Author: harrylange

Brantley Lake State Park, Saturday October 15, 2016

Went to see the bats fly out of Carlsbad Caverns tonight, it such an amazing thing to watch.  Their were a lot of people there and we stayed until we couldn’t see any more bats.  Bats were still flying out it was just too dark.  Even with the full moon we could only see bats when they flew between us and moon. It takes two to three hours for all the bats to fly out each night, between 300,000 and 500,000 bats live in the cave.

This picture is from the national park website.  In order not to disturb and/or scare the bats cameras and electronic devices are not allowed to be on or used.  We saw a ranger escort three people out of the amphitheater for trying to violate this request.

Current plan is to be here for a few more days and then follow the warm weather to wherever it takes us.  Home for Turkey day.

Glad to hear that the BIG storm at home did not materialize and winds were in the 40 mpg range and rain for the week was in the 4-5 inch range.  Sunny and 94 here on Sunday.

Brantley Lake State Park, North Of Carlsbad Caverns – Thursday October 13, 2016

We came back to see the bats at Carlsbad Caverns again.  They were amazing last year and since we were halfway across New Mexico we continued east a ways.  There is no point in going north of Albuquerque this time of year because the weather is going to start getting cold.    The weather report for home is a major wind and rain storm this weekend, Yuck.

Don’t know how long we will be here.  Going to see the bats a couple of times, need to do laundry, food shopping and spend some time doing nothing aka retirement.

Campsite pictures, same site as last year, site 37.
Here is the view out  the front window.

The site across from us is closed for the time being, electrical is out.  It also looks like they ran new power lines into the park since we were here last time.  They we having some problem with about half of the reservation sites and could not figure out what was wrong when we left last year.

Today’s drive.
The short line just above the lake is a stop at Lakewood Post Office.  I purchased a new camera strap from Amazon which Richard has been using.  I had it sent to Brian and then when we decided to come in this direction I asked Brian to send it General Delivery to Lakewood.
We found a site and then went and dumped the holding tanks.  We are set for a while.

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta – Sunday October 09 2016

This is the last morning of balloons and we leave to head north and then east, I think.
Maps of today’s drive.  We are at Cochiti COE Campground south of Santa Fe.
Drove through the campground to find a site and then dumped the holding tanks, after 9 days they were full.
We are in site 7, power but no water.
We went to another site to get water.  I have been carrying an extra water hose since we got this motor home, today was the first time I have used it.  All the water was up on the hill above the sites on the inside of the loop.
Almost made it, needed several more feet.