Another Day in New Mexico at Pancho Villa State Park

Here we are, still snug on our site in Pancho Villa State Park in southern New Mexico.  We are 3 miles from the Mexican border.  The sun is shining again today, after yesterday of on-again-off-again rain.  Life is good and we are happy and warm in the 60's-70's most every day.  The nights get down in the 30's or so, but we are comfortable in the rig. The views every day are wide expanses of desert terrain, with stunning sunsets and a big bright full moon the last two nights.  I tried to take pics of the moon, but they just don't do it justice. Instead, here is a day time pic of our rig.

You will notice the Tracker is not in the picture.  That is because it is getting a complete rebuild on the motor over at Art Miller's shop.  He called us this morning to come on over and take a look now that he had the engine out.  The bearing and rod are shot, and we figured he might as well do it all, the rings, valves, water pump, etc and do a good job and get it all done at once.  Even the clutch, as that was getting quite worn. He has to have the shaft spun down over in El Paso, and will pick up all the right parts at the same time.  So it may not be finished until next week.  His ball park quote was good with us, and we will see what it all comes to when it's done.  Oh well.

In the meantime, we are enjoying ourselves immensely!

We are the "Keeper of the Owls" on our campsite and I was able to get a few good close shots of him (or her?) yesterday.  What an impressive looking bird!

I don't think I would want to tick him off....

Our friend, Seann, from Canada decided to stay two more days!  We enjoy his company and he is full of fun stuff and ideas and stories.  His rig is all set up on the site behind us.  Seann is an avid boondocker and travels to the U.S. each winter to escape the harsh winters of Saskatchewan,  Then in the summer months, he hosts at various parks in Canada. 

He recently added a few new items of decor to his travel trailer.... a custom painted tire cover, and this lovely stained glass panel in his door.  Quite the fancy rig!

As I said in my last blog, poor Seann LOVES dogs, but is allergic to them.  He can only tolerate so much time with them before he starts with the itchy watery eyes, stuffed up, etc.  On top of it all, he is suffering from a terrible head cold.

He comes fully prepared to tease our muttenheimers with pockets stuffed with dog treats.....   at first they are a little stand-offish and both were hiding behind my passenger seat in their little Doggie Den.  Seann was bribing them out with treats that Finnegan could NOT resist!   Look at that ... the way to a dog's heart is through his tummy?

Soon Seann had Finney fetching balls and getting treats as a reward.  Little Binney in the background was jealously watching all the treats go into Finney's mouth.  But the stubborn little cuss wouldn't come out to get some herself.  She was drooling in the background!   Seann tossed a few over to her, and she ate them as soon as he would look away. If he looked at her, she would stop eating them. Awwww he made sure that she got her fair share.

This afternoon I wanted to do another load or two of laundry.  I did two smaller loads instead of one large one.  We noticed during the two smaller loads that we had done, the machine was going into the spin cycle and make an AWFUL racket!  I would have to shut it off and let the timer click for the door open release mechanism, and rearrange the load.  Sometimes it would spin evenly, and other times go off balance again. Argghhhhh!   So after the second load, I got on the computer and googled Splendide +shaking vibration and read a few suggestions.  

• One was to make sure the machine was stuffed full. Less chance to go off balance.
• Another one was that inside there is a huge cement counterweight that might shake loose from it's three bolts that mount it to a bracket???  
• Another suggestion was perhaps one of the 4 springs broke that help center the drum.
• Another suggestion was looking at the two big shock absorbers underneath the machine.  
• And one more was to build a support bracket on top that presses down on the machine and secures it tightly to the walls of the cabinet so it don't move. 

Many of the suggestions necessitated removal of the top of the washing machine.  That means unhooking the water lines, unclamping the vent hose, unplugging the power cord and pulling the entire machine OUT of the closet compartment!  

We did just that.  We took the lid off, and checked the bolts on the cement counterweight.  Nope, all good. there.  We checked all four springs.  Nope, all four intact and holding good and even pressure.

Now to get to the bottom two shocks we had to lay it on it's side.... and then remove the bottom plate.  Nope, shocks are fine.  We can not find any reason why it's shaking so much on spin.

So we put it all back together again.

