Travels with Seven and Mad

A New Adventure

2009-02-06T16:32:00.000-08:00

We are heading for Down Under!!! Sitting in Sky Harbor Airport, Phoenix, waiting for SWA Flight 216 to LA as I type. Someone, the city of Phoenix or SWA, has set up some beautiful tables with outlets and then give you free access to the internet. I can see at least 10 people with computers from where I sit. What a deal!! Maybe the days of sitting on the floor next to the only wall plug in the airport are over? We will get to LA at 6:30 then catch a flight to Sydney at 10:30. We are leaving on Friday and will get there on Sunday. Something about across the date line somewhere out in the Pacific. I'll look for it.

DW just got back from watch the luggage throwing contests out on the tarmac. It should be an Olympic event some day.

Silverton CO - 547 miles

2008-07-11T20:13:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I read From Stampede to Timberline, a wonderful book about old mining towns in Colorado. There was a haunting story about a beautiful dance hall girl who was known as Silverheels by the miners in town. According to the story the town was devastated by a small pox epidemic and Silverheels tirelessly nursed ill miners without regard for her own health. Hundreds died. When it was almost over, Silverheels disappeared. People later said that they saw her ghost visiting the graves of miners she nursed with a vail over her face. The vail hid the awlful damaged done by the small pox disease to her beautiful face. My memory must be shot. I could have sworn the story took place in Silverton and Seven and I spent a good hour or so looking for Silverheel's grave in the cemetry overlooking Silverton without much luck. We even stopped in the local historical society's office and talked to a grumpy lady about it. She didn't have a copy of From Stampede to Timberland for me to check. She said there wasn't a small pox epidemic in Silverton. I looked it up on the web and found out the story took place in Buckskin Joe.

Silverton is a tourist town now. There is still a mine there. You can see mine tailings in the mountains close to town. There are a lot of gift shops and restaurants that open up when the popular Durango & Silverton narrow gauge train from Durango pulls in. Without that train showing up each day Silverton would dry up and blow away. The train ride has to be spectacular if it comes close to what we saw on our ride up US 550. There is quite a few things to do in Silverton. It is a beautiful place that sits in a valley surrounded by mountains.

We stayed at the Silver Summit RV park which is within walking distance of most of Silverton's stores and restaurants. The owner is a nice guy with a laid back attitude. The RV park was clean, well organized, and had everything. We used Passport America without problems. There was still snow on the ground in and around Silverton.

Getting in and out of Silverton is an adventure. A beautiful adventure. The road in and out of Silverton is narrow and steep. It is the definition of mountain driving. Much of the road, Highway 555, is cut out of the side of mountains. One inattentive moment and you could be testing the airworthiness of your RV. Someplaces we traveled were downright scary. Lots of 20 mph curves. It is only 50 miles from Durango to Silverton but it takes at least 2 hours to drive. I was bushed.

Mesa Verde CO - 3/18/08 - 444 miles

2008-05-23T13:46:00.001-07:00

Mesa Verde National Park is a must see locale. We parked the RV in a parking lot just outside the front gate in a parking lot meant for trailers. The RV could have made it, but it would have taken 6 gallons of diesel to keep it with us. With diesel at $4.37 we didn't need it. Be sure to allow plenty of time to enjoy this special place. An entire day. We took about 6 hours to tour it and we did not see some things that were on my list. Far View and the Sun Palace for example.

Your first stop should be at the Visitor's Center. That is where you get tickets to tour the Cliff Palace and the Balcony House with a ranger. They cost $3 for each tour. Well worth it. Allow some time between each tour. We had about an hour which gave us time to grab some lunch and visit the museum. We didn't have time to go see the Spruce House. It is a pretty decent hike down (and back) to it. Heat wasn't an issue for us when we visited, but if the temperatures were pretty high, this one would be one to look at in the morning. Park at the end of each parking lot and walk back to the trail heads to the Cliff Palace and Balcony House. If you have severe problems with heights do not go to the Cliff Palace or Balcony House, particularly Balcony House. I have moderate fear of heights problems and was able to negotiate the ladders without to many problems.

The rangers on the tours do a masterful job of storytelling. The former residents of the dwellings left mysteriously and although we know a lot about their lives in this area, there is lot that is not known. The dwellings are spectacular to me. I could almost picture people living here.

There is a snack bar near the museum that is connected to a well-stocked gift shop. We ate in the snack bar and it wasn't too bad.

Cortez CO - 3/16/08 - 407 miles

2008-05-16T19:42:00.000-07:00

Cortez is a nice little town. We are staying at a nice little camp ground, La Mesa RV Park, near the center of town. Not too many other people here in the camp ground. The camp ground's WiFi equipment is terrible and I had to come up and park right next to their router in order to use it. Good thing Karen is not here with me because there is at least 100 mosquitoes flying around the car. They are looking for her. She left me to do the RV hookups when we got here because she spotted a quilt shop on the main street and it would probably close at 5pm. The main street here appears to be thriving and they have a Wal-Mart.

We plan to tour Mesa Verde National Park tomorrow then go up to Silverton, CO after visiting Durango. Durango is where our kids and I took one of our best pictures ever. We were all dressed up in cowboy gear carrying or holding every weapon they had in the picture studio. It was a hoot.

Four Corners NM-AZ-UT-CO 3/16/08 - 366 miles

2008-05-16T19:39:00.000-07:00

Happiness is having a working refrigerator. At least to us RVers.

We woke up at 3:30 am and Seven said she was ready to hit the road. LOL Mad, who is in his right mind, rolled back over and went to sleep. We did get up at 7:00am and were on the road at 7:30. We were heading up AZ 89 then US 160 towards Cortez, CO. Beside Kayenta, the Four Corners is the place to see along this beautiful stretch of highway.

We did stop at the Burger King in Kayenta for a milk shake (we shared one) and to see the Indian exhibits next to the restaurant. There were 3 examples of Indian buildings set up with clear and interesting explanations of how they were used. There was also a nice little museum filled with information about the Navajo code talkers and the Navajo culture. I did see a postcard with some Hopi crafts featured on it but was afraid to ask the clerk at the desk about it. How did it get there? Hopis and Navajos do not get along. Look at the hape of the Arizona congressional districts to see what I mean.

We pulled into the Four Corners area and were surprised to learn that we had to pay an entrance fee to get in to the monument area. The land is on the Navajo reservation. Just $3 per person. We had been here before and were amazed at the improvements not only to the monument but to all the booths (43) selling jewelry and the like.

I get really excited about things like this for some reason. I think that is called 'going nuts'. Being excited, I called my brother, sister and sister-in-law while walking from state to state to share the experience with them. Now I am in New Mexico, now in Colorado, etc. Unfortunately I was doing this while some other tourists were trying to snap unobstructed pictures of the monument. They got their pictures. They just had to wait until I scratched my itch.For this I apologize to these unknown people. I just go wild and forget to be respectful of others. I did lie down on the monument so I could get a body part in every state and Seven memorialized that. Seven just stood there on the marker for her picture. She wasn't as excited as I was apparently.

Three guys were there from North Carolina and were talking to us. They were biking across the US on their Harleys and seemed like they were having a great time. I took their pictures on the monument for them using their own cameras. I also apologized to them for what KU to them did in the Final Four.

Four Corners is a worthwhile thing to see.

We had lunch and moved on to Cortez where we will spend the night. We will go over to see Mesa Verde National Park in the morning.

Seven spent about 30 minutes of cell phone time talking to Orangewood RV managers about the shoddy repair job they did on our refrigerator. Their response to the fact that they obviously did not do the work that they billed us for was, in so many words, tough, sue us.

Flagstaff AZ 144 miles - 3/14/08

2008-05-15T15:40:00.000-07:00

144 miles is not what I would call a good start to our 2008 Big Adventure. We made it to Flag as they affectionally call it in Arizona. Flag is where everyone in Phoenix wants to be in August. A nice little college town in the shadow of the massive Mt Humphrey, a classic cinder cone volcano.

We were suppose to start out yesterday and stop at the Camp Wally here in Flag but after we unplugged the house power we noticed that the propane for the refrigerator did not kick in. That is bad. No refrigeration no heading for Flagstaff. It was too late to get it looked into so I did what I could to repair it. Nothing. We looked up the repair shop number and called them first thing in the morning.

We got into the shop, Orangewood RV on Bell Road in Surprise, at 8:00 am and got the repair done and were on the road at 11:45am. Total cost $94 for cleaning out the flue in the refrigeration unit. Evidently it rusts and the rust falls down onto the burners, blocking them. They said that they cleaned the system and everything was working.

It is all uphill, just about, from Phoenix at 800 feet above sea level to Flag which is about 7,000 feet above sea level. We had a lot of wind blowing the RV around which really took a lot out of me physically. We took a break at Camp Verde, Arizona and checked out the Cliff Castle Casino which was just off of I-17. The casino is somewhat RV unfriendly. Their RV and truck parking lot was taken over by a car dealer's tent sale and we had to wait 20 minutes for a shuttle which stops and waits at the Discount Cigarette store where smokers could run in and replenish their supply. The casino was pretty nice but I think its customers were predominately smokers because it had that golden brown patina that casinos with poor air handling systems get after 4-5 years. Just about every other slot player had a cigartette hanging out of his/her mouth. The place reeked. Seven got a chip for her casino chip collection and we left. The shuttle was not to be seen, probably parked, waiting in front of the cigarette shop again, so we hoofed it down the hill to the RV.

Not too much later we heard the tell-tale beeping coming from the refrigerator. It stopped working again because it could not get any propane. We looked up RV refrigerator dealers in Flag and tried calling them but our list was 8 years old. Seven finally called one in Cottonwood and he recommended a friend's shop in Flag for us. We called them and got directions.

We got to the Flagstaff RV Service Center on 4316 N Highway 89 and got in line and hoped that they could get to our RV before their 5pm quitting time. Lucky us. The technician, Robert, took one quick look and told us what the problem was in about 2 minutes - dirty burners and a dirty flue. We said "how can that be, we just had them cleaned 4 hours ago?" They shrugged and said that they were dirty so we said clean them. About an hour later the shop manager, Jason, came back and said we were set to go. He said it looked like to him that the burners had not been cleaned and the propane pressure had not been adjusted. Both of those things could have caused the problem. We paid $103 and then saw Robert, who worked on our RV. We asked him if it looked like the burners had been cleaned and he said absolutely not. He said that to clean them compressed air is forced into the pipe and that shakes any debrie loose. We are going to stop payment to Orangewood RV tomorrow if they do not remove the charge.

We had a quick supper at Pizza Hut. Two personal pan pizzas with salad. Good stuff. After that we went over to Flag's big time mall for some mall walking. Walking the Flag mall didn't take more than 3 minutes at most so I did it 3 times. Seven met me in Sears where she bought some shirts. I wanted some ice cream but didn't see any stores that might have had some.

We are dry camping in an auto supply store parking lot for the night. The store closed at 6pm. Not too bad. Train tracks are near by but I won't hear them in about 15 minutes. We didn't fire up the generator and watch our soap, the Young and the Restless. They rerun all the week's episodes on Saturday and Sunday on Soapnet so we will catch up to the stories then when we will have electricity. On to Cortez or Mancos and Mesa Verde tomorrow.

Sun City West, Arizona - 5/10/08 - 0 Miles

2008-05-10T17:45:00.000-07:00

The new awning was finally installed on the RV. Our awning spring evidently failed somewhere in Kansas last summer and the awning was nearly ripped from the RV. The awning had about a 2 foot rip in it so we had it replaced.

Our rear tires had only 43,000 miles on them but were 7 years old so we replaced those as well. We had replaced the front ones last fall after Mad hit one too many curbs. So before we put a gallon of that precious stuff called diesel fuel in our tank we were already out about $1,900.

Thursday, May 15th, we take off for Gunnison, Colorado. We are going to work as camp ground hosts for Lakeside RV Resort. Lakeside is a private campground and the owners sound like they might be sane, unlike last year's bosses. I have enjoyed chatting with them several times about what we can expect this summer and things in general like internet access. They sound like good people that we will enjoy working with. We will be doing the usual hosting activities as well as work in their little general store in exchange for minimum wage and a camp site. I was thinking about getting paid in Euros but that would probably not be possible.

So the RV is parked in front of the house. I spent a couple of sweaty hours cleaning out all the bins and fixing some drawers. After a couple of years we finally know what we need and don't need. When you first start RVing you tend to take everything under the sun 'just in case' then spend the next 6 months regretting ever doing that. Space in an RV is precious. I will do some basic wiring checks tomorrow or tonight then take it back to the storage lot tomorrow after we load some thing up.

Whale Watching - Maui, HI - 4/12/08

2008-05-10T11:34:00.000-07:00

We all have seen the video on TV. Small boats full of people with our friends the whales everywhere. That's why I went on line and signed up for a whale watching excursion with Trilogy in Ma'aleaea. I was looking for just that experience. LOL

There are literally millions of whale watching excursions to choose from in Hawaii. Watching whales is a big business. Everyone has seen those videos. I didn't talk to people who went on other excursions with difference companies so I have nothing to compare our experience with. I picked Trilogy because it got consistently high ratings from people who used them to get to the elusive whales.

Whales are wild creatures and live in a big ocean so you never know where they are and if they are going to show up. They might have something better to do that day than show up and put on a show of some sorts for you. In other words when you go whale watching, you are taking a chance they might be somewhere else that day hanging with another group of antsy tourists.

Trilogy runs a class excursion. The boats are spacious and the number of people they take out is small enough where you aren't elbowing one another out of the way to get a look a breeching whale, if you are so lucky. The boats do not have many amenities but you really don't need them. A potty, a cooler full of cold beverages, some snacks, nice weather, a great crew, and a few cooperative whales is all you need.

The Trilogy people on our excursion (sorry, I am bad with names) were friendly, talkative, and helpful. They understood what the words customer service mean and did everything they could to make our trip fun and informational.

The sloop rigged catamaran that Trilogy uses is pretty good to whale watch from. It has a large trampoline in the front of the boat and places to sit along each side of it and in front of the cabin. There are also seats on the back of the boat I think. There was plenty of room for everyone to move around and find other seats. The only bad part is that the boat is relatively low in the water so that the viewing angle is pretty low. When you are far away from the whales that is not so much an issue but if the whales are near you then it would be better to be up in the air somewhat on a bigger boat.

We pulled out of the harbor and started looking for whale activity - spouts. No problem. Lots. Our skipper guided the boat towards what looked like a pod. As we approached the whales started raising their tails and periodically slapping the water with them. This was a pod of 3 males and they were doing some male posturing. Very exciting.

These whale watching excursions have a major problem. They want to get close to the whales but are legally prohibited from doing so. There is a protective area of 100 yards around the whales that they cannot enter. Our skipper was very mindful of the 100 yard limit although we would have loved to be in amongst them like in the videos. He told me that if the whales came to him then that is fine. He'd shut everything down and wait until they moved on. The whales didn't come our way but we really enjoyed their antics. One thing about seeing a whale, even a male whale which is smaller than the females, that hits you immediately - they are big.

It was a great day. Beautiful weather, nice people, and lots of whales. What more could you ask for?

We caught the bus back to Lahaina and got on the tender back to the ship after a long, happy day. We had wanted to go up the coast a little from Lahaina and go to the beaches there, but ran out of time. Next time we'd get off the ship earlier and rent a car. Or we could go back.........

Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii - 3/12/08 - 2,491 miles

2008-05-10T09:46:00.000-07:00

Anchors aweigh! Now does aweigh mean putting down the anchor or pulling it up? We dropped anchor off of Lahaina at 7:09 am after a short trip from Honolulu. A beautiful day! 79 degrees and sunny. We could see Lahaina and the nearby islands of Lania and Molokai.

We were really excited. Our excitement was tempered somewhat by the the arrangements that the Zaandam makes for tendering (putting people on lifeboats and taking them ashore when there are not ports deep enough for the cruise ship to use). It was not first-come first-serve. It was whoever paid big bucks for shore excursions goes first and everyone goes whenever they get around to it. For two people who pride themselves at being Team #1 off the ship in every port, we were not happy. If we knew what we learned at the next tendering we really would have been steaming. The tendering honchos do not fill up the tenders!! They load up one tour group then another, etc. until all the tour groups have been sent ashore. It was 10 am before we were tendered in Lahaina. The thing is that there are plenty of seats on the tenders taking the tour groups in. In the next port when they called for the first tour group we went on down and got on without telling the tendering honchos.

Lahaina is essentially a tourist trap. Souvenir shops, restaurants, and various tour operators line the main streets. It is nice in the downtown area and it is easy to walk to everything in the town. Most of the commercial activity is located on Front Street which is one block from the dock where the tender drops its passengers. Just a short walk up Hotel Street by Banyan Park will get you to Front Street. That will take you in the front entrance of a nice little shopping area. I bought what I first thought was a simple original watercolor of some flowers in one of the shops there. A guy was sitting at a table working on these. I watched while he painted in the colors on one. What he was actually doing was painting a drawing that had been reproduced on a copier. On the back of the ones he had for sale (3 for $5) he did a full disclosure about how they were produced. It was pretty so I bought it irregardless of the mass-production aspect of it.

Wharf Street is lined with tour operators selling fishing, snorkeling, and whale watching tours. It looked like a busy place. Most of the ship's tours originated from this area I think.

The little shopping area houses the bus terminal. The bus system on Maui is very good. We were going to catch a bus 15 miles down Highway 30 to Ma'alaea (Pronounced MA-A-LIE-A) where we were going to go on a whale watching excursion on a sloop-rigged catamaran. Ma'alaea is a oceanside village that is centered around Ma'alaea Harbor Shops shopping center. This shopping center is was next to the Maui Ocean Center. We didn't tour the Maui Ocean Center because it seemed kinda of pricey ($21-$24) without that much to offer veteran aquarium goes like ourselves and we didn't have much time. We took a quick look around the shopping center and decided to hop the bus again to go over to Kahului to look around. Only about 8 miles away, on the other side of Maui.

We didn't have much time to really explore Kahului thanks to the incompetent tendering operation on the ship, so all we did was look around a shopping center where the bus station was. It was interesting to see the differences in product selection in Hawaii versus Arizona. We checked out a few of the local stores including one nice fabric shop called Sew Special where Seven got some more quilting fabric and I bought her a neat pineapple quilt pattern.

We got on the bus back to Ma'alaea to get to our whale watch adventure.

Honolulu Hawaii - 3/10/08 - 2,394 miles

2008-03-11T18:38:00.000-07:00

We left Hilo at 4:54 pm to sail over to Honolulu and the island of Oahu. After watching a beautiful sunrise over Diamond Head, we docked in Hololulu at 7:44 am the next morning right next to the famous Aloha Tower in downtown Honolulu. Four hulu dancers and some musicians met us at the dock. Nice. But we didn't get leied.

We had two days in Honolulu and rented another car to use to tour the island of Oahu. Note: there is no 'W' in Oahu. We walked out of cruise terminal and down the street past the Aloha Towers Shopping Center to look for a city bus, called The Bus, that would take us to the rental car office (the rental car people have a shuttle but we did not know that). One of our big problems that I had not really solved, but was aware of, was overnight parking for our rental car. As we waited for the bus we began asking passerbys about nearby parking. Nothing but grim news. There was no reasonable parking that they knew of . And most nearby parking lots charged $50 a night to park. We were in a pickle because we were not going to pay $50 to park a car for the night.

I had looked up the Bus's schedules on the web and knew which bus to take. Honolulu has an excellent bus system and if you confine your travels to Honolulu you can use the bus rather than rent a car. Having a car means that sometime you have to park it and you might not have enough money to pay for the parking fees. We chatted with some of bus passengers and the driver trying to figure out where we would get off to get to the rental car agency. Poor research on my part. I only had an address and not the name of the building the agency was in. After some hilarious moments with a new bus driver, who took over the controls of our bus at the transportation hub, we went about a block past the address that I had for the agency. I didn't see any any signs or cars that could belong to car rental agency. Almost panic time. We had our cell phone with us, but I wasn't smart enough to call the agency for directions. Besides I am a real man and everyone knows real men don't ask for directions. Seven did though and some nice people pointed to a nondescript two story shopping area attached to a hotel about a block away. We went into the little shopping center and began looking for the well-hidden rental agency. We found it and went down in the parking garage of a hotel, I think, and got our little red car. No free upgrade this time.

