So we finally left Tubac on Saturday 20^th December. We had not set ourselves any destination for that first night knowing we probably wouldn’t get on the road too early. Which was absolutely right as it turned out.

Dad and Carol brought the boys over to the hotel for our last delicious breakfast then we pulled out of the carpark in convoy – Frankie and the hire car! We picked up the boys from the house and said our goodbyes to Dad and Carol and their lovely house that has been home for the last 5 weeks (give or take a few days in a rental RV and a hotel!).

Quite chuffed with ourselves that we’d managed to get away before midday we passed through Border Patrol for what we thought was the last time. Wrong!!

20 miles up the road we stopped at Safeway to stock up the fridge. Suddenly at the checkout John let out a string of obscenities. Turns out we had forgotten to retrieve the wad of US dollars that John had brought back with him and had hidden in a high cupboard in the kitchen in Tubac. (Funnily it turns out that it was at about the same time that Carol wondered out loud to Dad whether we had remembered the money and if we hadn’t that she might try to pretend she knew nothing about it – lucky for us John remembered in time!!).

So John headed south once again and went back to the house while the kids and I shoved food into the larder and fridge. Seems I had got used to the luxury of endless cupboard space and a huge US fridge / freezer. I remember finding it hard adjusting again after our ‘break’ in Abbotsford and that had only been 2 not 5 weeks!!

So back on the road and we headed to Tucson Airport (think I had been there 5 or 6 times by then and never flown anywhere!!) to drop off the hire car. Charlie and I hadn’t made a firm plan of where John and Will would park Frankie and we would meet up with them. So having dumped the car we started looking around and ended up walking the length of the airport and through all of the car parks. Couldn’t call them as my UK phone had run out of battery and John doesn’t have a US phone. The nice people at Enterprise tried to let me call him from their phone but it would wouldn’t do international calls so I couldn’t call his mobile!! We ended up walking out of the airport and then all the way back in via the main entrance and throwing ourselves on the mercy of some taxi drivers. One of whom very kindly let me use the last $5 on his prepay phone to call John (he wouldn’t let me pay him – what a gent!!).

Turns out he was UNDER the van trying to mend the air suspension that had chosen that moment to start leaking meaning the back of Frankie was almost dragging on the ground!! Thankfully John is soooooo very practical he was able to mend it. I truly do not think you could live in an RV ‘full time’ without being a mechanic, plumber, electrician, carpenter etc. etc. Luckily for us John is able to do all of the above!! (Fix-it-Felix is the kids name for him – I call him Chauffeur!).

The third of the things to go wrong on our way out of town was that the Sat Nav seemed to have had a break down too. It no longer had the RV parks menu on it, which we are so very reliant upon to find places when we are on the road. I suspected it may have had something to do with Son No. 1 who spent most of the time he and I were in the hire car in Tubac fiddling around with it trying to work out how long it would take us to drive to Manchester (UK) and other ridiculous journeys. Again this was another hiccup sorted by Fix It Felix and the World Wide Web!!

So we finally got out of Tucson at 4pm and so drove just for an hour or so to the town of Willcox, still in Arizona. Not the most beautiful of places but a place to stay anyway!! So we were finally back in Frankie and on our way again!!

The first 24 hours were spent rediscovering the quirks of living in a 28’ box on wheels. Several sense of humour failures at having to get down onto my hands and knees to access saucepans, clothes or food!! Another one when I had to cook dinner standing in a 2’ space with 3 people shoving past me and asking me to pass them things. Another one when we had to march off in the cold morning to the shower blocks to take a lukewarm shower. Anyway, I’m sure we will all get used to it again. Kids seem to have remembered that they are part of the ‘set up crew’ at least and William particularly has been brilliant, making us all lunch while we got sorted, without being prompted – very unnerving!

Finally on Sunday we did some proper driving and headed east on I10. Delighted to finally be out of Arizona and into a new state – New Mexico. We didn’t have much of a planned route for these next few weeks other than stops at White Sands National Monument, which William had read about and suggested we should visit, and Carlsbad Caverns, Guadalupe Mountains and Big Bend – all National Parks. We weren’t quite sure where we would end up for Christmas so were trying to work it out as we went.

