Albuquerque, NM - Oct 2007

Much to our delight, as we pulled into the High Desert RV Park in Albuquerque, who should check in right behind us but another fulltiming Lazy Daze couple -- Kate & Terry. We hadn't seen them in well over a year, so it was good to be able to spend some time with them and catch up on all our lives.
They have the same floorplan LD as we do and it was great to see and share and discuss all the improvements and decor changes that we've done. Then, to add icing to the cake -- Andy, another Lazy Daze fulltimer arrived and the three of us enjoyed several days of side-by-side camaraderie.

While there, we had some service work done on our RV by Mike & Lisa Sylvester. Wonderful folks and excellent RV technicians. In addition to adding a whole house surge guard and a new converter, they did all our annual appliance maintenance. They were also able to fix a pesky problem that had been plaguing our furnace for months. Turns out it was a deeply embedded mud dauber nest -- go figure. About three months ago, we'd had another service technician try and repair it with no luck, so we were tickled that Mike & Lisa, after spending several hours tearing the furnace apart, were able to find and fix the problem.

While in Albuquerque we took advantage of being near a big city and got caught up on some shopping. We also ate out too many times (geez, my jeans still won't button) and especially enjoyed (twice) a local New Mexican favorite -- Sadies.

Just before arriving in Albuquerque, my old Mac Powerbook (at six years old, it's safe to call it ancient) had been acting up and giving me signs of being on its last leg, so we called our niece (she works for Apple) and through her we were able to get a good deal on a new MacBook Pro. We had it delivered while we were there and spent many hours over the course of the next week getting data transferred and files updated. It's a good thing we got right on it as my ancient one died about a week later and I'm so thankful that I got most of my files moved over before it happened.

In amongst the RV repairs, computing, shopping, eating and visiting we took a trip to the Albuquerque Zoo and, once again, enjoyed this great little zoo. Here are two juvenile giraffes "kissing" -- or so it looks. I think they were just grooming each other when I caught them in this lip locked pose.

Yes, this hippo really was playing with that red ball when we walked up to his enclosure. The ball would roll back into the pool and the hippo would go after it and then would swim back while pushing the ball with his snout until they were both back up on the sloped cement. Then the fun would start all over again. Have to admit that's the first time I've seen a hippo play.

Oh wow -- I got to hear a lion roar -- and roar he did. It was very loud and much repeated. If that moat hadn't been between us, it would have scared the poop out of me.

An underwater look at a polar bear swimming. This guy was doing laps and looked very graceful underwater -- especially with his long, white fur flowing about.