The first thing we did once we got our car was drive back to the Aloha Tower Shopping Center area and look for overnight parking. We found one in a bank building after two tries for $13 a night if we arrived after 10 pm and left before 6 am. Good enough. I get up early anyways and could easily walk over and get the car.

All that done, we made our way out of Honolulu towards the Dole Pineapple Plantation, a big time tourist destination. We took H-1. It is not I-1 because it is not an interstate highway. The plantation was more like a part of Disneyland than a real live pineapple plantation. Lots of stuff to buy, clean, neat, great restrooms, and food. They had a good snackbar that sold pineapple ice cream. Not many people could pass that up including us. Where else can you buy pineapple ice cream? We got a pineapple sundae to share. $4 Delicious.

There are three things you can do at the Plantation besides eat ice cream and buy things you probably don't need. There is a maze of some kind and a train that takes you around the plantation, I guess. We decided to do take a guided tour of the gardens. It was fantastically beautiful. I cannot include all the flower pictures here that I took. After the tour we looked at the beds of pineapple plants and read about pineapple growing. It may not sound as if I was too enthused by the plantation but actually it is a pretty good place to visit, especially if you like ice cream. There is no admission to the gift shop and grounds part of it. Everything else cost to get in and to see or ride. The gift shop had quality items to buy. Lots of Dole t-shirts as you can imagine. I should have gotten one for Triathlon Girl, our daughter, because she worked for Bob Dole at one time.

Hilo Hawaii - Hilo Hatties, Mauna Loa Macadamia Nuts, Rainbow Falls & Akaka Falls - 3/9/08

2008-03-10T17:53:00.000-07:00

So many tourist attractions and so little time. Thanks again Captain Smit.

The Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut planation is closed on Sunday. Good. I like to see workers get a day off each week. At least the factory was closed. The gift store was open. The road in from Route 11 is a typical narrow paved farm road called Macadamia Drive for some reason . It passes by some papaya orchards. We had never seen papaya growing before. Looking at aerial photographs of the orchards on Google Maps it is amazing how many trees are growing here (use coordinates 19.656940, -155.009190). It is 2.7 miles from Route 11 to the gift shop/factory.

The factory tour consisted of walking by windows that allow you to look into the factory and since we were pressed for time we skipped doing that. A factory is a factory is a factory. I would have liked to see the nut crushers in operations though. Macadamia nuts are very hard and require a lot of pressure to crack. We bought some shelled nuts and candy.

In the gift shop was one of the many pearl selling counters that we saw. These operations are somewhat of a scam in my opinion. They have prize drawings for what you think are real prizes. Everyone wins the drawing of course. The prize is 30-40-50% off a real cultured pearl. The mark, er, customer then personally selects an oyster from a plastic containers that is shaped like an oyster shell using wooden tong. The clerk, with lots of anticipatory sounds and words, sacrifices the poor oyster and lo and behold it contains a pearl or, worse, two of them. The pearl usually costs, after that big discount you 'won', about $5? What can the customer do with a genuine pearl that was in that oyster they had 'luckily' picked from the slimy pile in the bowl? Put it in a nice gold or silver setting!!! Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your outlook, they just happened to have some settings available for you. All kinds of settings, which the discount does not apply to. These settings seemed a bit over-priced to me but I am not a jeweler and don't play one on TV. Judge for yourself, before you open that oyster, whether what you are getting is anywhere close to worth it. One woman hit the 'jackpot' and found two pearls in her oysters, got super excited, and bought $500 worth of settings for those pearls while her husband looked on in what looked like disgust to me. I don't know what became of the poor mollusk that had lovingly produced those two pretty pearls.

Off to Hilo Hatties, a Hawaiian tradition, with the top down of course. Hilo Hatties is, to put it mildly, is a first class tourist trap. But you have to and will go there while in Hawaii. Pele will be mad if you don't. Besides they have a lot of nice stuff you can buy to hang in the closet or put on display on the mantel until your next garage sale. I actually enjoyed looking around in it. Hilo Hatties is getting serious competition from everyone's favorite store - Wal-Mart who have set up mini-Hilo Hatties in their Hawaiian stores. If you miss going to Hilo Hatties in Hilo, fear not, there is one or maybe two of them on every island. And in every port there are free shuttles conveniently parked right near ship's gangway as you get off the ship. The cruise line must get a kick-back from Hilo Hatties for directing customers to them. Hilo Hattie sounds like a character from South Pacific, the movie.

Inside Hilo Hatties we met up with our next door neighbors on the ship, Pat and Roy, and since they had just finished up with a ship excursion, we asked them if they wanted to ride around in our rented convertible with us to a couple of places. They couldn't say yes fast enough and so off we went, with the top down of course.

We went over to Rainbow Falls which is supposedly a big time attraction on the Big Island. It was your basic waterfall, water flowing over a lava ledge. Fairly high. Nice and semi-impressive. It is in a state park. There were a lot of teenagers hanging out in the parking lot for some reason. I got somewhat uncomfortable with the parking lot ambiance so we took some pictures and quickly moved on to Akaka Falls, with the top down.

There are two main roads on Hawaii Route 11 and Route 19 and the rental car shuttle bus driver said that if got lost, write down how we did it and give it to him because we would be the first people to do so. All the islands in Hawaii are pretty small actually. The total land mass makes it the 48th largest state. If you count ocean then it might be the largest. We drove through beautiful downtown Hilo. Hilo had been hit by two tsunamis in the past and the town now sits well back from the ocean. There is a Tsunami Museum in Hilo, but it is closed on Sunday too so we went out Route 19, looking for Akaka Falls State Park.

Route 19 is pretty cool. Ocean views, farms, and rain forest. We saw a sign for a scenic route and went down it. I love scenic routes. (The Apache Trail in Arizona is the scenic route to end all scenic routes.) The road less traveled narrowed up on us pretty fast, but it was definitely scenic. We came to one of those quintessential scenic viewpoints that had it all, Onomea Bay: height, ocean waves pounding on the rocks, beautiful non-native vegetation, blue water, clear skies, clean air, and lots of tourists sharing it all with us. It was beautiful, to tell the truth, which we always do unless talking about ducking and running from sniper fire, which we seem do in Bosnia every time we go there.

We passed, on the scenic route, the Hawaiian Tropical Botanical Gardens, another tourist must-see. We did not have the time to stop. Thanks again Captain Smit. We might have stopped since we like botanical gardens.

Finding our way back to Route 19 was interesting since there weren't any signs saying "Route 19 this way, Fool" for quite a ways. We found one finally and got back on Route 19. We also found the turn off to Akaka Falls.

Akaka Falls is one of the premier water falls on the island of Hawaii. It has it all - height, water, and surrounding beautiful trees and plants and it is so far out in the country high school kids do not go there. It is what Missourians call a 'good piece' up the mountain to the falls. We were now really pressed for time, thanks to Captain Smit, and almost turned around until we saw what looked like the park in the distance. I think all the land in this area was used to grow sugar cane at one time. That industry has been shut down for reasons I do not know and the land looked fallow to me. We could see patches of wild sugar cane growing along the road. All the sugar cane workers are now probably working in Hilo Hatties, selling Hawaiian shirts and cheap leis.

We got to the park, scoped out the long trail from the parking lot to the falls and decided we had better not take the hike and risk missing getting back on the ship. We snapped some pictures of the falls, which we could barely see through the trees and left. When we pulled up a mongoose came over to see if we had any rats with us. We didn't. Mongooses are an invasive species in Hawaii that have caused untold havoc on wildlife there. They kill birds and eat bird and turtle eggs. They were suppose to eat rats but don't.

So we headed back to the ship, with the top down. On the way down the mountain, we stopped in a little store that sold homemade pastries and ice cream. Since I had had pastries and lots of ice cream every day for the past 4 days at sea I passed on getting any. Roy, our happy passenger, loaded up with about $10 bucks worth of pastries for some reason. The pastries really looked good but not that good in my opinion (we spent 3 weeks in pastry heaven - France - last year).

This side of the Big Island was nice and interesting, but not a place I would want to spend time and treasure returning to. We will stop in Kona in a few days. It is on the opposite side of the Big Island. You can get to Kona from Hilo by taking Route 11, past the Volcanoes National Park, hopefully with the top down.

If you really like to explore the places you visit, one thing about cruising that is not good: you do not have time, even if the Captain does his job, to hike some trails or bike the roads or even walk around downtown meeting people, smelling things, and savoring the colors and textures of a new place. Getting out of the car and off the excursion buses and using the feet and legs God gave you is the best way to get away from being just another camera-toting tourist and being an adventurer. Getting off the ship takes time. Getting a car and taking it back take time. Fooling around in tourist traps like Hilo Hatties takes time. Eating takes time. It would have been great to use that time instead to hike Kilauea Iki crater or up to Akaka Falls. We could have used a good 10 hours in the Hilo area. We got around 6.

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park - 3/9/03

2008-03-10T13:50:00.000-07:00

We left the car rental location and turned south on Hawaiian state route 11 or Hawaii Belt Road and drove 30 miles to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. It costs $10 per vehicle to get into the park. We used our Golden Eagle Pass to get in free. Right down the road from the entrance is the Visitor's Center. We stopped there to get maps and information. They, of course, had a gift shop where we got some post cards. We waited for the informational movie about Hawaiian volcanoes to start and eventually watched it.

It didn't hit me that we were standing on an active volcano (duh, the whole island is part of an active volcano) until we drove 2.5 miles to the Jaggar Museum and stood on the overlook looking into the mammoth Kilauea Crater. This thing could blow at any second and we would even know what hit us. Fortunately for us, Kilauea, although active, has not been an explosive volcano in the past. That is not entirely true because just a week after we were there a vent exploded, throwing some good sized pieces of material into the air. That would have been awesome to see although it would have been about as scary as encountering a herd of velociraptors (frightenly common on Hawaii) coming down a trail towards us elsewhere on the Big Island.

While we were there we could see only a bunch of vents spewing out gases, enough gases to cause the park service to close Crater Rim Drive which circles the crater. Because of the danger from toxic gases crossing the road we could not go beyond the Jaggar Museum. There are National Park websites, like this one, dedicated to the dangers in Volcanoes National Park and it would be wise to visit them to be aware of what you might, but probably won't, encounter. The Visitor's Center, of course, has notices up about potentially dangerous situations. The rangers in the center were very friendly and helpful as they are throughout the National Park system.

Kilauea has been peacefully and continuously erupting since 1983 actually. Deep down Pele, the Goddess of Fire, is probably jealous of the Goddess-in-Charge of Mount St Helens in Oregon, which put on a big show in 1980. Be careful about picking up volcanic rocks while in Hawaii and taking them home. You do not want to take a chance on angering Pele, lots of people have. Having a scientific bent I picked up a nice volcanic rock from a beach on Oahu to test the theory.

We didn't go to the Volcano House. Instead we went down the road to the Jaggar Museum, bypassing some steam vents. Since we have seen plenty, too many actually, of steam vents in Yellowstone we didn't feel the need to see another one. The Jaggar Museum is great. The overlook is its main attraction. If you aren't impressed by the sight of Kilauea Crater you need to go back to the mainland and load up on Leave It to Beaver videos. It is a jaw-dropping awesome sight. To me, it was much like seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time. For some reason I told myself I needed to zoom in on a particular vent and snap a picture of it. It turns out to be the one that exploded a week after we were there. The Jaggar museum is worth visiting. The seismographs are there, churning out, minute by minute, how the mountain is feeling at the moment. Something was going on seismically according to one instrument which was covered in solid blue ink. Little did we really know. To me it was ominous in a way, looking at all that activity being recorded in blue ink on that drum.

After touring the museum we went back down Crater Rim Drive and stopped at an overlook for a different view. At the overlook was what I thought was an offering to Pele. The crater's floor was a sea of molten lava at one time. We could see a couple of beautiful white Koa'e kea flying way below us.

We went past the Visitor's Center and turned right down the road to the Thurston Lava Tubes. There is another interesting overlook and trailhead at the Kilauea Iki crater. We stopped there and could see hikers way below us, crossing the crater. The Thurston Lava Tubes is accessible two ways so don't let the sight of all those stairs intimidate you if you can't get around very well. Just turn left inside of right and follow the path to the rear entrance. There are lava tubes throughout Hawaii. Going through Thurston Lava Tube is a good way to become familiar with them. A side benefit of stopping here is seeing a good example of a Hawaiian rain forest up close when you take the trail out of the tube.

From here we went back down Route 11, with the top down of course.

Hilo Hawaii - 3/9/08 - 2,187 miles

2008-03-09T11:50:00.000-07:00

The Zaandam sailed into Hilo's harbor at about 8:00am after the long trip from San Diego. Hilo is on what is called the Big Island because the island of Hawaii is in the state of Hawaii and it is confusing somewhat to just say Hawaii because without context it can be unclear about which one is being talked about. We docked at 8:41 am, 41 minutes behind schedule. Boo, Captain Smit.

We were excited. The first port on a cruise always is the most interesting one to me. New places, people, smells, shopping, attractions, and floral and fauna are really interesting after being cooped on a ship, even one as nice as the Zaandam is.

Seven and I delight in being Team Number 1 (from one of Seven's favorite reality shows The Amazing Race) and being the first one off the ship when we first get to port. We weren't Team #1 but we were the first in the Thrifty Rental Car shuttle. I reserved the car through Priceline at a decent rate of $ 39 including taxes and fees. If you wait until you get to Hawaii they might be out of cars or gouge, yes, Virginia, car rental companies do gouge their customers, the living daylights out of you. The car rental shuttles meet the cruise boats and are easy to locate. Tip: sit near the door so you can be the first one off the shuttle because the lines at the car rental counter can get long.

We chose a car because ship shore excursions started at $55 each and usually only went to one place. The shore excursion to Hawaii Volcanos National Park cost $94 each and included lunch buffet which we really needed after four days of non-stop eating on the ship. We like the freedom to go wherever and whenever we want. We miss the tour guide's commentary but we can make up for that somewhat with diligent research. And we love adventure, controlled, planned adventure.

In planning our own shore excursions, I first use the ship's own list of shore excursions to get a list of attractions we might want to see. Then I do a basic prioritization of these attractions. I follow that with google searches on each attraction then complete an itinerary based on that research. Finally, I plug it all into a Google Map and see if it is physically doable and make a map of where we will go and what we will see.

Sometimes in doing the research you get lucky and found out that someone has done it all for you. A good Big Island guide is found at Let's Go Hawaii Travel Planner. There are lots and lots of web pages devoted to Hawaii and you can find almost anything that interests you. Half the fun of traveling is planning. It is exciting to look at pictures, say, of the Kilauea crater and think, "man, I will be standing there in xx number of weeks looking at this baby". Mental drooling is what I call what I go through when researching.

We got a big surprise at the rental location. No, they didn't lose our reservations. After a cheerful 'Aloha', I casually and politely asked the pretty older lady behind the counter if they had any free upgrades available and the lady smiled slightly, punched a few keys on her terminal, and printed out my papers without saying a word other than a pleasant mahalo. I didn't look at the papers and we went to the pick up point and there sat a shiny white Chrysler Sebring convertible!!! I almost ran back to the counter and hugged her. Mahalo, mahalo, baby!!! It took us a bit to learn how to put the top down but we were soon on our way with fresh Hawaiian vog blowing through our hair or, in my case, across my scalp where there was once hair. We felt like teenagers again.

At sea in Pacific Ocean near Hawaii - 3/8/08

2008-03-08T21:03:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow we will dock in Hilo, Hawaii. Hilo is on what is called the Big Island. The rest of the islands are small you see so this one is the big one. Makes sense. Tonight I saw a bird, a seagull, which means, according to ancient seafarers, that we are approaching land. We have been at sea for 4 days now. The seas have been calm for the most part. It is hard to tell sometimes because of the fins that are automatically extended when sensors detect a rolling wave motion. The water is incredibly blue almost like it has been colored like they color swamp water at Disney World.

After 4 days of experience on the Zaandam I can comment a little more authoratively about the food and service. The dining room service has not really improved. It looks like they have understaffed the ship in the dining areas. The food offered in the main dining room and the buffet does not really compare to the quality and variety offered on Oceania's Regatta. The buffet seems to be confused. The way the food is laid out and presented takes some getting used to. The same desserts appear night after night. Beef is always offered rare (raw) and you have to request that it be flopped on the grill to be cooked. I have given up on the daily lunch selections and have a hamburger from the grill next to the pool. The burgers are good and there are plenty of the proper toppings available.

I attended a lecture today that was advertised as hints and tips for shopping in Hawaii. It was nothing more than an hour long advertisement for stores that have a financial arrangements with Holland America and for unsold shore excursions. The presenter bribed the attendees into staying for the farce by giving away cheap gifts like carnival pitchmen do. Very disappointing. His idea for seeing the sights of Hawaii was to spend all your time in tourist traps like Hilo Hatties, spending money on trinkets and tee shirts. He told us to take unapproved shuttles at our own risk putting the fear of not getting back the ship on time in the minds of his audience. These, I assume, shuttles would take us to shops that are not Holland American partners.

The presentations by Olga Stravrakis on the other hand have been outstanding. Her lectures on Hawaiian history, geology, and geography have been entertaining and informative. I have learned a lot about the people and the history of Hawaii from these lectures.

The shipboard entertainment has been pretty good. A couple of decent comedians, a magician, and the young shipboard singers and dancers. The lead female singer is horrible in my opinion. She had an annoying singing style that ruined every song she sang. The dancers were very good, especially considering the size of the stage. I skipped tonight's performance because I have had enough of the female lead singer.

I played in the Table Tennis preliminaries. I won. Big deal. The matches were to 5 points and no warmup was allowed. Rules? What rules?

Seven played in a blackjack tournament. Another big deal. 7 hands. The winners after 7 hands at each table played a showdown round consisting of another 7 hands. All this wild action for a $20 entry fee. Another gambling note: there is a poker table. The rake? An incredible greedy 10%. I love playing poker and am tempted to play with what is probably a rich mix of players who do not have a clue of how to play and are dying to give me all their money. But I won't play against a 10% rake no matter how tempting.

The ship has an unwanted passenger on board. An intestinal virus. There are hand lotion disinfecting stations everywhere. The buffet personnel require that you treat your hands before letting you get in line. I am pretty careful about washing my hands and not handling door handles and the like so watching everyone disinfecting their hands made me happy. The table tennis director even wiped down the balls and paddles after each contest. Despite all this, I heard that one woman is seriously ill with stomach flu. She has been isolated in her cabin.

We went to what was touted as Game Show night in the lounge. The contestants were chosen by random drawing and Seven was chosen to play. The trivia questions were about TV shows. An 8 year old was chosen and one of staff whispered enough answers in his ear that he won. Seven got two answers right. One of the contestants got her answers from her friends and family in the audience. So it was totally ridiculous and not enjoyable at all.

Aboard the Zaandam - 3/4/08 - 3/8/08

2008-03-05T21:01:00.000-08:00

With boarding 1300+ people boarding a cruise boat can be a mess. The cruise lines have done it so many times that they have learned how to process people efficiently. I dropped Seven at the cruise terminal at 11:30am then took our car to a parking lot a couple of miles away. The parking lot's shuttle brought me back to the terminal. Seven had already been processed and was waiting for me at the check out counter so I got through quickly. We got our ID cards that is used for everything on the ship from a room key to a debit card. We had to certify that we are germ free.

One of the few hitches in the boarding procedure is that our rooms were not going to be ready until 1:30pm and our luggage would not be taken to the cabin until later. So, to kill some time, we had lunch with a nice couple from Las Vegas who were on about their 10th cruise with Holland America. It seems that once people who like to cruise find a cruise line they like they use it almost exclusively. We had a lot to talk about and the hour or so we had to wait for our cabin passed very quickly. One of the best part of cruising is the people you meet.