We even double checked the level of the coach.  Nothing seemed to make a difference.  We did one more load crammed full tight instead just a smaller load.  That seemed to help a bit, spinning around with a full load means less chance of going off balance? We did notice that if we push the machine firmly down from the top with our hands, it shakes much less.  

A final suggestion we will try is to go to a bicycle shop and get two bike inner tubes!  We are to stick them down on each side of the machine between the machine and the cabinet it sets in.  Inflate them up with an air compressor or pump.  They act as air bags cushioning the machine's sides, and hold the machine more steady.  So that is on our next list of shopping items when we get to a bigger town.  

We had a nice surprise to find out that a couple who follow my blog from Washington are here in the park!  Dawn came over to to visit this morning with coffee and later I got to meet husband Jim.  Tonight after dinner we lit up a campfire in Steve's Flame Genie pellet fire pit and sat around and shot the breeze with them and Seann for a while.  

Tomorrow's plans are to join Dawn and Jim for an excursion to Mexico for some shopping, a hair cut, and then lunch.  Should be fun!  They are driving so we don't have to take the bus at 7:50 a.m.! 

And They Call the Wind ---- WINDY!

Well, we knew it was coming, and saw it on the weather reports.  But the morning was calm with some nice breezes but nothing too bad.

Steve had been talking to the park superintendent here, and found out they use a mechanic about a mile away to do all their repair work. And as a matter of fact, that guy recently rebuilt a lady's Tracker who was stranded here in the park with just about the same problem!

So Steve took off across the desert to walk over to the guy's place and see what he could do.  After chatting up a bit, the guy sent two of his workers over to the park to check out our Tracker.  Steve and the host were able to hook it up behind the host's truck, and tow it over to get it worked on.  The guy gave a ball park quote of "worst case scenario" of around $600... but really won't know till he rips it apart.  So our budget is holding it's hands together in prayer and we will see how much will slip through our hands to pay the bill??? LOL

As the afternoon unfolded, 

so did the winds.  

Oh MY!!!!!!!!!

We were getting 

sustained winds 

in the 35-40 range, 

and gusts up to 50+ mph!!!!!  

We were rocking back and forth, with dust blasting us from all directions.  We learned a good trick a while back in our last sand storm to run both of our air conditioners on "fan mode" full blast... it creates a positive air pressure inside the rig.  Doing so doesn't allow the dust and sands to seep in through all the cracks and crevices of the motorhome.

We took the poor doggers out a few times and had to hold tight to their leashes so they didn't blow away!  Would have been a good time to brush them, as all their excess fur would fly on over to Texas!  But it was hard to even stand out there, the wind takes the breath away and makes you dive for cover back inside the motorhome.

Outside, it was almost like a brown fog was everywhere... and one could not even see the mountains to the west. If you look in this pic, very faintly you can see the mountains above that horizon of the desert floor. Everything was an eerie yellowish brown hue.

The winds were so bad, we were not expecting our friend, Seann to arrive as planned. He was coming from the west, but had a pretty good tail wind behind him, I should say!

He blew on into the campground as planned, and pulled into the campsite we were saving for him.  (our lawn chairs kept blowing away, so Steve had weighted them down with big rocks!)

 This pic is crooked because I was blowing away!!!!

Seann got situated on his campsite and came over to share dinner with us.  Of course, being the dog lover that he is, he also brought yummy treats for Finney and Binney!   Last time we camped with him, he had treats for Ducky and Duke.  Ducky fell in love with Seann and followed him everywhere, even inside of his camper! LOL....  Too bad Seann is allergic to dogs, or else I think he would have a whole pack of them travelling with him!

We talked into the night, rocking and rolling inside of our motorhome.  The winds sounded even worse as the night went on.  The weathermen said the wind advisory would last till 7pm, but the howling and whistling winds continued on into the night. 

By 4 a.m. we could hear the unmistakable sounds of RAIN on the roof!  The winds had died down to nothing, and now it was a nice soft drizzling rain. Ahhhhhhh we will take the rain any time over the winds! 

Seeing this out of our window this morning was a pretty sight! 

I leaned out the open window to snap this pic, it's blurry, 

but yes, Seann is camped behind us.

Perked up a pot of coffee this morning, and baked a pan of cinnamon swirl coffee cake...  waiting for Seann to come a knocking and probably come over with his pockets stuffed full of treats for Finney and Binney. 

Yup, he just did!