Monday, March 24, 2014

Day 54–Travel Day–Kiva RV Park, Tucumcari, New Mexico

 

We have no definitive plans for today except driving. As I said before Ron did a lot of research and was unable to find anything for us to do in New Mexico except hiking. We have been to New Mexico before and had covered it quite extensively.

Ron was in a driving mood, the weather was great and traffic  light so we were on the road for a very long time – in fact- for 408 miles. That had been an all time record for this trip.

As we all know Ron likes to get CG bargains so he researched the Passport America and found to CG’s in Tucumcari on the old Route 66. They were side by side – Kiva RV Park -  had great reviews – nice people, really friendly, yada, yada !!! The other, Cactus RV Park,  not so much, cranky, unfriendly with a lot of rules.

We have been traveling quite a bit along and on the old route 66 – not so much by design but by chance. It has been amazing to see how many of the towns along Historic 66 have turned into literal ghost towns with remnants of what used to be still visible.

Anyway, we pulled up to the Kiva RV Park and were somewhat taken aback by the place. Although the old buildings and motel appeared to have been recently painted Ron was hesitant to pull in. It looked like there was no where to park, turn around or anything for that matter. It was do or die so we pulled in and at first thought we should just pull out. Although the buildings had a fresh coat of paint they were definitely in the troughs of dying and the people milling about looked the same!!!

We looked at each other and because all of the other CGs we passed in the area looked similar we got out to get a true feel for the place and not rely just on our first impression. We’ve stayed in worse places and did not have any problems.

As we walked around the MH we were greeted by a really friendly, albeit unkempt, man who was one of the proprietors of the property. He was quite scruffy and dirty but was wearing a security hat and was very congenially. He asked us if we would like to stay  - maybe more then one night  perhaps 2 days , a week or a month. After we  cordially declined he assured us he had several people staying for extended stays. He also told us he was 24 hour security and we could contact him at anytime in the security  MH he lived in on property.

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Then, into the office came Tom, the man who would be escorting us to our site. He was also very friendly and quite entertaining. He escorted us to our site on a Vespa. Thank goodness, because the circuitous way he took us we would have never found it.

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Once at the site, he began chatting with us and  was absolutely animated and had us laughing through his entire diatribe about his Cactus RV Park neighbor. The relationship is like the Hatfield's and McCoy's with a constant battle for RVers and the like. Tom told us that the owner of Cactus RV ran over one of Kiva’s customers because he was walking his dog on the other man’s property. They had to call the police and the owner of Cactus was arrested. Another time the Cactus owner shot at one of his own customers’ for taking a towel out of his hotel!!!!! HMMMMM!!!! I guess we made the right decision to stay at Kiva’s with the friendly guys! LOL However, since our site was clearly only about 100 feet from Cactus , we didn’t get a warm and fuzzy feeling being so close to Cactus.

Tom is the artistic one in the group and is trying to revive some of the Route 66 history so has the place done up in style.

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Tom, we assumed, is also painting a mural that is quite good.

 

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Tom told us that they have their own radio station, (98.7 – one degree above normal as Tom stated) without commercials, and a web site that more then explains their relationship with the Cactus people. Some very interesting reading. Tom had just finished 6 months of chemo for throat cancer so felt he had nothing to lose and let loose on his web site about his Cactus neighbors!!!!!

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LINKS:

www.kivarvpark.com

www.cactusrvpark.com

RT 66

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_66

Again, we took our chances and got to meet some very nice, quirky people who are working at making an honest living in a very depressed area of the country.

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In the evening the the park was lit up like a Christmas tree with flashing lights every where. We did see our 24-hour security person checking out the grounds on his tike bike,  so felt very safe!!!!

Tomorrow we will be heading for Amarillo, Texas. Ron has found a couple of things for us to do there, so looking forward to another  new adventure.

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