The Zaandam is a beautiful ship. Since we had been on Oceania's Regatta we can compare the two since they serve similar markets. The big difference to me almost immediately was the level of service. On the Regatta the service was remarkably well done. Impeccable and immediate. On the Zaandam there have been noticeable and annoying lapses. It seems that they are somewhat shorthanded, particularly in the dining area, so things do not get done. Being run-of-the-mill people Seven and I do not have high expectations when it comes to service but being on a ship like the Regatta spoils you. For example, we finished our meal on the Lido Deck while waiting for our cabins and our dishes were never picked up. In the main dining room, the Rotterdam Dining Room, our waiter had 3-4 lapses. He was working hard and seem to be stretched thin. During another visit to the main dining room, we had to ask for coffee and water. On a ship like this the service should exceed what is found at a Denny's. The food was fine. One of our dinner mates had several complaints about his. The desert was served in a dish too small for the serving and was difficult to eat without spilling the contents. Small items I know, but we are paying for and expecting service that we are not getting.

The activities are varied and interesting, but one thing that we have noticed that a lot of the classes and lectures are just opportunties for HA to sell us something. We participate in just about every activity or contest from trivia to putting. There are more things to do than we have time for. We attend just about every presentation or lecture offered. They are very good. Since we are going to Hawaii there have been daily lectures about, so far, the geology, geography, history and the people of Hawaii. The lecturer is one of those people who is a natural story teller that weaves personal information about his Hawaiian family into the topic he is presenting. I have learned a lot. Things we have done include duplicate bridge, afternoon and morning trivia contests, putting contest, poker lessons (like we need them), 5 different lectures, food preparation demonstrations, workouts, swimming, hot tub, and read. We plan to do ball room dancing lessons, line dancing lessons, ping pong competition, 5K walk for breast cancer awareness, more food demonstrations, etc.

It is easy to find small things we can complain about but over all the ship is beautiful and clean and the crew friendly and helpful.

The gym is very well equipped and I have used it twice. Both times there were several treadmills out of order. I like to walk the treadmill and do free weights and got in two very good work outs so far. The food input levels on cruises encourages hard workouts. We also try to walk the stairs and since we are on the second deck we do a lot of stair climbing.

San Diego CA Cruise Terminal - 3/4/08

2008-03-04T23:37:00.000-08:00

We had hoped to tour the Marine Corps Recruit Depot but we got into San Diego a tad late and would have probably spent an hour letting them go through all of our luggage before letting us into the base. And we wanted to get on board the ship. I dropped Seven at the dock with our luggage and headed out for the San Diego Airport Parking facility just off Pacific Coast Highway a few miles from the cruise terminal. It was going to cost us $96.50 to park there for the time we were gone. SDAP had a shuttle to take me back to the terminal.

Seven had gotten her credentials to get on the ship and was waiting for me at the head of the long line. A few minutes later we were on the ship and ready to start our adventure. The Marine Corps Recruit Depot tour would have to wait.

Once on board we were told our cabin would not be ready until 2pm so we had a great, leisurely lunch on the Lido Deck with some nice people. The ship arrived at 8 am and unloaded one set of passengers in the early morning and then picks up the new passengers in the late morning and afternoon and set sail at 4:52pm. From 8 am to 4:30 pm the ship loads up fuel and enough provisions for the entire cruise.

After finding our cabin and unloading our carry-on luggage we toured the ship. The ship is in excellent condition and very clean. At 4:15 pm we participated in the mandatory life boat drill.

We pulled out of San Diego harbor and literally sailed into the sunset. The seas were calm and the skies clear. A great way to start a cruise.

Sun City West - Yuma - San Diego - Hawaii - Oceanside - 3/3/08 - 3/21/08

2008-03-02T13:12:00.000-08:00

Seven is going to get her trip to Hawaii. We embark Holland America's Zaandam in San Diego for a 15 day cruise to the Hawaiian Islands and Ensenada, Mexico. We will stop in Hilo, Kailau-Kona, Honolulu, and Kahaina in Hawaii. We have planned so far a snorkeling adventure and a whale watching trip. We will, of course, take in the attractions in the Pearl Harbor area and Volcanoes National Park. We are renting a car in Hilo and Honolulu and relying on public transportation in Kona and Kahaina. It should be a blast.

On the way to San Diego we are stopping in Yuma to visit friends we made in Colorado last summer while work camping at Redstone Camp Ground south of Carbondale. They are from Kansas so we will be watching the Jayhawk - Texas Tech game on 3/3/08 with them. Rock Chalk Jayhawk!!!!!

In San Diego we will try to work in a tour of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot (known as Hollywood when I suffered through the Marine boot camp at Parris Island 46 years ago) so Seven can get a idea of what poor little old me went through a long time ago on another planet.

When we get back from the cruise we hope to go to Sea World and the famous San Diego Zoo. Finally, we are going to a special place - Canine Companions for Independence in Oceanside,CA where they train companion dogs.

"Never miss a chance to share laughs with those you love. Life will give you enough time to share tears." Trixie Koontz, dog

To make a donation in memory of Trixie Koontz, retired CCI Service Dog and beloved 'angel' of Dean and Gerda Koontz.

We met Trixie at a Dean Koontz book signing in Tustin, CA five or six years ago. We didn't get her pawgraph but we could tell she was really special dog. A memorial to Trixie by Dean Koontz.

Yorba Linda, California - 1/23/2007

2007-06-02T22:06:00.000-07:00

We enjoy stopping at Presidential Libraries. They are always fascinating. Nixon's Library was no exception. The building and grounds were beautiful and presidential - the only word I could think of to describe them. Similar to Truman's and Eisenhower's in a way, although Truman's has been compared to a post office. Johnson's, on the University of Texas campus, looked like an office building or a university library to me. We didn't go into Clinton's library on the Arkansas River in Little Rock, but from afar it didn't look presidential at all, probably because he committed a bunch of acts during his presidency that were not very presidential and one of his objectives during the design of the building was to make it better and flashier than all the other presidential libraries. The building is supposed to represent the Bridge to the 21st Century that he constantly talked up. This 'bridge' in Little Rock doesn't go anywhere either.

There were many interesting exhibits and of course we didn't have time to closely examine each one of them. I particularly liked the Pat Nixon exhibition area. I always thought she was one of the best first ladies and was interested in seeing memorabilia and pictures from her life.

Riverside, California - 1/24 - 1/28/2007

2007-01-24T21:27:00.000-08:00

We check the Passport America book for camp grounds in the LA area that we might use as a home base while we checked out some things in LA we wanted to see. We found this delightful camp ground named Rancho Jurupa in Riverside. Riverside as it turns out is actually quite a ways from the things we wanted to see in LA but it was the only reasonable and secure thing we could find.

Rancho Jurupa is a county park and is sort of hidden away in Riverside. It has 67 sites with hookups and a dump site. It is along the Santa Ana River near the intersection of US 60 and SR-91(I-215). It has several lakes in the 200 acre park that are stocked with fish. It was a good birdwatching location.

Quartzsite 1/22/07

2007-01-22T20:50:00.000-08:00

We loaded up the RV and headed for Quartzsite then on to LA, Las Vegas, and back home. We were going to visit the RV Show in Quartzsite to look for summer jobs at the job fair that was being held there.

We got to Quartzsite and pulled into Reed Springs camp ground. Calling Reed Springs a camp ground is a big stretch. They have some of the most unfriendly and unhelpful camp ground hosts I have ever encountered. It does have hookups I was surprised to learn but most of the 'sites' are just dusty parking places in the desert. The biggest benefit to camping there is that we are within walking distance of all the 'action' in Quartzsite. $5 a night.

We nearly froze to death for the first couple of nights because our coach batteries went dead. I got the problem fixed and the batteries recharged so we returned to normal.

At the job fair we got a job in Redstone Camp Ground in the White River National Forest south of Carbondale CO. We will start on May 17th and finish up right after Labor Day. We will only have 20 spots and 2 restrooms. The camp ground is managed by Thousand Trails. The people who signed us up live in Sun City Grand, about a mile from our Sun City West house. Nice people. The 'job fair' was kind of a bust. Only about 4-5 companies were there looking for employees. Several had already filled their slots by the time we got to the RV Show at 10:00am. It opened at 9:00.

Quartzsite is getting really bad. Dirty, unorganized. Huge traffic jams. We will not go back there .

We will head for California after just two nights. We do not have any reservations anywhere in the LA so we will have a challenge there.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park - 5,421 Miles

2006-10-29T07:11:00.000-08:00

Carlsbad Caverns was a surprise to me. We have been in quite a few caves and I thought it would be just another cave. Now I can see why people come from all over the world to see this wonderful place. What makes it different is the size and the way the cave was formed. Most caves are formed by moving water. Carlsbad was formed by acidic water water dissolving limestone. It is like the cave was hollowed out of the rock then decorated over time with the usual speleothems by water seeping into the cave. There were not many rock falls that usually litter the floor of the caves I have seen. The walkways and lighting were exceptionally well done. We used the audio guides and were glad we did.

Our first tour was of the King's Palace. Thee is an extra charge for this tour. No, we didn't see any pictures or statues of Elvis or speleothems that resembled the King. It was a ranger escorted tour. Our guide, Carrie, was informative and discussed in detailed the history of the cave, its formation, the speleothems, and lots of interesting tidbits about the cave. At one point she turned off the lights. It is an amazing feeling to be in total darkness. During that period I thought about blind people and how peaceful it was once I got accustomed to it. Carrie lit a lighter and showed us how the cave looked to the first explorers because all they had for light was coal oil lamps. Surprisingly I could see quite a bit.

We had a quick lunch at the surface and then toured the Big Room, the standard 1.5 hour tour that comes with the park admission charge. We took our time and had most the cave to ourselves. On the trail we were passed by lots of speed walkers. I was surprised that no one was jogging. Carlsbad Caverns is not an easy place to get to. It is pretty much out in the middle of Nowhere so people have to go through quite a bit of trouble and expense to get to it. For people to race through it like it was a mall seems sort of sacreligious to me.

We also enjoyed a ranger slide presentation about the geology of the area. Finally we waited a couple of hours to watch the famous bat flight out of the natural entrance of the cave. Almost just as interesting was the return to the cave of the Cave Swallows. They circled above then dived at high speeds into the cave. The last swallows entered the cave just a few minutes before the bats emerged. Most of the bats have wisely moved south at this time of the year so the display was not as spectacular as it must be in the summer months. We adopted a bat to support bat research and plan to build some bat houses when we get home.

This is a must see attraction. The facilities are getting a little old and dated but I understand that there is a plan to redo and update all the facilities. Right now, as an American, I am a little ashamed that our foreign visitors who have spent tons of money to come this wonder see National Park facilities that are somewhat seedy and actually have a musty smell.

Carlsbad, NM - 5,375 Miles

2006-10-27T16:49:00.000-07:00

Seven got behind the wheel of the RV today for the first time since she scraped one of the compartment doors the first week after we bought it. We were driving up from Fort Stockton on US 285 and the road was straight but crowned. The crown made it hard for a first time driver but Seven did really well. After we turned into the campground Seven turned the RV over to me to park it.

Carlsbad RV Park is a full service park with all the amenities. It is located in Carlsbad, NM, on US 180 on the road to Carlsbad Caverns. The only problem I have with park is that the lots are too small. The park allows for this by assigning every other spot. If someone moved into next to us they would have hit our open awning. We were going to spend just one night here but changed our mind. We will stay 3 nights now.

Tomorrow we will tour Carlsbad Caverns.

Fort Stockton, TX - 5,235 Miles

2006-10-26T16:00:00.000-07:00

Why did we stop here? Darn good question. We had just finished our longest drive of the summer - 290 miles. The last 50 miles of it in a stiff cross wind. I was tired and we had to stop.

Parkview RV Park is a Passport America park and had electricity, WiFi, and water so we stopped. Otherwise we would have dry camped. It is not a pretty park. It may be the crab grass capitol of the world. One liter pop bottles partially filled with water served as sewer pipe covers. One electrical hookup was in a box being using by a neighboring RV and ours was attached to a light pole wide open to the elements. The WiFi was outstanding - no trees.

Fort Stockton is a little cattle and farm community with no pretensions of being anything fancy. City planning and beautification were subjects probably far from the city fathers' minds. Its biggest claim to fame I believe is the large statue of a roadrunner. Why? I didn't ask. It was the world's largest statue of a roadrunner but I think it isn't anymore.

Fredericksburg, TX - 4,973 Miles

2006-10-25T10:46:00.000-07:00

Fredericksburg Texas is a typical touristy town. Lots of old stone buildings built by early German immigrants who settled this area. Their sturdy buildings have been converted from homes and basic farming community businesses into boutiques, restaurants, and gift stores with the usual flower boxes out front in the windows. That is, I guess, progress. The surrounding farms and ranches look prosperous and well-kept.

Fredericksburg is the home of the The National Museum of the Pacific W ar which is a complex of buildings and courtyards with memorial walls honoring individuals as well as ships. I didn't see any of the vessels I sailed on back in my Marine Corps days. Troop ships like APA-228, the Rockbridge, are not as glamourous as cruisers and destroyers I guess. Some of the ships I was on did serve heroically in WWII so they should qualify I think for a small spot on the wall. Maybe it is there and I just didn't see it. The Admiral Nimitz part of the museum was undergoing renovation so we did not get to visit it.

The museum is very well done. The organization and the displays are great. The exhibits effectively told the story of Pacific War. There were so many pictures and artifacts that I had never seen before it was almost overwhelming. We spent about an hour in the museum when we realized that a presentation was going to start at another museum a couple blocks away. When we came back we spent another 2 hours at the museum and had to be asked to leave just as we were finishing the exhibit on Japan's surrender. Fascinating material.

One interesting place was the Plaza of Presidents. It had places for 3-5 more memorials to our Presidents but stopped with Bush 41. The museum website says that the memorials on the plaza were to honor Presidents serving in WWII. I really wonder if that was true given the amount of space remaining in the plaza. The next president we all know was a draft dodger and I can't imagine a committee of old grizzled combat vets honoring him with a memorial.

We needed a campground and didn't want to go looking for one that met our criteria - cheap - so we elected to stay at Camp Wally. Fortunately on the east side of the parking lot there were some level areas. The rest of the parking lot was pretty steep for RV camping. It was quiet thank goodness. We were tuckered out.

Lavonia Park, TX - 4,600 Miles

2006-10-15T10:24:00.000-07:00

After staying at three straight Corps of Engineers camp grounds we were due to hit a loser. Lavonia Park is in a great place, right on Lavon Lake. The camp sites were far apart and had water and electricity. The only problem with them was that none of the sites were even close to level. We tried every combination of boards we had to get the RV level without success. We were hacked because we drove down a road with a 2 ton limit after avoiding another road that had a sign on it saying it was closed (it wasn't) to get to this park. Relucantly we pulled out after trying to level up in a couple of sites.

And the roads to the park...... The absolute worst roads we have traveled so far. Apparently road building in Texas is not a science. The roads were literally falling apart. I had to swing into another lane several times to avoid places where the road was disappearing into the ditch beside the road. Texas TxDot either uses terrible road construction techniques or believes in doing road building on the cheap or a combination of both.

Clear Springs Recreation Area, TX - 4,444 Miles

2006-10-14T09:59:00.000-07:00

We drove at night for the first time to get to Clear Springs Recreation Area, a Corps of Engineers campground on Wright Patman Lake. We got to the campground at 9:30pm after driving a trecherous one lane road - Clear Springs Road. We thought that we would hang up the RV on the railroad tracks when we crossed them. The gate to the campground was closed and we didn't have the password. A lady was coming out so Seven flagged her down and she somehow got her password to work and let us in. We found an empty spot and set up in record time. A long day and long drive in trying conditions. I hate driving at night.

The next morning I walked the campground, birdwatching. I walked along the lake looking for shore birds. I did see a large flock of American Pelicans and a small flock of egrets. The park was pretty full. The camping spots were surrounded by large pines making using DirecTV impossible. The sites are large and level.

Crater of Diamonds State Park - 4,365 Miles

2006-10-14T09:48:00.000-07:00

The leaves in Arkansas were starting to display some of tbe color that will dazzle other's eyes in a couple of weeks.

I kept pronouncing Mur-frees-boro, Murphys-boro and Seven kept correcting me. Weird name. The town looked like a nice small town though. I have noticed that the quality of housing in Arkansas is way above what I expected. People from Kansas and Missouri look down their noses at their neighbors to the south so I expected weatherbeaten houses with tin roofs and chickens and pigs living under the front porch. Nothing is further from the truth. I really didn't see many houses with cars jacked up in the front yard. Mostly solid homes with neat yards just like everywhere else we have been.

The Crater of Diamonds State Park is located east of Murfreesboro so we stopped at an abandoned store and unhitched and rode the toad out to the park. The park is a great place to visit. The field where diamond hunters can look for diamonds has a nice couple of buildings that explain why diamonds are in Arkansas and how to find them. There are lots of stories about people who have had success finding diamonds. The park rangers sell or rent equipment that can be used to look for diamonds. The field is plowed monthly I think. For as long as the park has been there I would think that all the diamonds have been found. They haven't been.

We didn't look for diamonds although we were sorely tempted to do so. It was still raining somewhat and the fields were really muddy. The mud didn't prevent others from looking for small stones. There was a place where boots and equipment could be cleaned.

There is a nice campground here too.

We planned our route out of Murfreesboro to avoid going through Hope, AR for obvious reasons.

Hot Springs, AR - 4,305 Miles

2006-10-14T09:33:00.000-07:00

We weren't going to spend the night in Hot Springs, but we stopped at the Gulpha Gulch Campground in the Hot Springs National Park just to check it out. It is a great place to camp but there are no hookups. We have decided that rather pay for a campground spot without hookups we would dry camp at Wal-Mart. We would forego the ambiance of a real camp ground in order to save a few bucks.

After our quick look-see at Gulpha Gulch we drove down Central and turned into Fountain Street. We came to a warning sign that said that RVs over 20 feet were prohibited from driving up to the tower. Unfortunately it was at the entrance of the park and not at the turnoff to Fountain Street so we had to unhook the toad and turn the RV around.

Central, the main bath house row, has bath houses on one side and stores, everything from cheap trinket shops to nice jewelry stores, on the other. We found some free parking behind the stores and spent an hour or two checking out the stores and the Fordyce Bath House. The Fordyce is run by the National Park Service and has been restored. The procedure people visiting the baths went through to use the facilities to their fullest was a lot different than I expected. A full treatment could take a half of a day. I have had steam baths a long time ago in a YMCA in Huntsville, AL. No, don't go there. YMCAs at that time offered a lot of great things for kids. Now I wouldn't go into a YMCA, let alone send a kid into one.

Just in case you think Wal-Mart underpays its help today, this letter from a bath house operator will be an eye opener.

It rained all day today. We haven't had rain to deal with this entire trip so it was a new experience for us.

Arkansas State Fair - 4,275 Miles

2006-10-13T11:56:00.000-07:00

The Arkansas State Fair is for people who like midway rides and games. A full 50% of the fair grounds seems to be devoted to separating the rubes from their money by offering the usual rides and silly and crooked games. The fair grounds are clean and well-maintained. The people directing traffic and working there are friendly and helpful.

We checked out the Industrial Building that was full of a wide variety of booths that sold ideas or goods. Government agencies were represented by the Fish and Game people and the police from local to state levels. I cannot believe that the handwriting analysis people still are making enough money at their game to keep showing up at fairs.

We were strolling down the midway and stopped at a ride that Seven was kidding me about not riding. I do not ride rides. Seven had to have 3 children in order to have someone to ride the rides with. I get sick and, frankly, ride safety worries me. The rides are put together and maintained by people with less than a 3rd grade education. To wit: the ride we were watching started falling apart right before our eyes. It was shaking and making loud noises. Soon a part separated and was tangling in the air and a large piston rod bent. A father whose kids were on the ride was watching all this and was going crazy and was screaming at the operator to stop the ride. The operator was looking at him like he was cazy and finally got up and realized something terrible was happening and turned the machine off. Seven thought the ride was about to topple over. No one was hurt and all the kids got safely off. My doubts about the safety of these things was reaffirmed. For life.

