Ready for the auction to start

The balloon fiesta ran from Sat., Oct 1st through Sun., Oct 9th. On Sunday morning, all of our bus friends left and we drove over to where our Boomer friends were parked and stayed over one more night with them, where we had a Boomer auction and we bought quite a few good things that were being auctioned off. All the money we raised goes to CARE, which is a day care center, that was started by Kay, one of the founding members of our RV club. It is for whoever needs it, whether they need a place to be while they are recovering from strokes, heart attacks, broken bones or just because of old age problems.

Looking over the auction items

 Everyone came out for the auction, plus we brought appetizers to munch on before it began.







                                                               
Lots of food and wine to loosen us all up, so we'd buy more stuff....

Here's Chuck & Jan showing items to be auctioned

Our raffle prizes we won

On Monday, all of us had to leave, so we drove over to the casino where we had stayed the week before. Our good friend, Margie, had left us on Saturday afternoon of that final weekend to take a train to Long Beach, CA to attend a funeral and had left her rig with a fellow bus member in town. She came back on Monday morning, so we parked the bus in the casino parking lot and went to pick her up. She had family that lived in Albuquerque and wanted to get together with them for dinner, before she left town, so they came over after work and we all had dinner in the casino. It was so nice getting to know another of Dan's brothers and his wife. We found out after we got back that other Boomer friends had also stayed at that lot overnight, so we went to say our final goodbyes before leaving on Tues morning.

I have no idea what Ron is looking at

We said goodbye to Margie, she was heading back to Cottonwood to stay for awhile and visit Sedona. She had wanted to take the northern route back, but, when she found out how cold it was getting up there, she decided not to. As it turns out, from what we heard from friends, she probably would have been okay.

We, on the other hand, headed for Columbus, NM, south of Deming, down near the border with Mexico, to meet with our good friends, Jack & Jeanne, who were attending a chapter rally down there. We had been kept so busy at the balloon rally, that it was nice to slow down and take it easy. The weather was great and we visited Old Mexico with rally members for lunch. There was even a raffle and we ended up winning a few good prizes.

Walking around town making friends with the statues

 Here we are enjoying some free margaritas, while we browse through all the unique items for sale in the store. After we bought some stuff, we sat down to lunch with other rally members. An American gal who lives in Deming owns this place and helps keep the Mexicans employed.

Downtown Silver City

One of several interesting murals we saw

 After the rally was over, we all decided to drive up to Deming for the weekend. When we got to the park, we met good friends, Ray & Diane, from the Thousand Trails park in San Diego County. It seems we meet friends all the time at the SKP parks...Every time we've been in Deming, I've always wanted to see Silver City, so this time we went up there. It's a nice little town and we walked all over the place, saw a farmer's market, and saw an impromptu gathering of musicians down by the river that runs through town.

Interesting signs such as this were all over town

Reminds me of a street in Mexico

We enjoyed delicious gelato

I'm the only one that ate a healthful lunch

 When I told Ron to take a picture of this dentist sign, I wanted him to get a close up of the words on the tooth, but, that's not how it came out, so this is what it says....
                       purse extractions
                       x-rated rays
                       London bridges
                       British crowns
                       land fillings
                       sports caps
                       not floss
I think this is a dentist I might want to go to, good sense of humor...

We had seen a sign for the Gila Cliff Dwellings, so we decided last minute to drive up there. The first sign we passed said it was only open from 9 to 4 and at that time, it was 1:30. The next sign we saw said it would take us two hours to get up there...we're thinking, it's only 40 miles, why would it take 2 hours to go 40 miles? Well, we found that the road was an extremely winding road, but, with Jack at the wheel, we got there at 3. Plenty of time to see the cliff dwellings...

On the bridge at the beginning of the trail; me, Jack & Jeanne

We found out that it was only a mile walk round trip, of course, part of that walk was uphill...it was rather warm in the sun, but, starting off on our walk was in the shade and it was nice. We crossed about nine bridges in the shade, before we started up the hill in the sun. It really wasn't a long walk uphill and we saw glimpses of the dwellings all the way up the path. What made this particular site nice was that we were able to walk INTO the cliff dwellings, not like Mesa Verde, where we walk next to them, but, are not allowed inside. It was great, we actually saw where they lived and stored their foodstuffs. Looking outwards, these people had a great view of the surrounding areas. By the time we had walked back to the parking area, it was just a little after four and we were ready to head home, it had been a loooong day.

The first of the bridges

Almost there...

These ruins look just like the ones we saw in Mesa Verde

The great view looking outward

 It was rather warm outside that day and when we went up under the cliff facing, it was very cool in the shade, which would have made it nice in the summer heat.

There were rangers up there to tell us about how the ancient ones lived and it was very interesting.

Taking one last look before heading down the trail