Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Brrrrr! It was cold last night. The temperature dropped to 20 degrees. Bob put a shop light in with our fresh water tank to keep it from freezing. Everything was fine when we awoke. The temperature was not to get out of the 50s so we decided to ride to places where we could possibly sightsee indoors.

Our first stop was the ghost town of Steins (pronounced steens) near the New Mexico-Arizona border. The town is right next to the interstate, but it was closed! It may reopen in the summer of 2008. Someone just bought it and is cataloging all the items. Here are some pictures we took from our side of the fence.

There was a stage coach in need of a paint job. The weeds had almost overtaken it. The mercantile seemed to be in pretty good condition.

We weren't sure what this old wall was from, but it looked interesting.

Interstate 10 was behind the mercantile. On the opposite side of the parking lot, not 50 yards away, workers were repairing the railroad tracks.

Stein's was a big disappointment since it wasn't open. We decided to try the next ghost town which was in Lordsburg, NM. When we got there, we found out it is only open the first weekend of the month!

At least we saw vehicles indicating that some type of work was going on during the off hours.

We stopped in the New Mexico visitors' center and found out that there was an interesting place not far from where we our rv was parked. So we drove back to Rodeo, New Mexico to visit Sky Gypsy Cafe. Rodeo is in the middle of nowhere so we were surprised by Sky Gypsy Cafe. It was founded by Sky Gypsies who fly what look like motorized hang gliders. One of the founders is John McAfee the virus progam mogul.

Under a carport at the front of the cafe were 2 old fords. Joyce thought Walter would like the truck.
The model T looked good, too.
Behind the cafe there were 10 vintage airstream trailers. Each had an old car next to it. We found out the car and trailer pairs were manufactured in the same year!

From Rodeo we drove to Portal, Arizona to see the Coronado National Forest. Most of the drive was on a gravel road.

The American History Museum has a research facility in the national forest. We stopped to see the facility. As soon as we got out of the car, Bob was approached by a deer wearing a bandana!

It seems it was feeding time for the deer and it expected any human to have food!

We also stopped to look at Stewart Campground. It was one of two national forest campgrounds which were open. We didn't see evidence of any campers.
We drove a little further up the forest road, but decided to turn back when we saw the snow on the roadsides from Monday's snowstorm.It turned out to be a nice day, but still chilly. The night time temperature was to drop into the 20s again.

Maybe Thursday would be a good day for hiking and doing things outdoors.