One other shocking thing was the price of risking your life on the rides. Some cost 5 tickets or 5 bucks. It is incredible someone would pay $5 to ride one of those rides for a minute or two. There are lots of discount deals availabel to savvy fair goers so the top price of $5 per ride is probably not entirely accurate.

We enjoyed the pig races although the races weren't as interesting as the names they had for the pigs in the race. Lard Butt, Pork Chop, Sarah Jessica Porker, Brittney Squeals, Dale Earnhog (the pig wearing the #3 blanket of course), etc. They race to get Oreo cookies. I would too.

The Arts and Crafts building was small but contained a lot of great stuff. There are a lot of talented people out there producing quality items like quilts, paintings, clothing, photographs, and canned goods. We saw a huge watermelon that must have easily weighed over 100 lbs. Why it won 2nd and not first place in the watermelon competition is a mystery to me. I wanted to volunteer to be a cookie judge but the officials were busy judging some other foodstuffs.

Maumelle Park, Arkansas - 4,261 Miles

2006-10-13T11:53:00.000-07:00

We were sad to leave Toad Suck Park. It is such a pretty place. The campground hosts assured us that Maumelle Park was just as beautiful and he was right. It is a larger park with plenty of camping sites by the river. We cruised the campground and found one, #20, in the corner of the park along the river. Great site. It is not surrounded by trees but with the temperatures in the 40s this morning who cares? The park is on Pinnacle Valley Road and is a COE or US Army Corps of Engineers park. The fee for us Golden Agers is $9 per night for a 30 amp spot. Nice.

I got the tire problem on the CRV solved last night at a Wal-Mart in Conway. Had to replace one tire that had sidewall damage that was causing it to leak. The tire guy told me I could take it to a place that did sidewall patches but to be safe I replaced it.

Now our satellite system is acting up. Ugh-ga-bugga. We can get OTA TV from Little Rock so we are not completely shut out.

We came to Maumelle Park so we could go to the Arkansas State Fair today. We will take off for that after Seven's soap is over. We might stay here for a couple of days. It is a great park.

Little Rock, AR - 4,225 Miles

2006-10-13T11:49:00.000-07:00

We drove into Little Rock from Toad Suck Park 2 times. The first day we saw the State Capitol, the Central High School Museum, Mt Holly Cemetery, and the Governor's Mansion. The second day we stopped at the Old State House Museum, the Historic Arkansas Museum, and took a ride on the trolley.

The 4 drives from Toad Suck into Little Rock and back involved 3 traffic jams on I-40. 1 out of 4 ain't bad as they say.

We enjoyed our tour of the State Capitol. Tours of such buildings seem to be always available. The question is who to ask about them. We have lucked out several times and have received great tours. Most tour guides know a lot about the building and are eager to share interesting tidbits about the building's history. It always makes me feel a little sad to see a building like the Arkansas State Capitol building and its towering dome because the Arizona State Capitol Building's dome is really small. It is entirely made out of copper but still it is almost invisible except to the practiced eye.

We were told by someone we ran across that the governor's mansion was in a 'bad' neighborhood and that a few years ago someone ran and promised to move it to a better location. All the historical societies rose up and screamed bloody murder and the guy wasn't elected. It is not in a bad neighbor but in what I'd call a transitional neighborhood. On the street behind the mansion there are some really modest houses with protective bars on their windows. In the front yard there was a play house that was a scaled down version of the mansion. We thought it was a play house for Chelsea Clinton when she lived there. We happened to see a guy with a backpack and camo pants walking by so we asked him it was Chelsea's. He said 'who knows and who cares?' with a big smile on his face. We all laughed. Most of the people we met in Little Rock had little use for President Clinton.

The Historic Arkansas Museum tour took us through buildings restored to what they look like during the 1800's. It was really interesting. One building was sort of a pioneer Motel 6. Another had a printing press and another contained the kitchen. Our guide was very good and friendly and the exhibits were very interesting. The museum also contained an exhibit of purses that were from a local woman's collection. It was amazing. A photographer and his assistants were there photographing purses for a magazine. He refused my offer to swap cameras with him.

The Old State House Museum was located in the building that once served as the state capitol building. The building is a testament to doing things on the cheap. The original plans for the building were pretty extragavent in the opinion of the people at the time and were cut back. Way back. As a result the building has had to go through many renovations to keep it from falling down. President Clinton had a big party in the front yard on election night in 2000 when he was elected the first time. There are two Clinton rooms in the museum - one just for Bill and the other that includes other governor's wives but is dominated by Hillary. Neither mention his impeachment. Clinton may not be the most popular person in Little Rock but he certainly brings in the tourist dollars.

The Central High School Museum is located in a restored gas station across from Central High School which is still in use. The museum recounts the time in 1957 when Federal Courts forced the integration of the school. Federal troops from the 82nd Airborne Division were called in to restore order since Gov Faulbus used the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the black students from entering the school. 9 brave kids, accompanied by armed soldiers, eventually entered the school. There is a new museum under construction across the street. I was about the same age as the Central High Nine and remember the news stories on TV very well.

Conway, AR - 4,075 Miles

2006-10-12T11:14:00.000-07:00

50 miles isn't far to go in one day but we were ready for a good stop with hookups. The name Toad Suck Park jumped out at me from the map and because it was around 35 miles from Little Rock we said 'why not'. We pulled off the interstate and immediately came across a Honda dealership. The toad, our CRV, needed tire repairs and without a lugnut lock key we couldn't remove the tires. I searched Springfield without success and knew I would have to try some places in Little Rock for one. On a whim, we pulled into the Honda place and lo and behold the parts guy pulled out a case with 10-12 of them in it. We went out to the CRV and found which one fit our CRV. He sold it to me for $18 and said he would order another to replace the one he sold me out of his case. So now we could take care of any tire problems we might have in the future. Yay. I love Honda.

Walking out of the Honda place I ran into a salesperson (or did he run into me?). We chatted for some time. His name was Dave Laughlin so I asked him if he was related to Don of Laughlin, NV fame. He said no but said that he did live in Las Vegas for some time. He said it was the only time in his life he didn't have to spell his last name for people. He also told me that Toad Suck Park was a favorite of his and told me where it was.

Toad Suck Park is due west of Conway on AR State Road 60. It is on the Arkansas River and is probably the most beautiful park we have stayed in. It is a Corps of Engineer park. Our Golden Age pass was good and we only paid $10 a night. We are going to stay 2 nights. We are right on the water and under a bunch of tall oak trees. The oak trees pelt the RV with acorns but it is a pleasant sound when a nut hits then rolls off. The trees are so dense we had problems getting the satellite dish up and running so Seven could see her soap.

The Arkansas River is the winter home of lots of eagles. I may have seen one today but didn't have the binocs handy to check it out. Definitely a large bird.

Russellville, AR - 4,023 Miles

2006-10-11T11:09:00.000-07:00

We had to stop at Camp Wally in Russellville. The only campground in town we could find was full and my shoulders were shot from all the mountain driving I did on the way down from Branson. Maps are deceiving. What looks like a straight line on a map sometimes is a wicked series of switchbacks in real life. And since we choose to go on the back roads if we have a choice we pay the price occasionally.

We turned off of US-65 onto AR State Road 123 and was driving down some major twisty-turny narrow roads through some beautiful Ozark countryside when we came to a sign that said something about hairpin curves and no trucks. Of course, being a male, I blew right past it, confident I could take our 50 feet plus of vehicles around anything including hairpin curves. Nothing in Arkansas could equal those in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming that we had experienced and survived. So I thought, but Seven wasn't so sure and made me take an ice cream bar break in a little bitty country store in Mt Judea. The young lady at the cash register said she was glad we stopped and came in because she and her friend were just talking about us and hoping we weren't heading down the road towards the curves. She said we wouldn't make it. So we turned around (after getting hung up in the post office parking lot and having to unhitched the toad) and headed back to the turnoff to AR State Road 374. Seven suggested we take a short cut on County Road 74. County Road? It looked like an overgrown driveway. 374 was a nice road but took us a tad out of our way. We finally got to AR State Road 7 and took off. I bet we averaged 35 miles an hour for the entire trip from Branson to Russellville. Was there one straightaway?

We didn't see much of Russellville. Camp Wally (US-64 and Elmira) was great. We were out back and it was quiet once the tire and lube area shut down for the night. We walked over to the nearby Ryan's Restaurant for supper. It stunk.

The next morning we had a quick breakfast and stopped at a food processing plant down the road from Camp Wally to see if they gave plant tours. They didn't so we hit I-40 to head for our next stop. My shoulders were too sore to do anymore mountain driving.

Branson MO - 3,877 Miles

2006-10-10T08:17:00.000-07:00

If someone visits Branson, the reputed country music capitol of the world, they are suppose to see some country music shows. There are lots of them to choose from - 500 at my estimate. It was our intention to go to a show or two but we decided not to. I like country music but am not INTO IT and could care less about the silly slapstick humor or smaltzy productions usually present at these things. It is very predictable stuff and somewhat boring in my opinion.

The apparently unregulated commericalism here in Branson is stomach turning. Large, garnish signs are everywhere. The Ozarks is a beautiful place but you can't drive a mile without seeing a large sign touting some show or attraction. My eyes get tired of it after a while. Everyone is out to get our money.

While here we did get to see some people who at one point in Seven's life and mine were important. One of my friends settled here with her husband to lead a perfect life - she and her husband own a fly fishing shop. When we stopped in to say hello Carolyn was working on tying a fly for a customer while her husband stand was out fishing. Several customers stopped in while we were there and I could tell Carolyn was still the ever optimistic and happy Carolyn and that everyone loved her. It was great to see her and I could tell she really didn't really want to dreg up all the past - we both had nice careers with the same company that ended on sour notes. Who wants to remember the bad stuff? Especially when there is so much good stuff to recall.

Seven's high school friend, Kay, lives in Kimberling City which is near Branson. So instead of seeing some country singers strut their stuff we drove the winding roads over to Kay's house. Kay was a bridesmaid in our wedding. After we left Kay's house the obvious question we had still wasn't answered - why Kimberling City? We arrived unannounced but Kay and her husband were gracious hosts and we spent several hours talking. Kay's house overlooks the lake and has been extensively remodeled by her husband who is a real worker bee. From the IKEA book shelves in the office to their home theater room we enjoyed seeing all their improvements. A great visit with nice people.

We are moving on today. Where? Don't know for sure. South. It is cold here. At least for us Arizonians.

Springfield, MO - 3,820 Miles

2006-10-07T15:21:00.000-07:00

Seven's beautiful sister lives in Springfield with her two daughters that attend Drury University. Kristen lives in a nice subdivision that has narrow streets that wind up and down hills. We decided to spend the first night at Camp Wally near I-44 and MO-13 that was temporary home to about 10 RVs and 5 trucks. The next morning we were going to move to a place near Kristen's house that was probably the most level 50 feet of roadway in the subdivision. We checked with the neighbors of course.

The first night we hustled over the Missouri University (we still think of it as SW Missouri State University) to watch one of our former neighbor's daughters play in a soccer match against Indiana State University. It was fun and free. It was good seeing the neighbors again and their beautiful and talented daughter who was a fullback for the Lady Bears.

The toad is having problems keeping air in two tires and I went over to Wal-Mart to get them check and repaired if necessary. Then there was the shock: lug nut locks and no tool with which to unlock them. Bummer. I spent all day trying to find someone or something to unlock them with. Wal-Mart had a set of unlocking tools but guess which size was missing? Double bummer.

Another night here and then we take off for Branson. We will probably spend a day or two there and then head for Little Rock to see what all that money Slick Willy got for pardons bought.

Centerview, MO - 3,700 Miles

2006-10-06T08:04:00.000-07:00

Seven's parents and brother live in Centerview. Her parents operate a 320 acre farm there, raising cattle and horses. They bought the farm back in the 1950's just in time for the drought of 1953-4. They struggled to make a go of it during Seven's childhood. Remember the old joke? Know how to make a million dollars farming? Start with ten million. That was almost true for them at that time. Of course things got better.

We spent 7 days at the farm. We waited a couple of days for Seven's brother and sister-in-law to get back from a trip to Florida before leaving. We set a new record, 14 days, for going without water or sewer hookups. We had to go over to Knob Noster Park to dump our tanks several days after we got there.

We lived in Centerview and nearby Warrensburg when we were first married. We had a small apartment in Centerview, right across the street from the grain elevator, then we bought a 40 acre farm next to Seven's parent's place, lived in a garage converted into an apartment on Pine Street in Warrensburg, and finally in a small brick house on Broad Street in Warrensburg.

Central Missouri State University is changing its name again. When Seven and I went there it was Central Missouri State College then it changed to its present name and now it will be the University of Central Missouri. Big whoop. So all the clothing in the Student Union with CMSU on it is on sale. I got 20% off a nice sweat shirt for Seven with Central Missouri State University on it. I wear Chiefs, KU and In and Out clothing. CMSU used to have a nice little campus. Now it looks like a big parking lot with parking lots on every piece of vacant land around the campus.

Seven's parents do not cook much any more so we ate out almost everyday we were there. We ate at all the local places it seems.

We got to visit our son's 1972 Dodge Charger while we were there. It is parked at Seven's parent's farm. It is slowly rusting away. I made several attempts to sell it for him without success. Great looking car. Has new transmission that is 8 years old with less than 100 miles on it.

Knob Noster State Park, where we went to dump, looked beautiful. Lots of nice camping spots with electrical and water hookups. The park is east of Warrensburg on Road BB near Whiteman AFB.

Indian Cave State Park, Nebraska - 3,485 miles

2006-09-21T16:48:00.000-07:00

Indian Cave SP looked good on the small Nebraska state park brochure we picked up somewhere. It had dump site and sites with electrical hookups. Only water hookups keep it from being perfect. The sites are spread out with plenty of grassy and treed space in between them. There are lots of trails, bird watching spots in a wetland area, picnic areas, and camp sites. It has boat ramps and places to fish. There are 134 RV camping spots, showers, and phones. It has sites with 50 amp service. We paid $18/night. Indian Cave is 10 miles south of Brownville on Nebraska State Road 64E Spur.

It rained almost the entire time we were here. I had plans to get over to viewing blinds to do some bird watching but the rain got in the way of that.

On the way down US 75 we stopped in Nebraska City to check things out. We found a local meat market that had all kinds of fresh meats and local jams, jellies, mixes, honey and crafts. We got some roast beef and turkey and some gift items for family. Nebraska City has a Pendleton Outlet store. Seven checked out their fabric section. The downtown section was really robust with clothing stores, a hardware store, furniture stores, and the usual collection of insurance and lawyer offices. There is a fabulous old red sandstone bank building on 1st Corso that I should have visited. There was an omnious new building going up on 11th Street south of the main business district. It looked like a Wal-Mart.

Harrah's Parking Lot, Council Bluffs, IA - 3395 miles

2006-09-20T12:49:00.000-07:00

Seven used to work for Harrah's in Kansas City so we decided to use their parking lot for a couple of days. Iowa must have a 'riverboat' casino law like Missouri used to have. There are 3 casinos in this area - Harrah's, Ameristar, and the Horseshoe - all on the river. Harrah's bought out Harvey's and Bluffs Run and turned them into Harrah's and the Horseshoe respectively. We tried our luck at all three.

The Ameristar has a great buffet. We ate there twice - once for supper and once for dinner (lunch). They give senior discounts so the price was not too bad. As always with Ameristar properties, the food was great.

We did some quilt shop and bookstore shopping in Omaha. We didn't visit any museums or other attractions because we are just about burned out on with museums and related attractions.

Harrah's allows RV parking at the back of their lot near the door to their casino. It is next to the river and the Dodge Park golf course and is very quiet and fairly level. Probably quieter than the hotel rooms which are next to a very busy railroad track. RVs are prohibited in the parking lot next to the hotel. We saw RVs at the Horseshoe and Ameristar too.

We drove down US 75 to head for Indian Cave SP. We had 4 lanes of bumpy road for about 15 miles. Probably better than I-29 which was more like a dirt road than a first class interstate.

Vermillion, SD - 3,262 Miles

2006-09-18T12:43:00.000-07:00

We were going to push on to Sioux City and spend the night there but we were tuckered out and happened to find a nice spot to stop. We were looking for a Camp Wally but came across a great cement parking lot near the local National Guard facility. Seven went in and got permission for us to spend the night.

We unhooked and went exploring. Vermillion is the home of South Dakota University. The SDU campus is not impressive. We found a local restaurant, full of students, called the Cherry Street Diner that featured "The Largest Sandwich in Town" called the Dagwood after the famous sandwich the comic strip character Dagwood used to prepare. It cost $10. We ordered one and cut it in two. Great sandwich. We were both stuffed. The waitress said there are people who can eat the whole thing.

The next morning we went into Sioux City. We got onto I-29. It was a total pothole. Most SD state roads were much better. We stopped at the visitor's center which was located in an old Corps of Engineer river boat named the Sergeant Floyd. The boat also housed a museum featuring historical photos and documents about the Missouri River. Really interesting. There was a map showing where boats had sunk along the Missouri River. An incredible number.

We also stopped at the Argosy Casino near the visitor's center. It was kind of seedy as casinos go and we didn't stay long. There is no RV parking at the casino but since the parking lot was almost empty we just took our usual 200 spaces and figured we'd be gone before the security people knew we were in violation. We could see a nice city campground across the river in Nebraska. Looked like it had electrical hookups.

Snake Creek State Recreational Area - 3,118 miles

2006-09-17T12:36:00.000-07:00

Snake Creek SRA has to be one of the windiest places on earth. The wind blew from the time we set up until we we dumped the next day. Incredibly hard. We could not begin to enjoy the beautiful site we had next to Lake Francis Case (Missouri River) because we couldn't stand up without holding onto something. One of our neighbors had a large, barking dog that we couldn't stand either. I finally went over and asked the female owner if they could quiet him down. This earned me a 20 minute stare at our RV from the male owner but they found a way to keep him from barking. Another camper said that the dog had been barking constantly for 5 hours or more.

Snake Creek has electrical hookup sites. No water or sewage hookups.

Our drive to Vermillion was down the backroads of SD. The roads, SD State Route 44 primarily, were generally good. It was as if we had a private road. We stopped in White River for lunch at the city park then drove down Main Street to finally mail some post cards we picked up in Yellowstone and at Mt Rushmore. While Seven was going to the post office a local guy came out of an autobody shop and began talking to me. He told me a lot of interesting things about White River and the surrounding area. White River is in the Rosebud Indian Reservation and most of the residents were Indians. He told me that the White River residents were 'at war' with the Pine Ridge Reservation Indians. I didn't know if he was joking or not. He told me a couple of really funny jokes about the Pine Ridge Indians. He told me that most Indians are really racists and hate white people and other Indian tribes. This surprised me. He also said that he was regarded as an apple in his community - red on the outside and white on the inside. Another tall guy joined us and told another really funny joke at the expense of the Pine Ridge Indians. Finally 2 more guys showed up so we had quite a get-together going on on the streets of White River. Some weird stuff happened that I won't go into but Seven and I became really uncomfortable with the situation and left.

While traveling across the US we also notice how the fauna changes as we go from one area to another. From high desert to tree covered mountains to grassy plains from Wyoming and across SD.

Badlands Ranch RV Resort Interior SD - 2,955 Miles

2006-09-16T12:59:00.000-07:00

From the description of Badlands Rand RV Resort we thought we might be checking into our best RV resort yet.

We pulled into Badlands Resort after a 2 mile ride down a washboard dirt road and immediately were met by a mob of flies. We opened the door and pretty soon we had 4-5 of them inside with us. The resort offers trail rides and has horses hence the flies. The resort didn't charge for the flies but charged for everything else. We picked a place next to the road because it was time for Karen's soap and we needed to get set up in a hurry. For the second time in a row we put out the antenna and hit the satellite almost immediately without much adjustment at all.

Being next to the road wasn't too bad because the wind was blowing away from us and there weren't that many cars coming by.

Seven wanted to do some sewing so we left Badlands just before checkout time. I did some work on the inverter setup and then went out to bird watch with my new Sibley's and binoculars. There were 50 small birds in the trees and grass near our RV. When I first looked at them I thought there were 3 different species. I took one of at time and checked it against Sibley's. Sibleys is so comprehensive that it includes juvenile, 1st year, adult, and breeding plumage for each bird in most cases. As it turns out there were juveniles, 1st year and adult birds in the group, all with different plumage. I am getting educated.