Our first stop in New Mexico was La Mesilla village just outside of Las Cruces, close to White Sands. This was a tiny but charming little town full of the architecture, colour and sounds of Old Mexico – it was here in 1854 that the Gadsden Purchase was sealed which established the boundaries of Mexico and the USA that are still in effect today. All centered around the plaza it reminded us a lot of Tubac. Lots of art galleries and gift shops. Apparently this is where Billy the Kid was sentenced to hang for murder in 1881 – he escaped before his hanging! A Mariachi band was playing in the plaza, sat below a Christmas tree. A husband and wife team they didn’t look a day under 90 and I don’t think cracked a smile the whole time we were there!

    

We stayed that night in Las Cruces, The City of the Crosses and made our plans for the next few days. Having heard that sledging was one of the main activities at White Sands we decided it would be a great place to spend Christmas Eve. I then found a lovely looking state park nestled in the foothills of the Sacramento Mountains, just north of White Sands so we decided to base ourselves around that area for the Christmas period. Really difficult to chose a place ‘special’ enough to stay for Christmas and as the campsite was ‘Frist come first served’ basis we just hoped it would a. be nice and b. there would be ‘room at the inn’!!

Monday we headed off to Dripping Springs Natural Reserve, which I’d read about as a nice place for a hike and a spot of bird watching! It was a beautiful day and the trail was fantastic. Set in the Organ Mountains it leads up to the Van Patten Hotel which welcomed guests who arrived by horse in the 1800’s. It must have been an amazing place to stay. The views over the valley were incredible. Later it became a Sanctuary for tuberculosis patients. A little further along was La Cueva (the cave for those of you whose Spanish isn’t as good as mine- ha ha!) A Hermit lived here between 1847-1849. He is said to have treated folks who visited him from nearby Las Cruces. Concerned about his safety they had an arrangement with him that he would light a fire on Friday nights so they knew he was ok. Didn’t work out too well as he was murdered in his cave!! Anyway, despite all that it was a lovely walk!

              

We then headed to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park which turned out firstly to have space for us and secondly to be completely beautiful. Set against the dramatic Sacramento Mountains with the valley and Chihuahuan Desert stretched out in front of us and mountains in the distance on all sides. The sun was setting as we arrived and having been told the sunsets were incredible in New Mexico we were inclined to agree!! Very very happy to be settling here for Christmas!!

    

Tuesday we drove south into Texas to El Paso. We had some last minute Christmas shopping to do – well John did… Having felt so very smug at not having to do Christmas Cards, huge shopping and planning etc we were suddenly in long lines to get in and out of mall car parks and felt like we were plunged into Christmas Madness. Not a very nice experience!

That evening we were sat back in our peaceful campsite watching the sun set over the distant mountains happy to be back in the wilderness. Kids in bed and all was quiet when I heard a rustling and looked down and saw a tiny mouse sat in the foot well by the drivers seat!! We had no chance in catching it so resigned ourselves to the fact that we now had a pet!!

  

Wednesday was Christmas Eve and the sun was shining! We headed to White Sands National Monument, which was even better than we had imagined. The sand was truly very very white. It comes from gypsum up in the nearby mountains. It dissolves and washes down into the Tularosa Basin. Where the wind then breaks it up into the most beautiful powder fine white sand. These are the largest gypsum sand dunes in the world, some as high as 100’ high.  They hold water so felt cold and almost wet like snow. Having forced the kids to complete the Junior Ranger programs (they now have a large collection) we purchased 4 plastic discs from the gift shop and headed out to do some sledging!  It was fantastic. Much easier to walk on than snow we spent hours climbing up the dunes and flying down them again on our sledges. The sun was shining, the sky was blue and the snow / sand was gleaming. It felt very Christmassy and was great fun.

