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Lost Dutchman SP – Olive Oil – Friday November 6, 2015

We went to an olive grove today; Queen Creek Olive Mill.
It was interesting and we purchase some tasty olive oils.  They have a “Bacon” flavored olive oil.
The grove is currently 7000 trees and 16 different types of olives.
The olives are mixed to produce the flavor they are looking for:
washed
moved up to the grinder

than the centrifuge, which is the round stainless steel head in the middle of the machine.  The oil comes out the bottom spout just above the “H” in Harry.   This is their small machine, they also have one which will do 2.5 tons an hour.

It was a nice day.

 

Lost Dutchman SP – Peoria – Thursday November 5, 2015

We drove over to Peoria looking for a RV park for March 2016 and spring training.   Since we don’t know anyone who has taken their RV to Spring Training it has been a challenge to find a park.  One of my goals in coming to Phoenix was to find a place for Spring Training.  The Peoria visitor’s center was not all that much help.   Their did have a list of more parks then I could find online however it was just a list of names, addresses, and phone numbers, nothing about any of the parks.

The park we have reservations for is in Goodyear 25 miles from the ball park.  They have 438 sites and as of this morning had 12 open sites in March.  I guess this is why it is hard to find any information about  the parks.  They are all sold out every year so there is no point on spending any time or money letting people know you exist.

We are set and I’ll get game tickets when they go on sale in November.   Retirement is good.

Lost Dutchman SP – Wednesday November 4, 2015

We went to Arizona Museum of Natural History in Mesa today.
This display covers three floors high and has a flash flood every 20 minutes.
Lots of hands on displays, this actual bone says:

“Please Touch”.

Most of the pictures I took involved dinosaurs, however the museum covers time back to the beginning of the universe to current time with Arizona movies.
These displays show how fossils appear in nature.
Numerous large animals.

The last thing we did was pan for GOLD.
Great museum and we had a wonderful afternoon.

Caballo Lake SP, NM – Sunday November 1, 2015


In camp all day currently watching the Seahawks game.  This will be our last day in New Mexico for a while, we are currently planning on attending the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta next October. We will be leaving early tomorrow morning for Phoenix and Lost Dutchman SP, it will be an 8 to 9 hour day on the road.
During the last 14 months and our three trips south we have spent 65 nights in New Mexico.  We will spend the next two and a half weeks in Arizona and then home for Thanksgiving.

Spaceport America, NM – Saturday October 31, 2015

Today we took the tour of Spaceport America the private spaceport being used by Virgin Galactic to send people into space.   The tour was interesting and an opportunity to visit a place which may have a significant impact on the development of space.
Google Earth view of the main terminal.
This view is from 32,000 feet showing the 12,000 foot runway.  An interesting google footnote is these pictures were taken on December 14, 2013.  There are newer pictures of Truth or Consequences, NM which is only a few miles west of here from April 1, 2015.  I’d have to say Branson has some influence on where Google takes pictures.
This is where we walked into the hanger and into the visitor’s center.  The visitor’s center had some new high-tech displays and information about space and the spaceport.

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This globe shows the major satellite orbits around earth.  Besides the 6 passenger spacecraft which will  take people into space for 4 minutes, only $250,000 in advance, Virgin Galactic is working on a reusable craft to take satellites into space.

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This is one of the displays they use for a plus G’s experience.
  This is looking through a window down into the hanger and a mockup of the passenger space craft.
This is the admin and runway tower building, also the fire department of spaceport and surrounding area.
This is the hanger doors side of the building.Here you can see the track for the four hanger bay doors on this side, there are four more on the other side of the building.

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Our picture of the walk in entrance of the hanger.
Hanger and admin buildings.
This is a really long runway, 12,000 feet.
Cool sculpture at the entrance to the spaceport.
The stars on the inside of the curve.
I’m glad we went.

Caballo Lake SP, NM – Wednesday October 28, 2015

Hatch, NM (20 miles south of here) is the U.S. capital of red and green chili peppers.

Here are some chili fields and how they grow.

I also found a good use for my tool box.

Hold my box of wine in place.
Yes, it’s not the greatest in the world however it should keep better then bottled wine does in the warm motorhome.  I don’t have enough room in the refrigerator, like some people I know.