While sitting there watching the birds, a flock of turkeys walked with 100 yards of me. I didn't check Sibley's until after they moved on down the hill out of my sight. To my surprise there are two different types of turkeys in Sibleys. I didn't even bother to look at the birds through the binocs so I didn't know which kind of turkeys they were. Bummer.

Our trip to Snake Creek State Recreation Area took us down SD State Road 44. When there wasn't any construction going on it was a smooth ride down what was a deserted road.

Rapid City/Mount Rushmore - 2,865 miles

2006-09-14T12:24:00.000-07:00

We left Three Flags RV Park and all of its road and train noise and headed 8 miles down the road to a nice, clean, quiet place: Camp Wally. We will spend the night then take off for Interior, SD visiting Wall Drug Store and Ellsworth AFB on the way there.

We finally got down to see Mt Rushmore today. We didn't stop in Keystone, a first class tourist trap and proceeded to the park immediately. We stopped in one of those semi-tacky lots-of-road-signs places on the way to Mt Rushmore and did all of our Christmas shopping. Just kidding. We did find some neat things we have never seen before.

We thought our National Park Pass would work at Mt Rushmore but the park is run by a non-profit company and they do not charge an entrance fee. They charge a parking fee. Big whoop. It was worth it but it was annoying.

We checked out the Gift Shop first of course. I added to my tee-shirt collection, got some post cards, and a Sibley Bird Book. Karen got a nice ring.

We walked the Presidential Trail that circles in front of the monument on nice shaded walkways. We visited the sculptor's workshop where there are scale models of the faces on the monument. These are 1/10th the size of the actual ones. The original plan was to do waist-high figures but they ran out of money. We enjoyed the visitor's center where one of original workmen was doing a book signing.

We drove through Custer SD and stopped at quilt shop. Most quilt shops are run by neat freaks and are clean and well-organized. Quilt makers have to be organized and detail oriented so it is understandable. This shop was unusual in the fact that it was dirty and a total mess.

We stopped at the Wood Carver's Museum but decided not to put up the bucks to go in. Same with the Crazy Horse Monument. We didn't do the wildlife tour of Black Hills State Park either. We have seen lots of bison this summer. We saw two large bulls along the road through the park along with 4 flocks of turkeys.

Tonight I had a nice chat with a former mechanic from Maine who is parked near us in Camp Wally. He had his TV on but his RV's generator wasn't running. That meant that he was running his TV using his house batteries (RV's have 2 sets of batteries - coach and house) for power. He had to be using an inverter which changes direct current to the alternating current most electronic devices use. We have never used our inverter because I didn't have a clue how to use it. He showed me what he was doing and after a long chat I came back to the RV and hooked up the TV, the TiVo and the DirecTV box to the inverter. It worked. Now we do not have to fire up the generator to watch TV. The generator uses diesel fuel and is somewhat noisy so we usually didn't use it. Some campgrounds outlaw generator use after 8:00pm.

Looking forward to moving on in the morning. We have seen our last mountain and our last pine tree until we get to New Mexico next month sometime. The Great Plains are beautiful too. Mountains are more dramatic and varied. We have seen some amazing sights the past 3 months.

Lots of RVs are pulling into this parking lot now. We are almost totally surrounded now. There were 12 RVs here last night. It is great that Wal-Mart lets RVers use their parking lots this way. We will pick up trash in the lot to repay them somewhat. It saves us lots of money to dry camp.

Butte, Montana September 2

2006-09-02T20:00:00.000-07:00

We toured Butte today. Very interesting town. Lots of old houses in the central historic district. We visited 3 things on our list. We missed the Brothel Museum. Closed on Saturday I guess.

The Copper King Mansion was great. We had a guided tour of the 38 room mansion by knowledgeable and enthusastic guides. William A Clark (Clark County Nevada where Las Vegas is located is named after him) rose from being a humble teacher in a one room school in Missouri to being the richest or one of the richest men in the world during his time. The mansion in Butte was just one of his houses. I couldn'tbegin to tell you about all the interesting things in the house. The web address is www.thecopperkingmansion.com. (not www.copperkingmansion.com as shown on their brochure). Definitely a must see. $7 admission

We also toured a World Museum of Mining. Lots of old mining equipment and a 'town' with buildings filled with antiques. One of the most interesting was sauerkraut factory. A German immigrant and his wife made tremendous quantities of kraut and shipped it all over in 400 lb barrels. His diary was there and was really interesting to read. We got to pan for gold - found some - in big stock tank. We taught some nice people from Missouri and South Carolina how to pan. Can be missed. $8 admission.

We visited Montana Tech too (school team name: the Diggers) and went through the mineral museum. Lots of great mineral specimens, even Smithsonite. I looked for a ball cap with the Diggers name on it without success. MT is a mining school. Free.

Finally we stopped at a memorial to miners killed in a mine fire. 37 miners were killed and over 160 were missing. All due to a careless accident. It devastated the town of Butte at the time. Some of the miners wrote their last words knowing they were going to die on scraps of paper that were later found. Horrible. Free. Should be seen.

We had lunch at Gamers, a local restaurant. Karen had a chicken, ham and swiss cheese sandwich and I had a Cornish Pasty with gravy. Good stuff. They only make 2o of them a day and they are usually sold out early. Our waitress looked like she could have been a linebacker for the Diggers but she was a peach of a person and a great waitress with a great sense of humor. Great place to eat. Downtown historic district.

Fairmont, MT August 31-September 1

2006-09-01T17:15:00.000-07:00

We left Missoula behind and took off down I-90 to Fairmont. We usually avoid interstate highways usually but had no choice to use I-90. It was a welcome relief after winding up and down US-20 from Kamiah to Missoula.

We stopped briefly in Drummond after almost heading down Montana Route to Phillipsburg. In the downtown area there was a quilt store that Seven had to visit but it was closed because the owner was at a library board meeting.

We wanted to see the old Montana Prison in Deer Lodge but we fooled around for some time in a quilt shop, book store, and a second hand shop in beautiful down town Deer Lodge. The quilt shop, the Quilter's Corner, was in a beautiful old bank building. The original stone teller counters were still there as was the bank president's office. The shop was well stocked and the clerk was really helpful and knowledgeable. We would have only had an hour to view the prison and the other museums associated with it so we went on down the road.

We are staying at Fairmont RV Park off exit 211 of I-90. It is a very nice Passport America park. Like almost all the parks we have encountered it is not full. It doesn't look like there are any long term campers. The setting is beautiful.

We went over to Anaconda, MT to see what was at one time a big time copper mining operation. We got there just as the Copper King Express was pulling out for a trip to Butte. We could have made it but it was a four hour round trip and we would be going to Butte the next day anyways. We stopped and went into one of those bookstores that was owned by a person who enjoyed buying books. It didn't look like he sold all that many of them. The place was piled to the rafters with books, mostly romance and western books. Seven did find a couple of quilting books she could not live without. We also visited the small museum The Copper Village Museum and Gallery. Do not waste your time on this attraction.

Missoula, MT August 30-31

2006-09-01T16:26:00.000-07:00

Hello Wal-Mart. We couldn't find a good Passport America campground in Missoula so we decided to dry camp at the first Wal-Mart we came across. After asking an assistant manager we found a spot far away from the front door and put down the jacks (on wood blocks of course). We didn't put out the slide or awnings.

The drive to Missoula from Fort Lewis Clark near Kamiah was arduous. I can't remember a single straight stretch of road. The scenery was spectacular. The beautiful Clearwater and Lockse Rivers were always within sight as we gradually headed up towards Lolo Pass. The last mile or two were straight up I think. We stopped a couple of times to take a break: once to have lunch and another time to pick blackberries.

We saw a woman picking berries and thought she was picking huckleberries and pulled over the first chance we had. They were blackberries. She had already worked over the patch but there were enough left for us to fill a couple of Cool-Whip tubs. Blackberries on ice cream!! Blackberries on corn flakes!!

Fort Missoula is an interesting place to visit. It has several annual celebrations held there and it would be better to visit there during one of those celebrations. There is a lot of worthwhile things to see because the grounds have become a respository of historical buildings and objects. I liked the old school, the saw mill, and the detention building (an exhibit depicting conditions in Fort Missoula where Japanese and Italians were detained during WWII).

We drove around Missoula quite a bit the two days we were there. One annoying thing was the way US-20 cut through the town on a diagonal creating lots of 6 way intersections making it a challenge sometimes on which way to turn or turn around. The down town area was active probably to its close proximity to the University of Montana campus (it took us a while to figure out what Go Griz on every sign meant. The UM mascot is a Grizzly Bear.)

We tried washing the CRV but were thwarted by a coin machine at the car wash. I put the coins in and nothing happened so I gave it a couple of whacks and set the alarm off. We sat there waiting for the owner to hopefully show up so we could get our quarters back. Instead a couple of police officers responded. They didn't cuff me.

Grangeville Idaho

2006-08-29T16:10:00.000-07:00

Grangeville is located on the Camas Prairie. Lots of farms and ranches. We did not turn off the mammouth fossil site. We passed the Christmas Ranch RV Resort. It looked like a decent place to stop off. The Park is 2-3 miles outside of Grangeville. Grangeville is a nice small town with a nice clean downtown area along Idaho Route 13. US 95 continues on from Grangeville to Lewiston. There is a nice little museum a couple of blocks off the main street but it is only open Thursday-Saturday.

We took Idaho Route 13 north out of Grangeville to Kooskia, heading for Kamiah and the Lewis-Clark RV Resort. Route 13 is mountain driving at its best. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Narrow and winding. Lots of 25 and 35 mph curves. We were glad to finally get to Kooskia. We hurried down US 12 to the campground.

White Bird, Idaho

2006-08-28T16:17:00.000-07:00

White Bird is a small town just off of US-93. It was at one time the winter camp of some of Nez Perce Indians. It is here north of the current town site where a band of 70-80 non-reservation Nez Perce Indians battled around 120 mounted soldiers in 1877. The battle ground is part of the Nex Perce National Historical Park. There is a nice walking tour of the battle ground. The battle ground can also be viewed from the White Bird Grade on US 93 at a pull-off. If you are interested in Nez Perce history it is a must see.

We stayed in the Angel's Nook RV Park in White Bird. There are three Passport America parks in the area including Angel's Nook. Angel's Nook is a park literally created in an individual's back yard. It is not very well designed. It is quiet and has no facilities. The laundry is nearby in a motel. It was dirty. What it has going for it is the very nice hosts who helped us get set up and gave us lots of good, practical information from where the only restaurant in White Bird was to be careful when picking huckleberries (watch out for bears and rattlesnakes). Hell's Canyon Jet Tour RV Park looked more than acceptable and the Swiftwater RV Park was everything a small RV park should be. The Swiftwater Park was in a beautiful location next to the Salmon River and was exceptionally clean. We met two other campers, Vernon and Roxie, that we had dinner with at the restaurant. They were from Emmett and Vernon worked for Len who we had visited several days before. The restaurant would probably get a 1/4 star from the Mobil Travel Guide if that. Surly staff, dirty, old Santa picture on the wall, and decent food.

We crossed over the Salmon River on the old US 95 river bridge and visited an orchard that was finishing up its peach harvest. We bought some more peaches, corn, cantaloupe, and apples. Great stuff. Friendly folks. They were raising 4 varieties of peaches. I bought some of each.

To go up the White Bird Grade on US 93 to Grangeville we unhooked the toad. It is probably the steepest grade we have encountered on our trip.

GPS with Streets and Trips on a Lap Top

2006-08-26T12:57:00.000-07:00

We bought DeLorme Street Atlas with GPS with the idea of using it to guide us through our travels this summer. After trying to use it a couple of times on short trips in Arizona I decided that it wasn't as good as Microsoft's Streets and Trips. After learning that I could use the DeLorme GPS unit with S&T by loading DeLorme Serial Emulator program, I tried it. It works well.

I have been planning our daily travels a couple of days in advance and adding them to the trip planner in S&T. I delete the places we have been and use our current location as the starting point. I put the Delorme GPS unit (I call it the hockey puck) on the RV or car dashboard. Once I get S&T up and running I bring up the GPS task pane and perform a scan (click on Configure GPS button) to locate the puck. I then click on the Track position box and Create GPS Trail box. The little car in a circle appears at our current location. Once we start to move the car moves along our route.

When moving around a strange city the GPS really helped to make sure we were on track.

Ponderosa State Park, McCall, Idaho

2006-08-26T12:34:00.000-07:00

We pulled into Ponderosa State Park, just outside of McCall, Idaho, at about 3:30 pm on a Friday afternoon looking for a spot with hookups. As former campground hosts we knew what our chances were for getting a spot on Friday afternoon at 3:30pm, but since it was raining we had luckily 2 big rig spots to choose from. We paid $20.80 for a site with 30 amp service and water. We pulled in and set up. Tall pines prevented a good DirecTV signal so I had to set up the tripod in the driveway.

There are about about 100 sites here on 3 loops. The sites are not packed together but aren't far enough apart to offer full privacy. It is heavily treed. Payette Lake is within walking distance of all sites. There are lots of great hiking trails throughout the park. And no nearby train tracks, feed lots, or highways!

Emmett,Idaho

2006-08-25T12:26:00.000-07:00

We put Emmett on our itinery so Seven could meet in person her long-time on-line bridge buddy, Boring Millie. We were resigned to dry camp somewhere in Emmett, probably in Boring Millie's driveway, and were looking for a place to dump our tanks using the RV Idaho brochure. We decided to stop at the dump station at the Gem County fairgrounds to dump. We were surprised to find that there were 10 nice sites with 50 amp service and water. They were pretty much right next to Idaho Route 16 but the traffice didn't seem all that heavy. That assessment changed the next morning at about 6:30 am when half of Emmett gets up and goes to work in Boise 30 miles away via that little highway next to the campground.

We visited with Boring Millie and her husband for 12 hours, having lunch and dinner with them. A great time. Boring Millie is leaving soon for San Antonio to play bridge with other members of the on-line group. Seven has met 3 of the members now.

Emmett is a town without any industry or any significant attractions. It is a nice little town but in reality it has just become a bedroom community for Boise. Emmett used to be a large fruit growing center but federal regulations acted to shut the industry down and all the fruit trees are now gone and packing plants are boarded up. All the fruit comes from Chile and Mexico now where regulations are not so onerous.

The lumber industry in Emmett have been shut down too. A plant where Boring Millie's husband worked was closed and over 800 employees lost their jobs.

We left town via Idaho Route 52. The drive east over to Idaho Route 55 was beautiful. Route 52 is a somewhat narrow road that follows the Payette River. We turned north on Idaho Route 55 at Horseshoe Bend. Route 55 followed the Payette River up into the mountains. It is a scenic drive first class. We picniced along the roaring river surrounded by towering pines.

Boise Idaho

2006-08-23T20:15:00.000-07:00

We pulled off of I-84 and went north on US-20. The camp ground we had picked out in the Boise area was full so we were looking for a place to camp while we were going down US-20 to the Old Idaho Penitentary. We accidently made a wrong turn (it is hard to change lanes quickly in a 36' RV+toad) and went up an exit ramp instead on staying on US-20. I turned to go down Federal Way to find a place to turn around so we could get back on US-20. The first thing we saw was a Jo-Anne's Fabric Store and Karen, of course, had to stop in there to look for bug fabric (she is making a bug quilt for our first grandson). So we pulled around back and found a nice place in the shade to park the rig. This looked like a great place to dry camp so when Karen went into the Jo-Ann's I went into the nearest store and talked to the lady owner/manager about spending the night at her place - not really. She said that she and her husband were RVers and that we could stay as long as we liked. We put the jacks down and took off for the old penitentary. Karen found 5 pieces of bug fabric for the quilt in Jo-Ann's when we got 'home' that night. Next to Jo-Ann's was a day-old bread outlet so I went in and bought some stuff including a box of Famous Amos cookies that I gave to the lady who let us park in her parking lot.

The old penitentary was really neat. They have not tried to restore it. It is aging gracefully. It was closed in 1973 and was at one time Idaho's main penitentary. It has several mini-museum on the grounds as well - a vehicle, a weapons, a tatoo, and an electrical - that are in some of the prison buildings. We toured the cell blocks, laundry, solitary confinement, death row, and gallows. We saw a handwritten invitation to an execution, exhibits of weapons made by prisoners, and stories of prisoners who stayed there. Executions used to be publicly held in each county in Idaho but later were moved to this penitentary where they were held in the rose garden. Finally they were closed to viewing.

We saw the women's ward too. It is very small and some unusual characters were held there at one time for what seem like strange reasons (like adultry) now. The ward had a nice flower and rose garden that the prisoners worked in. One tree grew next to the wall and a lady prisoner climbed it and escaped as did another who used a trellis as a ladder. The prison officials cut the tree down.

The weapons museum consisted of one man's weapon collection. The museum had a lot of old weapons as well as old guns up to WWII. Very informative displays. The tatoo museum consisted of pictures of tatoos, descriptions of the process and the meaning of tatoos in prison, and tatooing equipment that had been used in prisons. Tatooing is illegal in prison and has to be done between rounds. The electrical museum had lots of old interesting distribution equipment and a working analog telephone switching system that you could watch as you dialed a number.

Gooding, Idaho

2006-08-17T14:53:00.000-07:00

We left HART RV Park to head on over to Gooding, Idaho on the back roads to check out the Gooding County Fair and Rodeo. We first checked out a really nice little RV park, Big Wood RV Park, north of town just off of Main Street that a guy at HART had told me about. Unfortunately all the spaces were already reserved so we checked out the National Guard parking lot next to the fair grounds. Seven went into NG center and asked if we could park there for a couple of days. "Sure", the young Guardsman said. We set up camp under a huge elm tree next to an irrigation ditch. Pretty nice place to dry camp.

Today was laundry day so we took off back down Main Street in the toad to look for a laundry. We found a nice clean one and unloaded our supplies and dirty stuff. While Seven was doing laundry I set up the computer and began looking for a hotspot. Bingo, one popped right up on J-Wire when I was in the laundry. The spot was right across the street and I went over and asked the store owner if I could use it. It turned out the store was a combo office supply place, ice cream shop, and gift store. The owner was super nice and let me use it for over an hour. I had to buy an ice cream of course.

Gooding seems to be a nice little town. When I tried to cross Main Street cars would stop and let me with friendly waves. The only problem is that when I ask someone a question it takes a couple of beats before I get an answer. Except for the owner of the Cafe Connect ice cream shop who was pretty sharp.

We are running the generator right now to let Seven catch up on Young and the Restless and to cool down the coach. It is about 90 degrees out.

We walked over to the fair grounds to see what was happening. There was a crowd at the goat show ring where 5 little kids were showing their goats. We watched that then checked out the livestock barns. The happy, sleeping show pig buddies in the picture were raised by Caleb Bradshaw of the Rookies 4-H Club. Compared to the facilities at the Pinal County fairgrounds in Arizona the facilities here in Gooding were luxurious. It was like the Missouri State Fair but with fewer animals and smaller barns.

Hagerman, Idaho

2006-08-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

We chose to stay at High Adventure River Tours RV Park near Hagerman, Idaho because it is part of the Passport America club. It is nice clean park with all pull throughs. All sites are amply shaded with plenty of grass covered room between each site. The people running the park are friendly and helpful. It is within ear-shot of I-84 but the noise is really not noticeable. The BIG problem is that 500 cow diary somewhere down the road a couple of miles. 500 cows produce a tremendous amount of urine and the smell envelopes the campground like a suffocating fog when the wind is wrong. It did twice during the two days we stayed at HART RV Park. Seven lived north of a cattle lot most of her life and we raised cattle for a couple of years so the smell is not totally intolerable for us. Some people would probably unhook and move on in about 5 minutes. It is a shame. The park only had 5 campers staying there.

From HART RV Park we visited several attractions in the area.

