Yea!! We are now off of the Corona Virus lock-down. We drove for about six hours from the Fort Bliss Army Post in El Paso, Texas to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Big Bend National Park in southern Texas has not opened yet, so we decided that we could not wait any longer before heading north. Our goal for now is to be in Rapid City, South Dakota by the 20th of May. We plan to change over our drivers licenses to South Dakota and "officially" become residents of that state. We will register to vote there too. We already have new South Dakota license plates for all of our vehicles.

As we were all "buttoned-up" for our departure from El Paso, Lisa noticed that one of our tires on the trailer looked to have low pressure. Sure enough, we had a screw in the tire tread. I pumped up the tire to 75 PSI and we drove over to Discount Tire. The repaired the flat and torqued all our our lug nuts within about an hour and a half. So, we had a slight delay on our departure, but we did not encounter any other issues on the drive. There is a lot of open space between El Paso and Sante Fe. We are, basically, following the Rio Grande River on Highway 25 that goes all the way to Wyoming. The Rio Grande River extends all the way into Colorado to its headwaters. Pretty easy to navigate; get on Highway 25 and stay there till you get to Wyoming. Lots of open country with beautiful views. We did have a pretty stiff headwind that cut our diesel mileage down to between eight and nine miles per gallon. Luckily, we had filled up with diesel at $1.91 per gallon. We have planned for three days in Santa Fe so that we can see the area.

Bob and Charlotte Capp are scheduled to come stay with us in the Rapid City area beginning on the 22nd of May. They will be with us for between seven and ten days. We are really looking forward to seeing and visiting with Charlotte.

Corona Virus Update - Nearly all military RV parks are not accepting new retired transient RVers. If you are at one, you can stay indefinitely, but they are not accepting new inflows. Once you leave, you are on your on own. For this reason, we are not staying at commercial RV parks along the way. They all want to get back in business, but they must follow state mandates for separation and capacity. Here in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the RV parks are operationg at 25% of capacity. We are all separated from our neighbors by at least two open slots. I don't think that RV parks in Colorado are restricted to 25%, but they still mandate separation of people. Luckily, most of the states in which we will be traveling over the next couple of months have not had many Corona virus issues.

We drove to the center of Santa Fe and walked around town. It was very interesting. You won't find any skyscrapers in Santa Fe. Nearly all buildings are one level and made with adobe finishes. There are a ton of museums and art galleries in this town. Santa Fe takes pride in the creative capability of the local community. We walked around and did not have to wear our masks. Everything was closed (including Lisa's beloved Georgia O'Keefe Museum). No food or any shops to visit. If you look at the photos of Santa Fe, you will get a feel for the type of construction throughout the region. We then drove from 7,000 feet of elevation in Santa Fe up to above 9500 feet at the Hyde Park Ski Resort. Pretty cool air (and snow on the ground) up there with great views of Santa Fe and over towards Albuquerque.