Malpais National Monument NM

It was time to hit the road once again. Next stop would be the Sky City Casino RV Park a whole 70 miles away from Coronado campground. Upon checking in we discovered RV'ers are also allowed to use the hotel pool and hot tub.  All this, for only $19.00 per night! Our plan was to stay in the cooler parts of New Mexico before we have to head on down to Arizona where we know it's hotter than Hades. 

If you're wondering why we're going to Arizona so early, it's because I have a full knee replacement surgery scheduled for September 10th. Our plan is to arrive in Mesa on August 20th and we will leave the motorhome there. My surgery is scheduled in Raleigh, North Carolina so we will fly out on the 21st of August. We plan to stay in North Carolina with our daughter and her family. As soon as my daughter who is a physical therapist and the doctor release me, we will return to Mesa for the winter season. 

In the meantime, we'll spend 2 days here at the casino and do a little gambling. We love to play video poker but we don't gamble very heavy as we try to find the nickel slots when they are available. When we signed up for a player's card, we both were awarded $10.00 in free play. At the end of the day, we both ended up winning a meager amount but had a blast playing. Video poker.

Our second day at the casino, we decided to drive down to the Malpias National Monument. We mostly did a lot of driving around and sightseeing at the over a million-year-old lava flows which predominate the landscape.  We also took a small hike at the sand bluffs overlook which was fabulous. The rock outcroppings, hoodoos and panoramic views were worth the trip to the Malpias National Monument.

We also took a short hike on the Arch trail to an arch as impressive as many in Utah. The arch is named La Ventana, which means the window in English. The hike wasn't very long but took us close to the arch which was a worthy sighting for the area.

Alas our two days were up and it was time to move on...