Hagerman Fossil Beds National Park visitor center is worth a visit. The park itself is not if you are pressed for time. There is no charge. If seeing Oregon Trail wheel ruts is on your to-see list be sure to visit the park. There are some excellent wheel ruts visible from the road or from trails. The visitor center is in beautiful downtown Hagerman. Hagerman RV Village north of downtown looks like it is a nice, friendly RV Park. It has free Wi-Fi available and the friendly manager would let us use it even though we were not staying there.

The state fish hatchery off of US-30 looks run down but functional. They have a show tank with rainbow, golden, sturgeon, and other fish species in it. All the tanks are covered with chicken wire because of the flock of white American pelicans hanging out nearby. There were several ponds to fish in.

The US Wildlife Fish Hatchery is near to the state hatchery (you can go out the back way and get there instead of going back out to US-30 down the road a couple of miles then back the US Wildlife Hatchery). The hatchery grows steelhead trout for sports fisherman and to replenish wild stocks. The steelhead is like the salmon in that it migrates back from the ocean to where it had hatched in fresh water. There was a trailer full of technicans and equipment that was clipping the adipose fin from fingerlings. Fisherman can keep steelheads without the fin but have to return those that have them. The operation was almost totally computerized. Friendly techs gave us a first class lesson on steelheads. There is no charge for touring the hatchery.

Malad Gorge State Park is a mile or so from the HART RV Park. In the park there is a tremendous 250' deep gorge that was cut through the basalt that covers this area. The Snake River and Malad River cut the gorge. There is a long footbridge across the gorge where the falls drop into a feature called Devil's Wash Bowl. To see the falls a short walk down to an overlook is necessary. The drive back along the gorge is interesting. Be sure to pick up the informative self-guiding tour brochure. There are nice picnic facilities here. A $4 use fee is required. 1,000s of RVers probably go past this great little park at 75 mph each week because they are hell-bent on getting to the next mini-Disneyland down the road. You also miss seeing snakes in the road if you go too fast. Slow down and enjoy.

Back Roads

2006-08-16T14:51:00.000-07:00

We try not to drive the interstates. We want to see the USA so we stay on the 2-lane roads as much as possible. We took I-80 out of Salt Lake City to Wendover then on to Wells, Nevada because there was not a good two-lane alternative. From Wells we took US-93 to Jackpot then on to Twin Falls. From Twin Falls we took US-30 to High Adventure RV Park where we are now.

We see lots of interesting things driving through the small towns. We saw so many things today along US-30 we are going to take the toad back to investigate them further. Driving along the interstate we probably wouldn't have noticed many of the things.

We drove right past our turn off at Justice Grade on US-30 today because we were looking at the great scenery and the turn-off was hidden. We had to drive another couple of miles before we found a place where we could turn the RV+toad around. The Justice Grade was a short, narrow road with a couple of do-able switchbacks that took us out of the Snake River valley to the plateau above the river to our next stop at High Adventure RV Tours campground.

Twin Falls Idaho

2006-08-16T14:28:00.000-07:00

We passed from the high plains desert environment of sage and more sage into the bountiful agricultural paradise of south-central Idaho. Irrigation transformed the desert into fields of wheat, corn, alfalfa, and grass. Sprinklers were going in everyother field we passed.

Twin Falls is unremarkable as towns go. The spectacular Snake River gorge on the north side of town makes it a place to see. We tried to visit Shoshone Falls but the road to it was closed and all we got was a peek over an overlook 1/2 miles away. The falls are beautiful as is the park next to them. Great place for a picnic. We went on down the road to Twin Falls. Problem with Twin Falls is that its name is dated. It is no longer twin falls but a single, large fall. The other fall has been converted to a spillway for production of hydroelectric power. Twin Falls must have been a sight to see in its day, but now it is a testimony to man's engineering ability. There is a place to picnic and swim.

We were thinking about dry camping at Lowe's but after checking with the manager we decided not to. He didn't say we couldn't stay but told me that they have perimeter security and any movement within the perimeter sets off alarms. He said that the police would probably pay us a visit. Twin Falls is odd in that it does not have a Wal-Mart. So we could not dry camp there. The town fathers, in their ultimate perverted wisdom, decided to not allow Wal-Mart to have a store there. They did allow Target to build a Super Center, Home Depot and Lowes to build big box stores, and Fred Meyer (Kroger) to have a large Wal-Mart-like operation. Explain that.

Jackpot, Nevada

2006-08-14T15:14:00.000-07:00

After running through 12 miles of US-93 road repairs that coated the front end of the Toad with oil and gravel, we pulled into the Spanish Gardens RV Park in Jackpot, Nevada. We were going to check it out before going down the road to the other RV park in Jackpot. The price was right - $13.95. The large cottonwood trees shading many of the sites was also great so we pulled in and set up camp. Spanish Gardens is wedged in between US-93 and a trailer park that houses what could be a good place for a INS raid. The park would be pretty nice if it were 200 yards away from the highway and had fewer permanent residents. A decent, inexpensive place to hookup and spend a night or two. Lots of road noise. We got use to it.

Jackpot has one grocery store, one gas station, a couple of motels, one library, one school, 1 free Wi-Fi hotspot, 2 RV parks, one church, 5 casinos/hotels-motels, and one grumpy woman. The main industry in Jackpot is taking the hard-earned wages from the good folks of Idaho. We liked the Casino 93 and its limited but decent buffet-cafe. $2 limit on craps. $3 BJ. Friendly folks. Cactus Pete's was too busy. Very poor layout and signage therefore hard to get around in the first time or two. It has some nice poker tournaments. Dealers are surly.

The only Wi-Fi hotspot is in the library - conveniently open Tues-Sat. I drove around some of the neighborhoods looking for an open wi-fi network. I hate to do this because invariably a white male sitting in a car looking down at his lap is a big threat to the peace and tranquility in most neighborhoods. I found one and asked the lady at the nearest house if I could use it. The grumpy paranoid woman acted like I had asked her to use her bathroom for a week and it took about 15 minutes for the police cruiser to show up. I showed the officer what I was doing and he nicely asked if I would move on. I did. I was able to check some accounts and fire off a couple of emails before shutting things down.

Water Pump Problems

2006-08-14T15:08:00.000-07:00

Our water pump mysteriously quit working. Without that pump dry camping is very difficult so we were really concerned. We hadn't needed for a couple of months since we were always hooked up to a water supply.

I did a lot of investigating. I looked at our pump literature. I called Winnebago and asked them about it. The problem most likely seemed to be a blown inline fuse. Where was that fuse? I checked all the fuses and breakers I knew about. I emptied and crawled into a storage bay to trace the wiring to and from the pump. No luck. I could not see the fuse. It must be hidden in the protective wrap. Winnebago is big on protective wrap for electrical wiring. I had downloaded the drawings of the 12-volt circuits from the Winnebago site and called the drawings up and looked them over to see if I could locate the inline fuse. No luck. Brickwall time.

Then late at night I turned on the computer to look at the drawings one more time with my blurry eyes. As I scanned the drawings I noticed that one switch in the bathroom was labled "Pump Switch". What? We have always wondered what that unlabeled switch was for and would occasionally flip it on and off to see what happened. I thought it was for the bathroom fan and didn't work. So I went into the bathroom and flipped the switch and then went to the control panel to see if the pump would come on. The pump came on.

Wendover

2006-08-10T15:10:00.000-07:00

Wendover is in Utah and the name usually refers to the combined cities of Wendover, Utah and West Wendover, Nevada. A line painted on the main street shows the Utah-Nevada boundry. The two towns, of course, are virtualy indistinguishable except for the fact that West Wendover has 5 casinos lining the main street and Wendover has some dumpy stores and motels. The combined town has 2 of everything - police, city government, etc. Only in America.

We stayed at the State Line RV Park on 1st Street (you figure out where it is - there are no street signs) for two nights. Concrete pads, 30 amp service, water, cable (we did not use) and sewage. Small trees dot the Park. They will produce some shade in maybe 10 years. No pull thrus that I could see. It is clean. I did not see a laundry room or showers. If one parks next to the parking garage, there will be shade after 6pm, but the parking lot lighting will shine down on the RV all night and a bright morning sun will shine in the front window.

The park is on the Utah side of the state line and to get to the Nugget Hotel and Casino in Nevada we have to climb some stairs to get to a parking garage, then walk across the parking garage, then climb another flight of stairs and cross a double driveway to the casino that is in Nevada. The Nugget is a nice little casino: clean with good restaurants and other amendities like a pool that is available for campers to use. Our rate was $16.95 per night, however during Bonneville Speed Week (August 12-17 this year) they charge $30+ a night. The park is totally booked up during Speed Week with advanced reservations, otherwise it is a first-come-first-served park.

There is a Nevada visitor's center that is worth stopping at on the Nevada side of the state line. One of the ladies working there (very tall) was a fountain of knowledge of Wendover and the area. She knew facts about everything from the nearby caves (closed to the public) to brine shrimp production. There are lots of pictures and information available there.

Wendover has been the location for a lot of movies, and served as the training base for the pilots that flew the planes that dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

A good free wi-fi spot is at the Econo Lodge. We could not get a connection outside and had to go inside to take advantage of the free connection. There is seating and one electrical outlet in the snack room. It is not the cleanest or best place in the world to spend time, but it is free.

We checked out the KOA on the Nevada side. It is on a sloping lot, has dirt roads and little shade. It looked as if it was pretty old and delapidated. The swimming pool water was a nice shade of green. We would dry camp rather than stay there or pay $22-$35 a night for a hotel room at one of the casinos if we had to.

Goodbye Redman

2006-08-09T13:35:00.000-07:00

We gone. We left Redman to start a new adventure today. Our replacement hosts came at noon and we got unhooked and on the road at 1:00 pm.

We really enjoyed our stay at Redman Campground. Lots and lots of ups and very few downs. The people in Utah are wonderful. Big Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest is a special place. A lot of campers were surprised we were leaving since they think of Redman as heaven on earth. It has to be one of premier tent camping campgrounds in the National Forest system. We were fortunate to be able to host there. Our supervisors and the company we worked for - American Land and Leisure - was A-1 all the way.

Now we are on the road to Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and then back home to Arizona. 2 and 1/2 months of traveling at a snail's pace. We really do not have a detailed route in mind right now. RVing = Freedom.

Kennecott's Bingham Canyon Mine

2006-08-07T18:42:00.000-07:00

The fact that this huge copper mine is called the Bingham Canyon Mine is sort of joke. Bingham Canyon is gone. The mine swallowed it and the communities that existed in Bingham Canyon some time ago. The mine is very active is getting deeper everyday. We drove out to it on one of our day's off. A $5 entry fee (donated to charity by Kennecott) is required to see it. The visitor center is almost world class in terms of presenting information. It is very informative. There is a lot information about the mine, the processing of copper ore, the mine's history, copper and how and where it is used . I lingered at each display for some time. The visitor center is full of simple but effective displays. Look for a little booklet about Copper Mining Communities and Their People that tells the story of the various communities that once existed in Bingham Canyon. There is also a good gift shop with lots of copper related items.

Going to see a big hole in the ground may not be some people's idea of a good way to spend an afternoon, but we really enjoyed it. The mine is one of the few man-made things that can be seen from space. It is 2.5 miles across. Where there was once a mountain there is now a hole.

We were watching the movie How the West was Won several days ago and there is a shot of the Bingham Canyon Mine at the end of the movie. It is shocking how much deeper the mine is now. The movie was made 40 year ago.

Timpanogos Cave

2006-08-07T18:39:00.000-07:00

Timpanogos Cave (there are actually 3 caves - Timpanopos, Hansen and Middle Cave) is loed high up on the steep slopes of American Fork Canyon (Utah Highway 92). When I say 'high up' I mean high up. The cave's entrance is just 1.25 mile hike from the Visitor Center. The problem is that the entrance is 1092 foot climb almost straight up on a trail. It is recommended that you are in very good condition before making the climb. There are outstanding views of the American Fork Canyon along the trail if you have to stop for a rest. We did not make the ascent and took what I call an Old/Fat Guy Tour - we watched a good video about the caves in the Visitor Center. Tickets for the cave tours sell out early so plan accordingly. This is a busy area. Some people who toured the cave said that the caves are fantastic. The ticket price is separate from the entrance fee paid at the entrance station down the canyon. There are some beautiful picnic areas along the American Fork River and a short interpretive trail near the Visitor's Center.

Happiness is a small, red 10 amp fuse

2006-08-03T17:26:00.000-07:00

We could not start our RV. It would not even turn over. I called Freightliner engineering yesterday who immediately diagnosed the problem, however, the Freightliner engineer could not specifically tell me where the blown 10 amp fuse was because the box that contains the fuses are in different places in different Winnebago RVs. I crawled under the coach and looked everywhere I could think of. I gave up and called Winnebago again today. The Winnebago customer service rep, at first, didn't have his brain in gear and directed me to a box in the front of the RV that I had looked in 1,000 times. Then a light bulb went off in his brain and he laughed at his silly answer and told me where to look.

I had to raise up the bed then take off the metal plate separating the bed storage compartment from the engine area. Once I did all that, I looked and there was the small box that held the fuse. The fuse box attached to the bed box and cannot be seen from beneath the RV. I replaced the blown fuse and apprehensively went up front one more time. I held my breath as I turned the key to start the RV. It started!! If I drank I would have sat down and had a stiff one. One heck of a big problem solved.

Moose Madness

2006-08-01T14:16:00.000-07:00

Everyone who visits Redman Campground wants to see wildlife, moose in particular. We have had several bull mooses, several cows with calves, and yearlings pass through the campground to the delight of campers. We saw the momma moose and her calf for the first time today during a heavy downpour. A beautiful sight.

The picture was taken out of our slideout window. The pair was quite sensitive to car noise and would head off to dense cover when they heard a car approach.

Wedding in the Woods

2006-07-30T09:46:00.000-07:00

Two of our campers, Zeus and Janean, got married this afternoon. It wasn't your standard issue wedding. The bride and groom were dressed in traditional Indian clothing and the ceremony was presided over by a Blackfoot Indian also in traditional Indian clothing. We could not understand what was being said but the groom got quite emotional. We could not take pictures during the ceremony because taking pictures of he ceremony is a sign of disrepect but we could afterwards if our camera was blessed. I now have a blessed camera. I do not know how long the blessing will last however. Most of Zeus's friends are bikers and quite a number of them were there. I had one of them talked into giving Seven a ride around the campground but she backed out. I think Seven would make a great biker chick. It was very interesting and we met a lot of very interesting people, most of whom were wearing black. One of them had on a black shirt with one of my favorite biker quotes "If you can read this the bitch has fallen off". When we got there the average number of tats per person probably dropped to 10.

Freaky Friday

2006-07-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

Friday's are a campground host's big challenge. Everything weird seems to happen on Friday.

A young woman pulls in and asks for a big site. I tell her that Site 43 is just what she wants. She drives over to check it out and comes back and says she wants the site but there a tent is set up in the middle of the site. What? A squatter!! We hadn't sold the site so I tell it is hers. She pays and leaves to put her ticket on the site's post.

We soon are almost 100% full. I keep Site # 12 in reserve just in case we have problems with the squatter in Site 43. Maybe we made a big administrative error. We make mistakes.

About 2 hours later I have premonition and jump in the trusty Gator to go over to check out Site 43. Sure enough the tent owner/squatter was there and was almost 100% set up. I gave him the bad news/good news. Bad news was that he is going to have to pack up and leave and the good news was that I a place for him to go. He tells me that he came by at 8:30 am this morning and we had the blinds down. True. He said that he didn't knock because he didn't want to disturb us. Talk about feeling bad for a guy trying to be decent. He says that he will take Site 12, reluctantly.

Another premonition hits me in the face and I take off for Site 12. Sure enough. More squatters!!!! They said they were just getting ready to come over and pay us. I told them the site had been sold and that they would have to leave the campground. Good thing they were not armed. They started packing things up, reluctantly.

When I get back to the RV I have another brainstorm. The squatters in Site 12 were friends of the people in Site 19 so I jumped in the trusty Gator and sped up to Site 19. The upset squatters were there talking to their friends. I suggested to them that they share a campsite since Site 19 was pretty big. Problem solved.

Cool. 3 campers happy. One host not sweating. Friends made.

Doesn't get much better than this.

Update: The lady who bought Site 43 and started the chain of problems never showed up to claim the site last night. Go figger. And to further test my problem solving skills Seven accidently sells a previously sold site to a camper who has 3 friends on the way up the canyon for dinner. I put him in a group site that is not fully occupied after bribing the group site honcho with some firewood. Two more happy campers.

Hanging Out

2006-07-27T21:22:00.000-07:00

I was doing my evening rounds of the campground when I spotted a car in site 15. Site 15's tent site is actually on an island surrounded by two small streams. I walked across the log to the island and began saying "Hello, campground host" to alert the campers to my presence. You never know what might be going on in a tent. I said it 2 or 3 times and finally saw a girl stirring around in what looked like a one-man tent. There was no other camping gear in the site. She said "Just a minute." and I then explained that she would have to pay a fee for her site. She asked me "Is there a fee for just hanging out?" Let's see....... occupying a tent in a campground is "hanging out' and not camping? I don't think so. They (the girl and her boyfriend) packed up and left.

Lost Campers

2006-07-27T21:20:00.000-07:00

We were out doing our rounds after returning from Park City. We were collecting money from those who set up while we were away from the campground. We got started rather late and it was dark when we got to one of the last sites.

We stopped and chatted for some time with the couple in that site when a car drove up and parked in a spot near us. Three guys got out and started up the the road away from us. They turned around and came back down the road towards us. I stepped out of the shadows stopped them and identified myself. They said that they had lost their campsite. I described the equipment in a empty site we came across and they said it was theirs. They happily took off for their site - the wrong way. Redman isn't that big so I am sure they would find it - eventually.

Park City, Utah

2006-07-26T21:11:00.000-07:00

Not having too much time (one day) for local exploring limits how far and where we can go. Yesterday we did finally get to make a trip we had hoped to find time to get in. We drove over Guardsman Pass to Park City on Utah 190. At the summit the road turns to dirt and becomes one-way in places on the way down the mountain. Our Winnie could make it over the pass but we would have to drive that couple of miles of dirt at 10 mph.

Park City is a ski town. The ski trails have been cut out of every mountain around the city. Upscale condos are everywhere with signs announcing new ones (Starting at just $500,000 popping up along all the main roads. Shops filled with merchantise for furnishing those expensive condos line the pretty and bustling downtown area. We walked Main Street where most of the shops are and had a quick lunch in a deli under a set of 1999 pictures of then President Bill Clinton hunting snow bunnies in Park City. There are lots of flower boxes and an interesting museum that tracked Park City's change from a mining town to a first class ski resort town.

Wednesday's is farmer market day in Park City. I think that most farmer's markets are just outlets for antique/junk/produce dealers that sell cheap goods and produce from big distributors. This market had actual, real live farmers selling real tomatoes and other produce picked that morning. It also had 2 honey sellers. I buy local honey wherever we go. Honey in grocery stores is usually blended foreign honey and is garbage. Why eat that when you can support a local beekeeper who is selling great honey - real clover honey, buckwheat, orange blossom, etc. There is a big difference. I bought a big bottle of clover/thistle honey and a small bottle of buckwheat honey. Honey from different flower blossoms has different flavors. We also bought some yellow cucumbers that I initially thought were some kind of lemon. We got some fresh field corn and pecans too. A family had two ice cream makers set up and was making home made ice cream. They looked like they were selling it as fast as they were making it.

We then headed for I-80 and saw the sign for Utah Olympic Park. We thought the sign said 16 miles and talked about whether we wanted to drive 32 miles that late in the afternoon to see it. Then we looked out the window and could see the park not 16 miles away but 1.6 miles. We did a U-turn and drove to it. Great decision. The park is where the jumping and sledding events were held during the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. There were zip lines set up and you could ride a bobsled down the course. These were kind of pricey. $65 for one bobsled ride. A professional driver would be in control of the sled which would hit speeds of 70-80 mph. The sleds had wheels on them. We went on a tour of the facility. We were taken up to the top of highest ski jump and the guide told us all about ski jumping. I was relieved to know that I am too heavy to participate. Totally scary. The jumpers hit 90 mph at the end of the jump and fly over 100 yards. He said young teenagers make the best jumpers because they are light and fearless. I am neither. A great place to visit.

