How did we make the decision to spend a month in Angel Fire, New Mexico?

We are usually moving to a new campground every 3 to 7 days as we wander across the United States. But nothing is usual about life in 2020, so our camping strategy is a bit unusual for us this month. We started looking for a place to stay in the mountains of New Mexico, and found this state had some strict restrictions on welcoming out-of-state visitors at the time. For some reason, visitors staying a month or more don't count in the 25% campground limits, so we started looking for the best option for a month-long stay. That's how we found Monte Verde RV Park in Angel Fire, New Mexico.

Monte Verde is Spanish for "green mountain," and we are surrounded by mountains covered in green trees.

The sites are closer together than we prefer, and we don't have much shade or privacy in the park. But we have a nice "common area" between the RVs, and we've found some uncommonly friendly campers that congregate here most evenings.

When you add that we have a good AT&T phone signal here, all the major television channels with our over-the-air antenna, 50-amp full-hook-ups, clean restrooms, and some of the best campground wifi we've found in our travels, we are very comfortable as we settle in for a month-long stay. The deletion of any one of those would not be deal-breaker for a short stay, but we are enjoying the luxury of having all of those things this month.

Angel Fire is situated along a scenic byway known as "The Enchanted Circle." This 84-mile drive takes tourist through some of the most scenic mountains and villages in New Mexico. We would have preferred to split our month into stays at those four villages--staying a week in Red River, a week in Angel Fire, a week in Taos, and a week in Questa. But we are finding that RV parks in these areas are charging $42-96 per day. By staying in this park for a month, we can bring our daily charge down to less than $23. So for that kind of savings, we can afford to do some driving to all of those other mountain ski towns for hiking and activities. From our chosen campground, we can see Angel Fire's ski runs.

The town of Angel Fire has a little grocery store, a hardware store, a lumber yard, a dollar store, and several restaurants and convenience stores. We think we'll have everything we need this month--even if it is at some inflated prices. We also have some sight-seeing to do in our little village while Denisa's Mother is staying with us. Our first stop was the National Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Just a couple miles outside of Angel Fire, this uniquely-shaped building with its curved white walls stands at the top of a hill that overlooks the valley. It's a great place to sit and reflect.

This beautiful area was the loving memorial built by an Angel Fire doctor and his wife, who lost their youngest son in a battle in Vietnam. The parents are buried here at the top of this scenic hill.

Thirteen members of their son's battalion died as a result of an ambush on May 22, 1968, close to the demilitarized zone. Thirteen pictures of the lost soldiers hang in the chapel, where a 13-foot cross stands at the front.

Because of Covid-19 restrictions, the museum is closed for now. But the grounds and the chapel are always open. A helicopter used in Vietnam is on display near the garden.

These grounds are lovingly planted and cared for by the garden club of Angel Fire, and we enjoyed the iris blooms this day.

At the bottom of the hill, the finishing touches are just being completed on the newest New Mexico Veteran's cemetery. The guys patrolling the area told us that the bushes and trees would be planted this week.

Even at this solemn place of memorial, the mountain blue birds are here to brighten our day. Standing at guard on the top of the sweeping white wall on the upper right corner of the picture below, this blue bird seems to be showing his respects to our Vietnam soldiers that gave their all.

Another stop in Angel Fire was Monte Verde Lake. Even though it shares the same name as our RV park, it's actually several miles away and connected to the country club neighborhood. We stopped in to find out that the public is welcome to put inflatable kayaks on this nice little lake. We made a note to do that before we leave this area.

Driving some lesser-known roads seems to be one of the best activities for now, since Denisa's Mother isn't up for the hiking that we usually do. We found this road a few miles south of Angel Fire, but we won't be using it as a short cut for the motor home any time soon. The pavement changed to a dirt road and we were warned of the restriction ahead.

As we drive around Angel Fire, we are finding that the elk cows are moving down to meadows for calving season. We have seen elk almost every day.

These cows are losing their winter coats as they are enjoying the nice summer weather with us.

We are also finding that there are an uncommon number of prairie dogs around Angel Fire. They are the main rodents we see on the highway, and we have our own prairie dog town beside our campground.

But Denisa's favorite campground animals are the mountain blue birds. We almost never walk our campground loop without seeing one. We have a good selection of the less-showy female birds . . .

and the darker blue males. So Denisa has a habit of taking the camera with her on these walks, just to catch these blue beauties in their different landing spots.

We can verify that our park has less bugs because of these pretty birds. Denisa has caught them with big bugs in their mouths more than once.

We are keeping busy with our sight-seeing, but we are also spending time at our campground, enjoying the cool temperatures and the fresh mountain air. We're playing a record number of games with Betty, and she is determined that we will get all the pecans shelled that we have been carrying around since last fall.

After six days of living the RV lifestyle, Denisa's sister came to drive Betty home. We hope it was a good break for her from being isolated at home alone. As for us, we like our new home here in the mountains of Angel Fire, New Mexico. We made the decision to spend this month here under unusual circumstances, and so far we really like our decision.