colorado is proudly posing with her card. She even added tiny birds to her scenery!!   We used glue sticks to fasten down each layer.

 And voila!  HERE is my finished card!!!! 

Josephine found an envelope for me, 

but now I am thinking that 

it's too pretty to mail!  

Maybe I should frame it and keep it in our motorhome? 

I came back to the motorhome to find that all my laundry was dry and put away for me. Awwwww, what a guy!  I found him out standing on this mound of gravel, with binoculars in hand, scanning the desert terrain.  I think he was helping out our poor stressed Homeland Security Agents with some border patrols duties.  They have had it rough the last few days, not knowing if they are even getting a paycheck or not.  So nice of Steve to help them out, eh? 

I decided that it was time for our afternoon siesta.  There is something so peaceful to snooze in the afternoon with your sweetie, and of course with two furball dogs in between us on the king sized bed.  

When we woke up, the winds were starting to kick up. We were warned they would be starting this afternoon and lasting a few days.  Steve cooked some brats on the grill on the leeward side of the motorhome while I finished the rest of the dinner inside. 

We thought we would be trapped inside for the evening with a dust storm or whatever. But as the sun was setting, the winds died down and we had a nice relaxing evening out on our patio....  

Check out these Sunset Doggies!!!!

 I love the golden glow of the sunlight as it is setting.  

It makes things look so vivid and surreal at times.

Today we had some new RVers pull into the campsite next to us. They are from Northern Wisconsin, up near Bayfield.  They know the U.P. of Michigan quite well and knew a lot of the same places we knew.  We didn't start a campfire, because we were unsure of the winds kicking up again. Randy and Linda shared stories with us, and we shared a bottle of wine, as the sun set....

 I don't think we can ever get too many sunset photos, do you?