A Toothless Beaver

2006-07-25T10:29:00.000-07:00

An 11 year-old + a sharp hatchet + unattentive parents + some aspen trees = $450 fine.

An alert camper knocked on the door and told me that he and his son encountered a boy chopping down aspen trees like a beaver getting ready for the winter on the edge of a meadow in our campground. I immediately jumped in the trusty, but slow Gator for a trip up the mountain to investigate.

Of course, when I asked the parents occupying a site near the meadow about someone chopping down trees they didn't have a clue. Then, after a few more questions, they finally asked their 11 year-old son. He led me to the trees he had felled not more than 100 feet from his parent's campsite. I called the sheriff. It is a crime to chop down trees, alive or dead, in a national forest.

Unfortunately for the parents, our local NF law enforcement officer heard the dispatch and came racing up the canyon in his cruiser with sirens going. He pulled in to the campsite and the sheriff turned the investigation over to him. It took him a very short time to get his pad out and write the parents a $450 ticket for the trees. The parents watched the boy chop down the trees and then told the officer the child did not know it was against the law, that they were not informed that they could not cut down trees, and said that the boy was a boy scout. Very, very, very lame.

And a toothless beaver could have done a better job of felling those aspens.

What does FULL mean?

2006-07-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

The cliche "What part of FULL don't you understand?" comes to mind most weekends.

We put the FULL sign up when we are, duh, FULL. FULL means that we do not have any spaces left to sell to our customers. I wonder, and will ask some people today, what does FULL actually mean to the endless line of people who come to our door after seeing at least 3 FULL signs on their way to our door. Is there some way we can make the message more clear like: HEY, DUDE, WE ARE FULL - GO AWAY. NOW?

There is something else at work here. We are the last hope in our canyon for desperate campers who have promised the screaming little ones in the backseat a weekend of camping. Every campground in the lower part of the canyon is FULL too and these poor folks can't believe that they have been shutout and think that this last FULL sign must be a cruel mirage.

In all fairness, Utahians are the most polite people on earth (and their kids are generally very well-mannered and I have never seen any of them screaming in the backseat) and when these kind souls gently ask if we are full it is not as if some self-important, self-entitled New Yorker was in front of, barking "How dare you to fill up the campground before we got here." Thank God. But it is annoying nevertheless.

Good Times Bad Times Gimme Some of Dat

2006-07-16T18:07:00.000-07:00

Some days of campground hosting are funny. Some are sad. And some are just interesting. Today was all three.

We close the gate to the campground at 8:30 pm but do not lock it. We have a tire ripper sign on the exit. We have tire rippers but they haven't been installed so our 'gate' is largely a joke.

Tonight a van rolled up to the closed gate, stopped, opened the gate, then drove through it. I saw all that happen from our RV which faces the gate and jumped up to tell them to close the gate. Seven was outside and flagged the car down. I was still uncharacteristically yelling at them as Seven was talking to them. The person driving was one of wonderfull leaders of a huge group of young Mormon women who were spending most of the week at Redman. After Seven explained that I had been sick for the past couple of days and was not myself the lady kindly said "you really have your hands full there'.

Two testosterone-filled male humanoids were unloading their two SUVs at their site and took offense that a couple of cars were parked in 'their' parking spot next to their camp site and called us, the friendly hosts, to have the cars moved. The parking spot could easily hold 5 or 6 cars. The offending cars belonged to a couple of the Mormon ladies helping with some of the evening events for a group of young women and were parking there because I told them they could. The camp site the humanoids chose is one of the last ones we usually sell so I did not think that there would be a problem since we weren't even close to full. I took off in the Gator to check it out. I got there and the guy, from New York I presume, started in on how he paid for a site and didn't want others parking there.

I agreed with him and told him that I thought that the ladies who owned the cars would be leaving shortly so it shouldn't be a problem for them. He told me he wanted them moved NOW. I told him that I would probably have to go to the other side of the campground and then run the ladies down because I had no idea who owned the cars. He started in on how I should have the license number and name of every person who came into the camp ground blah blah. So I reluctantly got out and went over to the next site and asked the ladies if they knew who owned the cars. One lady, a very attractive young mom, said one was hers and, with an annoyed look, she would go move it. I asked her if she wanted me to go with her. She quietly said yes. She walked up to the humanoids, pulled on her hair a bit, smiled sweetly, and told them she was there to move the cars. After some stammering and feet shuffling the humanoids decided that the cars could stay. The young mom turned, smiled at me, I mouthed a silent 'thanks', and she happily walked backed to her camp site. I didn't say a word to the humanoids.

One of the young Mormon women knocked on our door late this afternoon and told me that she and some friends found a fawn trapped in the mud near a small creek. She was really concerned that the fawn had been abandoned by its mom. Seven followed her to find the fawn. Seven wound up tripping twice, falling in the creek, and tearing her pants along the way. Meanwhile I called our boss and the sheriff. We had 3 sheriff cars respond and our boss was here in 5 minutes. They pulled the fawn out of the mud, dried it, and put it in the sunshine to warm up. The policy here with wild animals is to let nature take its course. Hopefully the fawn's mother will find before the coyotes do.

Workcamping at Redman Revisited

2006-07-11T21:04:00.000-07:00

After 3 weeks we are calling ourselves seasoned workcampers. As rookie campground hosts we have experienced a lot, not everything, but a lot so far.

Redman is at 8,300 feet so spring and summer come late. There is still a little nip in the air when we wake up each morning. A little nip in the air may be different for people who have lived the last 8 years in the Valley of the Sun. Summer morning temperatures here in the summer time may equal Phoenix's winter lows. It feels good. We haven't had to run our AC once. We bought a small ceramic heater to warm things up in the RV in the morning rather than use our precious propane.

The air is super clean except when there is traffic on the dirt road next to the host site and the wind is blowing towards us. When I step out in the morning for my morning walk around the campground (about 1.5 miles) it smells fresh except when there are deer or moose nearby. My nose, in this fresh air environment, is much more alert. Usually I can smell deer or moose before I can see them. The vegetation has grown up so much that the deer and moose are sometimes hard to spot. Sometimes all I can see is twitching ears above the willows or young aspen.

Tent campers are, as I mentioned earlier, real campers. They are generally the cleanest too. When we make our rounds we stop at recently vacated sites and police up the site. Rarely do we encounter more than a few scraps of paper or one of those bread wrapper fasteners at tent camping sites. Popup tent campers are a close second. RVers cook and eat in their RVs usually so they are pretty neat too. The worst slobs in our campgrounds are very young adults that are camping with their friends. They treat the campground the same way they treat their living quarters I imagine.

We have finally encountered some vandalism. Our #2 toilet (we have 5 modern toilets in the camp ground) was plugged up. I feel that if a restroom is well maintained and clean even the idiots who enjoy destroying public property won't vandalize it. Our #2 has had problems with leaking and when people come in to use it the dirt on their boots and shoes becomes mud and soon the floor is a mud hole. It looks terrible and that leads to vandalism in my opinion. Our other, properly working, toilets haven't had any problems even though they have been heavily used by young males. Young, testosterone-laden males seem to have a toilet destroying gene. Does trashing a restroom impress young women?

If you stop in at Redman to camp, the best sites are 40, 11, 23, and 9 (part of group site 7-8-9). 40 is the best site except that it is not near the modern toilets. Only the group sites can be reserved. Everything else is first-come-first served.

Work camping (workkamping or working while camping or camping while working)

2006-07-04T16:30:00.000-07:00

We are workcamping or workkamping at Redman Campground in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest this summer. I will explain our job so that those seeking information about working camping can read about our experiences in order to make a decision about whether they want to workcamp in a similar situation.

We were hired by American Land & Leisure of Orem, Utah to be campground hosts at the Redman Campground. Redman wasn't opened until June 22nd because of the snow that this part of the Wasatch-Cache NF receives. When we arrived there was still snow on the ground in some places.

AL&L runs the Redman Campground and its sister campground Spruces in Big Cottonwood Canyon east of Salt Lake City for the National Park Service. AL&L hires and fires campground personnel and provides the adminstrative services to keep the camp ground up and running. This relieves the Forest Service of a lot of headaches. Instead of riding herd on a bunch of flighty and crotchety campground hosts that they would have to hire, train, and supervise all they have to do is call Orem when there is a problem with a campground host punching out a customer for knocking on their door at 10:30 pm.

This is our first campground hosting experience. When we backed into our site at Redman we were as green as the huge pines surround us. Our supervisors, Dan and Jo Leach, took us under their wing and, as former hosts of Redman, showed us the ropes.

We were, through no fault of Don and Jo, thrown to the wolves so to speak because we got there and one week later were faced with 22 campers lined up at the gate, waiting to get a spot to camp in. We had worked all week to get things ready but we really weren't. We had a lot of physical problems with the campground that needed to be fixed and weren't. The campers never ever complained, to my surprise, about conditions. They were happy to have such a beautiful place up and running for the summer and would overlook minor problems that I, being inexperienced, thought were major problems. Then after the hectic opening we faced the 4th of July weekend.

Our positions are paid positions. We were suppose to work 45 hours total between us in return for a full-hook up spot and $5.15/hour. These positions are not volunteer positions. One of our first problems was that 45 hours for 43 sites is not enough time to do the job. It is hard to break down our hours at this point because of opening the campground then turning around and facing a major holiday weekend right after it. Both periods are unusual and required lots of work. We worked 55 hours the first week and 57.5 the second week. At this point it seems like we have almost full time jobs. This is not what we wanted or expected. We are hanging in though because we realize that we have endured two of the worse high traffic days for a campground - opening day and a major holiday. If we continue to log more than combined 40 hours a week we will be really disappointed. If we wanted a full-time job we could certainly find one for more than $5.15 per hour although probably not in such a beautiful place.

Serving as campground hosts has a lot of positive aspects and just a few negative ones. There are problems at times that crop up - usually because we do not have any spaces left to put people. Our paperwork has gotten us in trouble a couple of times because we assigned two groups to the same spot or didn't properly note when someone was leaving. Our signage was causing us headaches too because people did not know where to go or what to do. We are slowly straightening those problems out by refining our check-in procedures and by putting up clear and concise signs that people can read from their car window when they enter the campground.

Our duties involve a lot of contact with campers. In our campground we have primarily tent campers, a few pop-up campers, and a few motor home 'campers'. We have no amendities except for communal toilets. There aren't showers. Tent campers expect little except a level site and a fire pit. They are tickled pink to get a site at all because of the demand. Some are disappointed that there is not a reservation system for the sites. Group sites are reservable through ReserveUSA for a fee. The people we encounter each day are great. This Utah and most people are polite, understanding when there is a problem, and make few if any demands. After this we will never host in New York. We have been spoiled by the good people of Utah.

Our daily schedule depends on how full the campground is. If we are full we can do little but turn people away who can't read the "Campground is Full" sign at the gate. Once we are full we can do pretty much what we want. The campground is usually full on Friday and Saturday night. During the week we might have as few as five spots occupied. There can be a constant stream of people pulling in to register or We do 2 daily tasks even on our day off - our 7:30 pm check of the campground and a morning check of the restrooms (5 of them plus 2 pit toilets). When we do the morning check we check vacant sites for trash and dig out the fire pits as well as inspect the restrooms. Since this campground is in Utah, there has been no restroom or campsite vandalism and most people leave their sites very clean even though we are 15 miles from a major metropolitan area. We have nightly book work where I total the day's receipts. That can take up to an hour to complete.

There have been lots of interesting situations and people we have encountered so far.

9:30 pm, temperature 41 degrees and dropping, and there is a knock at the door. "Can I borrow a blanket?" says a shivering customer.

We pass a camp site during our rounds and a man runs out and asks, "Do you have a bar of soap I can buy?"

A cute young lady pulls up to the host site, gets out, and walks over and asks, "Can you set my tent up for me?"

We visit a camp site and as I sit in the Gator Seven walks over to see how the campers are doing. The husband comes over and gives her a big hug. Then the wife almost runs over and also gives her a hug. Seven had given them one of the best camping sites in the campground after they were sure that we wouldn't have one for them.

Gate is closed, 10:30 pm on Saturday night, all of our shades in the RV are pulled, drive sign says "Campground is Full", and there is a knock at the door.

Man pulls up in his Jeep and steps around to the back of it. He pulls out a 8" diameter log that is 8 feet long and says, "Can you use your chainsaw to cut this up for me?"

After a big rain the night before there is a soft knock at the door. I look out and do not see anyone so I open the door. A small girl stands there and asks if I have seen their cooler in the stream. The stream washed it away during the storm. I say no but if they walk the banks they should find it pretty quickly because of all the logs across the stream.

Been invited for cocktails and for beer.

Let a girl use our electrical outlet to blend her coffee.

Stopped and talked to a man sitting in a camp chair who was scanning the trees with his binoculars looking for a three-toed woodpecker.

Work camping for us has been fun so far. If you are reading this to learn about camp ground hosting, we recommend that you choose your place and who you work for carefully. Our supervisors and the company we work for are first class and that makes getting questions answered and getting support when there are problems not a hassle. Be careful about selecting an assignment without understanding who the customers are and where they are coming from. All it takes is one or two bad apples every weekend to ruin a great experience and if you do not have support from your supervisors, company, and the local law enforcement you could be in physical danger or have to spend all your time on enforcement of rules. If possible talk to someone who has worked at the campground or camped there in the past.

Customer Service

2006-06-26T11:25:00.000-07:00

We had a very busy weekend. 222 people stayed in the camp ground on Friday night. We were full again on Saturday night. Sunday we had mostly picnicers. We only had 5 overnighters last night. It is really busy and really fun.

We meet a lot of interesting people and we try to provide good customer service. One guy need some duck tape to tape up a hose on his car so he could get home.

Another, young lady, brought her wadded-up tent up to the host site (where our RV is parked) in her car and asked if someone could show her how to put the tent up. She was so pretty I told her I knew of at least 10 guys camping here at the time who would be glad to show her. She laughed and she got the tent out of her trunk. We worked together to figured out how it was supposed to go together on the road in front of our site. After we were done she wanted to put the tent on top of her car to take back to the camp site. Putting up modern tents is pretty tricky the first time I think. We took the tent down, put it all back in her trunk, and I told her she should be able to put it up herself now.

Seven and I checked her site later and the tent was up. Another happy customer.

Opening Day

2006-06-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

Opening Day is always a big deal to those afficinados who have been waiting for something to open or begin. Hunters, fishermen, skiers, baseball fans, and basketball fans can't wait for opening days. Yesterday was our opening day. The parking lot just outside of the gate was full of cars loaded with eager campers. Our camp ground had been closed since last September and it is very popular with local tent campers so its reopening was eagerly ancipated by what I call 'real' campers'. We had been told that our camp ground had a cult following and was anxious to see if that was true. The crowd at the gate told me it was.

Every hour or so beginning at about 9:30 an emissary from the parking lot would walk down the hill and politely inquire when and if we would open. We sadly had to tell them that we did not know and wouldn't know until the water testing was complete. They would sigh and trudge back up the hill to the parking lot. At 2:30 pm the word came from the lab that the water was okay to use and I headed for the gate. The opening day crowd had been outside their cars, talking and watching their kids play and as soon as they saw me they gathered up the kids and got into their cars. It took a minute to open the gate and like pied piper I led a column of cars, campers, and RVs down the hill.

We gave each vehicle a plastic 'reserved' tag and told them to find a site that they liked and put the reserved tag on the post in front of the site then come back and pay us. They rushed off in clouds of dust. It reminded me of the Oklahoma Land Rush in a way. Soon they were coming back to check in with us. We gave them the rules and sent them off to set up their camp sites. We sold out the lower loop and it was decided to open up the upper loop where we still had snow and some significant problems with our rest rooms. Soon we had that sold out too except for one site that had a river of snow melt running through it.

We later had a chance to take the Gator and tour our little camp ground to see how everyone was settling in. Our supervisor, Don, told us that the key to camp ground control is the wave. As we drove around and waved at each group of campers. Don said if they did not wave back then they were unhappy and to stop to see what the problem was. We had nothing but wave backs. All the campers were busy putting up tents, fixing food and starting a camp fire. The only problem was with one group who had built their campfire with wood that extended beyond the fire rings that the National Forest Service provides. The group of teenagers in one large site was even behaving themselves. Don told us that such groups are the real problem causers in camp grounds. These kids must have been a group of camping choir boys. Polite and orderly.

So with camp fire smoke rising through the dark pines and the sounds of kids playing moving through what were previously quiet groves of trees, we ended our first Opening Day. This is fun.

Redman Camp Ground

2006-06-17T11:55:00.000-07:00

Redman Camp Ground is a special place. It is a National Forest Service camp ground located about 15 miles east of Salt Lake City, Utah in Big Cottonwood Canyon on Utah State Road 190. It is easy to find. Just go past the second entrance Solitude Ski Resort and turn right. The drive up or down Big Cottonwood Canyon is a jaw dropper.

Redman Camp Ground has 44 sites including the host site. Only the host site has full hookups and there is not a dump site in the camp ground so Redman is primarily a short-term camp ground for tent, pop-up, Class B, and smaller Class C campers. There are several sites that could accommodate Class As but they are usually not level. There are 2 major loops with 22 sites per loop. Each site has a fire ring and picnic table. There are 5 modern toilets and 2 pit toilets. Many sites are next to a rushing mountain stream. Some sites have level tent pads. Pets are not allowed in Big Cottonwood Canyon ($1,800 fine).

Wildlife abounds in and around Redman.

The sites (except for group sites) are not close together

and most give you the feeling of camping by yourself. Huge conifers, willow, and aspen are the dominate tree species. Moose, chipmunks, squirrels, and mule deer are frequently seen.

Redman usually does not open until the middle or late June and closes soon after Labor Day because of the heavy snow fall during the winter. During this past snow season this area received over 600 inches of snow. Night-time temperatures in June can fall into the 30s. During the day the usual temperature is in the low 70s. It costs just $15 a night plus an additional charge for extra vehicles. A lot of younger, Salt Lake City families use Redman for a one or two night camping trip on the weekend.

This camp ground has everything except the amenities that many RVers demand and expect like water, electricity, sewage, swimming pools, game rooms, internet access, minature golf courses, and other somewhat artificial 'attractions' that some kids demand. If you can be a 'real' camper for a day or two Redman is a beautiful place to camp. Cool air, wildlife, huge trees, spacious spots, and real camping make Redman heaven on earth.

We were lucky to be chosen to be camp ground hosts for the 2006 season at Redman. Our supervisors told us that there is a Redman cult that loves this special place and tells the Forest Service to never change it. If you come you and camp here will understand why. We will be here until September and will sadly move on.

This was typed under 8 sixty foot fir trees with the smell of pine filling the air and sound of hummingbirds visiting the feeder hanging from a nearby tree and an icy mountain stream rushing close by providing a musical backdrop to my quiet tippity-tapping. Heaven has to be like this.

St George RV Resort/Hurricane, Utah

2006-06-14T11:39:00.000-07:00

We pullled into the St George RV Resort at about 5:30 pm. Everyone in the office was getting ready to head for home so we were just able to process our reservations. We drove up to our spot and someone was in it. We asked him to vacate and he refused. The office had closed so we took that to mean we had the pick of the park. We found a great, shaded spot and set up and decided to let the chips fall where they may if someone came along and wanted our new spot.

When we have full hooks we have been just connecting to the electricity. We were getting low on water and decided to wait until we were getting ready to leave before filling our tank with water. We would dump the black water when it was full at our next location. It is somewhat of a pain to connect to sewerage.

On board the Regatta

2006-06-02T11:46:00.000-07:00

Facilities: The Regatta is one of the 3 ships that are owned by Oceania Cruise Line. The 3 ships are identical. The interior of the ship is similar to an upscale hotel in that it has good carpeting, original artwork, excellent furniture, dishes, glassware, silverware, and well-appointed bathrooms, great lighting, wood and brass accents, and other small touches that give you a feeling that you are living in a classy environment. We are basically Wal-Mart people and do not surround ourselves with expensive items so we can appreciate what the decorators and designers have done to the ship. Every thing is first class. Many people on board have cruised with Oceania more than once. One couple told us that this is their 7^th cruise with Oceania.