                    

That night we sat around the fire once again watching the incredible sun set and had the only ‘traditional’ part of our Christmas – Turkey burgers. The clear skies made for some pretty incredible star spotting too.  The kids were so excited that they decided to go to bed at 8pm, which we thought was great as we hoped it would mean we would get an early night too!! We had bought lots of decorations and planned to surprise the kids by hanging strings of snowflakes all around their beds, paper pom poms from the roof and and snowflake stickers on the windows as well as the usual Christmas Eve ‘preparations’. And of course the piñata Christmas tree had to be ‘placed’ and the pile of presents set below it.

    

Will still awake at 11pm. And at midnight. So at 1am we gave up waiting any longer and went to sleep and set our alarm to wake us at 2am – no good he was still awake. So we set the alarm again for 3am. He was still awake!! He then cried saying he knew if he didn’t go to sleep then Santa wouldn’t come and he would ruin Christmas for Charlie. OUR SENTIMENTS EXACTLY!! Eventually at 4am we hung last of the decorations etc and went to sleep.

Being Christmas morning we were of course all awake at 6am and guess what at some stage in between the various ups and downs in the night Father Christmas had miraculously found a window of opportunity to fill the boys’ stockings. Phew!!

    

It was a strange feeling to wake up knowing that back in the UK all our friends and family were just about sitting down to lunch or the Queens Speech as we were on our first cup of tea.   But we had a lovely day. It was suddenly very grey and cold so we snuggled up in the van.   The kids got a pile of lego which we thought was a clever gift in that once the huge unnecessary packaging is gone then it doesn’t take up much space – well so we thought. We now have 2 plastic crates dedicated to the stuff. Despite the distinct reduction in numbers of presents they were happy and grateful which was a relief. It was lovely to have a Christmas Day with just us. We had steak, ribs and prawns all done on the BBQ and loved it. We missed our family at home but it was such a treat to have just the 4 of us. Just a lovely day.

      

Saturday 27^th we were due to leave the lovely State Park.   There was a total change in weather. Suddenly very very cold with snow on mountains behind us. We drove out through Lincoln national forest where there was deep deep snow on the ground. We stopped at the appropriately named Cloud croft ski resort and the kids got out to wade through it and chuck a few snowballs around. This obviously ended in tears – snow down Charlie’s back!!

  

We got to the town of Carlsbad mid afternoon and stopped at a campsite. Kids biked and played on playground and John and I decked ourselves in hats and gloves and took on the boot – Christmas presents sorted into boxes. And we freed up boxes to keep the new Lego stuff that’s been built.

Sunday we drove south to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, still just inside the border between New Mexico and Texas. Under the Guadalupe Mountains, nicknamed the Grand canyon under ground, there are miles of caverns, the largest of which is 8.2 acres!!   We walked through the Natural Entrance into the caves which descends 800′ over 1 mile past some truly incredible formations. You then get to a very strange junction with toilets and a coffee shop – all underground. We then did the 1 ½ mile loop around the Grand Room which is the size of 6 football fields! The kids did another Ranger program – another badge for their collection! We loved the caves which were much more interactive than the Kartchner caverns we visited back in Arizona. We were sad to miss the spectacle, which occurs here nightly in the summer months. They have evening programs at sunset when the bats that live there all fly out – 5000 of them per minute!! Actually come to think of it I don’t know that I was too sad to miss that…

   

Just to keep us on our toes the warning light came on in the van – glow plugs or something. That gave us something to worry about and the opportunity to try to track down another Mercedes specialist somewhere on our route!!

We stayed that night in a campsite just outside the caverns in White City in a very odd place! On Monday we went north again and back into the town of Carlsbad. It was that time of the month when we had to find a Verizon store to load up our wifi device and my mobile phone – always a fun hour!! We found a Skate park for the boys who had withdrawal symptoms…. Will made a friend while we were there. We saw them chatting (obviously we were hiding in the van so as not to do anything to damage their street cred). Apparently they talked politics. Will’s mate (whose name he didn’t get) thinks that President Obama is not very good. He asked Will about our Queen and what Will thought of her. Then they discussed various wars and why the UK and US are allies. Hilarious!!

Then we headed South again back past Carlsbad Caverns and then we were in Texas – properly this time!