Plans? What Plans?

When we flew back into Tucson at the end of August, we had a plan, we always have a plan, this time it was to explore California, working our way up from Yosemite and then back down the coast.   But all the fires in California contained or not seemed to be where we wanted to go.   So we headed off to Tombstone Territories RV Resort http://www.tombstoneterritories.com to think about it.

 

We chilled out in the sunshine, thought about it and decided we didn’t want to get into possibly smoky conditions so we’d visit California another time and go to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado instead.

 

Luckily for us, we’d only got as far as Kiva RV Park & Horse Motel, http://kivarvparkandhorsemotel.com just south of Albuqerque when the monsoon storms hit causing devastating floods across New Mexico and Colorado.   At Kiva we were lucky as the absolute worst of the storms seemed to go all around us, but not actually hit us, yes we had rain but nothing compared to the storms ranging all around us.   Some of the lightening shows were spectacular, scary, but spectacular. 

 

About 1½ miles from the RV park is the narrow, normally dry ditch which is the Rio Puerco.  We always thought this was a small local creek, but it’s actually a major river draining from the mountains up near Cuba before flowing into the Rio Grande.   Although the river flooded, the RV park wasn’t affected but sadly the small community of Bernardo on the other side of I25 was very badly flooded.

 

We sat out the storms at Kiva and then moved up into the mountains just north of Santa Fe, where unfortunately Verizon didn’t work and the campground internet was mostly unusable as everyone was trying to use it at once.

 

Now we’re back in the land of internet connections, I knew we researched stuff on the internet but didn’t realise just how much until we didn’t have a connection, so I’ll get caught up on our travels eventually.

 

As for our latest plan – what plan?

 

Have fun, we are!

The Isle of Anglesey, North Wales

On a simply gorgeous day we headed back to North Wales where we crossed the Menai Straits over to the Island of Anglesey and to Lligwy Bay.   We parked on the beach car park with its cheery little beach café

 

The words on the shutters made me smile 'Bring me Sunshine', I almost expected Morecambe and Wise to come dancing round the corner.   After enjoying a coffee and admiring the view we decided to walk round the coast path to Moelfre.   

Moelfre’s a pretty little place, only a couple of miles away it’s a fairly easy stroll with no huge ascents or descents unlike the Devon coast path.      

The village is in a small bay with a pebble beach, lifeboat station,

and a great little pub, needless to say that’s where we had lunch.    

 

Afterwards we took the same path back to Lligwy Bay and walked out across the beach to the sea, I’d decided I was going to have a paddle.   I did and it was absolutely freezing, my toes were practically turning blue!

 

On the way home, we stopped to have a look at the Din Lligwy historical site where there are the remains of an ancient settlement, a Medieval chapel of ease and a Neolithic burial chamber is nearby.   Din refers to a defensive/protective wall surrounding a settlement.   Although hundreds of Roman pot sherds from the 3rd & 4th century AD have been found here, the site of the settlement is thought to go back to the Iron Age when it may have been a farming community.   Archaeological excavations have found round structures that are thought to be houses and rectangular structures that are thought to be barns or workshops.   

We followed the short path across the fields and up onto a small wooded mound to the settlement, it’s a fascinating place especially in the early evening light.  

 

Walking back across the fields, we stopped to admire the view out across to Lligwy Bay and the sea     

 

before continuing to the Medieval chapel of ease.   The tiny 12th century chapel was used by the widespread community of Penrhos Lligwy, some parts of the chapel were rebuilt in the 14th century and a small extension chapel was added sometime during the 16th century.   I've no idea when it was last used.

Inside there’s an open crypt before what was once an altar, in the gloom I could see some flowers and it looked intriguing but there was no way I was going down into that dark hole, especially as DB had disappeared.

Outside a herd of bullocks at the back of the chapel stopped my wanderings I’m not happy being in a field of bullocks on my own, so I left them be and headed back to the car.   We had intended to look at the Neolithic burial chamber but somehow or other, probably through lack of attention, we, okay I, totally missed the turning and we ended up back on the main road, so we’ll have to save that for another trip.   It was a fabulous day. 

Have fun, we are