Ellyn in Belen

Left Rockhound State Park and headed to Ellyn's place in Belen, NM, just south of Albuquerque.  The trip was uneventful and we arrived at Ellyn's place without incident, parking on the street outside of her house.  RIchard was very concerned about the prospect of unhitching the trailer from the car and relying on wheel chocks on this sloop, we kept the two connected.  (RIchard worries.  It's inherited.  😀)

(To be fair, the picure above was actually taken the next afternoon, however it's also true that a few hours after we arrived at her house, the rain followed us!)

That evening, we all decided it would be better for us to sleep in her guest room because our trailer AC pulled too many amps on her 20 amp circuit and ended up tripping the circult breaker!  So, we brought inside Farid (the Kitty), his food dish, water dish, and the small litterbox we use in the car.  Ellyn's dog, Rocky, has experience dealing with cats and is very mellow, so while Farid was very hesitant, Rocky basically ignored him, so they haven't had really interactions hardly at all!

Ellyn shared some wonderful chocolate with us and Kelly just had to get some more, so...  we decided on an adventure to Madrid, NM (pronounced by the locals with emphasis on the first syllable), a small artsy town NE of Albuquerque, about 1 hour drive away.  With our next day plans settled, we all went to bed.  Farid handled it very well.

The next day, Kelly & Richard had their usual fabulous breakfast and Ellyn also made a really nice fruit salad as well, so we all had a wonderful time!  We then headed out to Madrid

Did some shopping of local artists, went to the local coffee shop, and finally visited the chocolate shop ("Shugarman's Little Shop").  Having obtained our necessary dark chocolate (along with included ice packs to help with keeping it from melting on a warm day), we made our way back "home".

Shortly after we arrived back, it rained, just as it had the previous day, while simultaneously in the distance there was a dust storm.

It was a little odd to see both the dust storm in the distance while experiencing rain (the first picture of the trailer above) at the same time!

We had a great time visiting Ellyn!

Tomorrow we head to the Petrified Forest, or at least the area of the Petrified Forest.  The actual idea is to go to the DoBell Ranch, which is just outside of the Petrified Forest.  More about that later.