Service: The service has been excellent. There appears to be a hierarchy in quality however. The fine dining rooms, the Polo Room and the Tuscany, have the best personnel that offer impeccable service while at the lower end, the Terrace, the service is spotty or sometimes non-existent. The main dining room personnel are well-trained, very polite, and attentive without being annoying. The bar personnel and sommeliers are very good and are very knowledgeable. Seven has been 'madamed' to death.

Rooms: Our room is in about the middle of the different levels that Regatta offers. Its main difference from an inside or lower deck cabin is the veranda we have. We love the veranda because it gives us a place to go to check out the weather, to watch the sea, and to watch port operations without leaving our rooms. I thought it might be an unnecessary luxury but it isn't. The beds are very firm and comfortable. The sheets are 1200 thread count and feel marvelous. We actually have down filled pillows and a down comforter. There are 4 bottles of shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and body lotion in the shower. The bathroom is, of course, cramped, but functional. There is actually more storage space than we need and we have a large number of wooden hangers to use. The beds are high enough off the floor to store our suitcases under them. The housekeeping is good but spotty in that they miss dusting some spots. The room is cleaned twice a day including the nightly turn down. They do the chocolate-on-the-pillow thing with small bars of chocolate each night. As if we need another bite to eat. Our room is the last one on our floor. I think that end rooms get less movement than those up towards the front of the ship, especially a smaller one like the Regatta. The downside is that we have quite a hike to get anywhere.

We're Leaving on a Jet Plane

2006-05-19T18:34:00.000-07:00

We're Leaving on a Jet Plane. Don't know when we will be back again. You remember the great Peter, Paul and Mary song don't you? It was written by John Denver.

Super Shuttle picks us up at 12:00 noon tomorrow to start our big adventure. We fly out of Sky Harbor to LAX then to Frankfurt and then to Barcelona. We have 4 hours to get from the airport in Barcelona to our cruise ship, the Regatta.

We have been working to overcome the 9 hour jet lag by going to bed early and waking up early. Last night 7:30 to bed and rising at 2:15am. About 4 hours behind now.

I have done tons of online research on our ports of call: Gibraltar, La Coruna, LeHavre (Rouen), Zeebrugge (Bruges), Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Tallin and St Petersburg. We will only use the excursions in St Petersburg because we didn't want to mess with the onerous Russian visa requirements. Elsewhere we will walk, bike, boat, mini-bus, or train. All the information is overwhelming. Like studying for a geography final exam.

We have covered the furniture with sheets (it is dry dust) and left buckets of water out to put some moisture in the air. The bushes are trimmed. The timers on the lamps set. We hired a house watcher.

We are excited to say the least. Europe here we come!! More postings from along the way I hope. After Europe RVing to Utah!

A little more cowbell from Peter, Paul and Mary.

Now the time has come to leave you
One more time let me kiss you
Close your eyes I'll be on my way
Dream about the days to come
When I won't have to leave alone
About the times, I won't have to say

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go

Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go

Wiring up the CRV

2006-05-11T11:17:00.000-07:00

In order to tow our 2001 CRV behind our RV we needed to wire it so that the brake lights and turn signals would work when the RV's did. There are lots of ways to handle this problem. One simple way is to buy lights on magnetic rack that sit on the back of car. Another is to run a wire from the RV and install a separate bulb for the lights. I wanted something more permanent and that used my toad's wiring and lighting system as much as possible. I called RV dealers to get prices on wiring the CRV and they told me anywhere from $120 to $300 plus parts. Being sort of handy and cheap I decided to do it myself.

I bought a Roadmaster universal wiring kit #150 for $65 and began my adventure. A note to non-instruction-readers: read the directions carefully and plan everything out before cutting wires and drilling holes or whatever. It is not hard but if you are unfamilar with things like this it can be tricky.

There are several different ways, depending on how your RV's and your toad's brake lights and turn signals operate, to do the wiring using the universal wiring kit. Basically they all work the same way. A diode has to be installed in the wiring path. The diode does two things as I see it. It prevents signals from the RV from frying your toads computer and it gives you a place to hook the wiring from the RV into the toad's wiring. Two diodes came with the kit and I had to buy two more at $11 a pop.

The tricky thing for me was to find space in the cavity that holds the rear lighting assembly for the diodes. There is very little space up for grabs. I used electrical tape to hold the diodes in place in order to test whether I could fit the rear lighting assembly back on the toad with the diodes on it. Once I found a good place I used the included double sided tape to secure them.

Another bothersome thing was finding a place for the wiring to go from the rear lighting assembly to under the toad. I had a couple of knockouts in the toad's body that I could use but after an hour of fishing wires through them I gave up and routed the wires around the rear door.

Once the wires were underneath the toad I routed them along places where I could use zip ties to secure them up out of the way as much as possible. It is a good thing CRVs have a high ground clearance because that made it easy.

There are two different ways you can wire a toad to an RV - one is with flat connectors (what is in the kit) and the other is with 4 or 6 prong round plugs. I didn't look at the RV's receptacal until I was ready to plug in. Of course I set the toad up on 4 prong system and the RV had 6 prongs. So I had to go get another plug and take the four prong plug off my flexible coiled wire and put on a 6 prong plug.

After getting everything set I tried her out. Of course it didn't work. While changing out plugs I got the wires crossed and had to take the plugs apart again and correct that. Then it worked fine. It probably took me 8 hours to do this job because I had no idea in the beginning and made a couple of time consuming errors. I work slowly too with lots of water breaks. It is pretty hot in an Arizona garage in May.

I was fortunate to find an Apollo braking system for the toad for $550. I had to wire it up too. The brake-a-way system requires a wire from the switch to the Apollo. After wiring up the brake and tail lights that was a piece of cake. Just fishing the wire through the engine compartment so it is not in the way of anything or sitting on the hot motor.

Wiring the transmitter to let the RV driver know that the toad's brakes had been applied was a different story. I had to turn myself upside down and crawl under the dash to find the wires leading from the brakes. There were 3 of them and I only had about 2 inches of wire and one hand to work with. After posting my problem on RV.net I waited until someone knowledgeable came along and saved me. It took a while but some one finally told me it was the black and white wire that I had to tap into. Joyfully I crawled back up the dash and found that there wasn't a black and white wire there. I had a dark green and wire one so I gambled and tapped into it. I almost cried when the receiver flashed a bright red light when I pushed down on the brake. It was hot. It was uncomfortable. It was frustrating trying to get the tap to seat on the wire with one hand. It works and I am pretty pleased with myself for doing it myself.

We are ready to safely tow. Now we have to learn how to. An adventure a day keeps the doctor away.

Provisioning

2006-05-11T10:27:00.000-07:00

In the past couple of months 150 years ago people were migrating west. These adventurers would collect their covered wagons every year in towns near the edge of one of the big barriers keeping them from reaching their destinations in California or Oregon, the Great Plains. Here, in places like Kansas City and Independence, Missouri they would provision their wagons carefully because those provisions would be what would keep them safe on the long, perilous journey in front of them.

Now, our trip to Utah next month is not a long, perilous journey and we never will be far from provisions (a McDonald's, a buffet in Salt Lake City, a Country Kitchen, or a Wal-Mart) but we like to lay up some provisions anyway. It is nice to be able to go to the cupboard and pull out some pancake mix or brownie mix and whip up something tasty. At least we won't have to shoot a deer or bunny for supper.

We use a book called Make-a-Mix published by Fisher Books for a wide variety of recipes. We have made mixes for hot rolls, biscuits, brownies, pancakes, and an all purpose breading mix. I vacuum seal these in quart Mason jars. I know we could get similar things at the store but if you read the labels on those things they are full of two ingredients we try to avoid - sugar and salt. My mixing our own we control the salt (fake salt) and the sugar (Splenda).

We have also caught things on sale recently and vacuum sealed and frozen steaks, chicken, pork chops, grapes, and strawberries. We are fortunate to have a double freezer in our RV and can pack it full.

So our covered wagon is filling up. One more month and we will be camp hosting at Redman Camp Ground in Big Cottonwood Canyon in Utah! We will eat well.

Stop in and say 'Howdy'. There is always room for one more around the camp fire.

White Tank Mountains

2006-04-09T21:12:00.000-07:00

White Tank Mountain Park is 18 miles from our house in Sun City West. We camped there this past weekend with the Kactus Sams chapter of the Good Sams Club. We had 11 rigs with 22 people 4 dogs and an unknown number of cats. The group camped in Group Camp Ground #14 with no hookups. There was a restroom, fire pit, and two ramadas.

We were the first to arrive at the camp ground and got to actually set up our rig in a real live camp ground for the first time. At the Samboree in Casa Grande I would hardly call what we were parked in a camp ground It was a dust bowl that later turned into a lake. In Quartzsite we were parked in a field with no hookups and plenty of dust. We finally got to put out our awning, carpet, and chairs. After all the work was done I sat out in one of our chairs with a cool beverage and worked a Sudoku puzzle while listening to Rush Limbaugh. What could be better?

The other rigs pulled in and set up and before long we went over and joined a group outside another RV so we could get to know everyone. Lots of RV talk. How-tos and what-to-buys. Since we were new to RVing we just listened. I had forgotten my Lats and Longs for the DirecTV satellite so the club President went and got his reading for me. I hit the satellite on the first try!

One couple had a dog with no legs named Dusty - they carrried Dusty with them everywhere. They told me that that breed of dog cost $2,000 each so I guess I would have carried Dusty around too. Dusty had legs but didn't have to use them. The dog was a papillon or contentinetal toy spaniel. A really well-behaved, friendly, and beautiful little doggie that was fun to be around.

We had two night-time campfires. Of course, the sight of all the people gathered around the camp fire reminded me of the famous camp fire scene in the funniest movie ever made, Blazing Saddles (sound effects from that scene) and I smiled a secret smile. We had beans for supper the following night so that made it even funnier for me. Lots of talking and stories. One lady learned that her cat had escaped from their RV and was on the loose. She and all the cat lovers in the crowd hustled over in the dark to where the RV was parked. Coyotes love cats so finding it quickly was a priority. They found it. The cat had figured out how to open the door and let itself out.

During one of the camp fires I noticed something very strange. One of the RVs facing us had what appeared at first to be an unusual screen in its wind shield. I got up and went over to look and the 'screen's' images moved. Wow, I thought, then I realized the 'screen' was just a reflection of the mountains behind me. Now if reflection had been an im age of Jesus on the windshield I would have paid the owner $1,000 right then for it and there and then sold it on eBay for millions.

I took a couple of hikes up Ironwood Trail from the camp ground for about 1.5 miles roundtrip. Nice, easy trail. On the first hike 4 of us went, but on the second one I went by myself. I had hiked by myself in South Mountain Park quite a bit so hiking alone didn't bother me. It is not a good idea to hike alone in the desert though. I had left the lat/long for a good geocache at home so I didn't try to find it. On the way back on the second hike I came across a diamondback rattle snake stretched out across the trail. It was originally 2 feet long but it has steadily grown another 6 inches every time I tell someone about it and it is now a healthy 6 footer. I watched the cute, but deadly little critter for some time and I guess it watched me. I finally took the long way around it and got back to the camp ground and told everyone about it. 3 people went back with me to look it. It was the first time I had ever seen a rattle snake in the wild.

Kactus Sams is a non-game playing group (except for beanbag baseball and Mexican Train) so Seven and I broke out our Texas Holdem set and Balderdash, Seven's favorite game, and taught everyone how to play. It was fun and people picked up on the games pretty fast.

All in all it was a great trip. The weather, the people, and camp ground were great.

Good Sams Arizona State Samboree in Casa Grande

2006-03-12T18:13:00.000-08:00

We took our first trip in the Chieftain to the Good Sams Arizona State Samboree in Casa Grande, Arizona on March 9-12. Having only driven the Chieftain home from the sales lot this was going to be a great driving experience for us. We were really looking forward to actually using the Chieftain instead of dreaming about doing it. We had visions of setting things up: putting the mat and lawn chairs out, unrolling the awning, putting up our neat red-white-and-blue awning lights, hoisting the new hypno twister, and meeting lots of interesting people.

We got the Chieftain out of storage after sanitizing the water tanks with bleach and checking things over carefully and drove it up to our house in Sun City West. There we loaded it up with our supplies and clothes for the Samboree on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning. Our good neighbor, Marilyn V., got to take a tour of our new toy and really liked it. So with the TiVo set and ready to faithfully record the KU basketball games we headed down Grand Ave to I-101 to I-10 and on to AZ-287 east out of Casa Grande. The driving went surprisingly well although going down I-10 at 65 mph in a huge vehicle that occupied what seemed like a lane and a half was initially terrifying. Seven kept reminding me not to take out the car beside us about every 5 minutes. I finally found a good visual reference point in front of the vehicle and concentrated on it, ignoring everything else going on around me. That was the only way I was able to stay in my lane consistently. White knuckle time, especially through downtown Phoenix. It was comforting however to know that people were afraid of ME because I was driving a big, honking, vehicle that could crush them if they didn't get out of the way. Good thing.

We pulled into the Pinal County Fairgrounds and got assigned a spot to park. Our spot was in RV Siberia - at the end of a row. There were several things about the site that were bad: everyone walked their dog outside our front door, no trees, no other RVs blocking the wind that was more or less howling in from the southwest, it was 50 miles from all the activities, and a great view of some gutted trailers. But, what the hay, we were here, we were excited by everything - our RV, the Samboree, all the people, etc.

We headed on over to the registration booth and got our paperwork, official Marti Gras beads and a number. The number, on a wristband, was our ticket to events and the 100s of prize drawings. The list of activities was actually kind of mind boggling at first. Games, seminars, and all kinds of events from morning to night. Looked like it was going to be non-stop fun.

When we got back to the RV to set up we began to realize that our spot at the end of the row was bad. The wind was blowing. Usually wind is not a big problem but in the Arizona desert it is because wind carries dust - lots of dust and it was blowing at us in 10-30 mile gusts. Out the window went plans for setting up the awning, mat, lights, and chairs. We were going to be confined to the RV or inside of buildings unless the wind went away. We did get the hypno twirler set up and almost immediately that we had made a mistake purchasing it. It was too small. It was cool, but small. We were concerning about the length of it, 6 feet, and got the smallest they had. Bigger is better. We hooked up to the 30 amp service but didn't hook up to the water. Seven, who worked for the Arizona Water Quality department, contacted a friend of hers still working there for a quick assessment of the quality of Casa Grande's water. To put it bluntly, their water stinks.

Samborees are places where people are hell-bent on having fun and they do. We participated in a Sequence tourney, a washer board tourney, helped our local Good Sams club, Kactus Sams, with their booth in carnival, enjoyed the ice cream social, attended a campground presentation, looked at some new RVs, went to a safety seminar, and did a lot of other interesting things. We met and talked to people from all over. Good Sams people are down-right friendly.

On Saturday it began to rain. That's good. We haven't had any rain in the Phoenix area for 140 days or there abouts. A little rain is a good thing in the desert. Settles the dust and all that. The problem was that it didn't stop raining. Our RV was slowly sinking into the mud and was surrounded by 3-4" inches of water. We were concerned. People started pulling out and leaving. One guy evidently forgot that there was an one-two foot deept ditch running down through the middle of the fair grounds and drove right into it. He somehow got pulled out. We finally decided it was time to move and we moved to higher ground. Someone told us about Wal-Mart boots (grocery bags fastened over the shoes) and we wore those any time we left the RV. A lot of the outdoor events were cancelled or moved inside. We missed the bean bag baseball game that was held indoors. The golf car rodeo had to be cancelled.

Sunday morning we got up to welcomed sunshine. The storm had moved on and things dried out in a hurry. We ate a good breakfast and got ready to break camp. Our old spot at the end of the row was still under water though so we were glad we moved.

We decided to forego the interstate and take the back way to Tempe where we would visit Son #2, the Drewmeister. We drove down Arizona 87 to Elliot Road where we turned to go to Tempe. We had a lunch in the RV with the Drewster, who was impressed with our new toy. We let him drive it 50 feet down the parking lot. He is, after all, still a wild and crazy teenager. Then after getting updated on Drew's progress at college, girl friend, job, and other things, we went back on the road down I-10/I-101 and home. And a good time was had by all despite all the little set backs that kept us from realizing our initial vision. ('good time was had by all' was always appended to every report of activities in a little social newspaper column we used to read a long time ago). The only bad thing was that TiVo failed to record the KU basketball games for some reason.

Hoisting the Hypno Twister

2006-03-08T10:10:00.000-08:00

We fell in love with wind socks and twisters during our Quartzsite trip. An RV parked near us had one up like the ones on the left. The spinning twister allowed us to find our way back to our RV until we got used to where we needed to go. They just look cool.

We ordered a patriotic Hypno Twister from Fun with Wind along with a 16 foot telescoping pole. The next problem was how we were to going to attach it to the RV. I surfed the web for solutions. There are lots of flag holders on the market and they can cost big bucks. Some are even made from composite materials. Woo-woo.

After thinking about how much money we had invested in the Hypno Twister and the pole we thought: well, enough is enough on this project. We came up with a simple design for a holder that is made out of a foot of scrap 2"x4" and 4 5" carriage bolts I had in the garage. Total cost is probably around $1.50. I spent about 20 minutes making them. The ladder on the RV and the poles are about 1" in diameter.

I drilled 2 1" holes about 1 1/2" inches apart. Then I drilled 2 3/8" holes in the ends all the way through the piece. Finally, I cut the bracket through the center of each hole using a saw with a 1/8" kerf. The RV ladder will go through one hole and the pole through the other and then I will tighten them down.

Brainstorm: If I made the holes that will hold the flag larger so that they could accomodate a piece of plastic pipe with a 1"+ inside diameter and one end closed then the flag could be inserted or removed from the holder easily without having to
undo the nuts each time.

Of course, that would make it easier for some deviant to take the pole and the flag or wind sock though. Or I could drill a hole in the pipe and the pole and put a lock through both and solve that problem . (Why do we have to nail everything down? Wouldn't it be easier to shoot people who steal things like a stupid pole and a ultra-useless hypno twister? Just kidding, of course. )

Brainstorm Update: While at the Samboree in Casa Grande I saw two such pipes attached to the ladder using strips of metal (can't think of the name of it) that is used to hang pipe with. Given a choice between the two methods my idea is cheaper but the pipe idea is better except that the pole will rattle around in the pipe if it is too big and annoy the h--- out of you when you are trying to sleep.

Our First Rally

2006-02-26T19:52:00.000-08:00

We signed up for our first RV rally today. This is almost as exciting as our first date. However, the rally will cost quite a bit more than our first date.

We are going to the great big Samboree Rally in Casa Grande, Arizona on March 9-12. Seven was going to have to miss the first day of the rally because she bowls on Thursdays. We are so excited about going she is going to skip bowling that week. We had to get high level state officer intervention to be assured of a spot in the rally camp ground at the Pinal County fairgrounds. Bruce and Wilma Church from Happy Trails RV Resort are Arizona Good Sams state officers and are going down to Casa Grande early to help set things up and are going hand carry our late registration to the proper people at the rally next week. What nice people!!

Bruce and Wilma told us that there will be 500 coaches at the rally and that it is the second largest Samboree in the US.

We am looking forward to watching/participating in the golf car rodeo and a lot of the other activities as well as helping our local Good Sam's chapter, Kactus Sams, with some of their duties at the rally.

There will be a chinese auction to raise money for the state organization's scholarship fund. I had never heard of a chinese auction before so that will be interesting.

Travel Insurance

2006-02-24T13:45:00.000-08:00

Since we are taking off on a 16 day cruise around Europe from Barcelona to Stockholm with Oceania Cruises in May we have been looking into getting travel insurance. There are lots of options. We finally bit the bullet and got Travelex's Travel Lite policy. It is going to cost us around $575. We think we needed it. Lots of experienced people recommended to us that we get it. We are concerned most about getting sick or having a family emergency somewhere along the way although there are lots of other unlikely but possible bad things that could happen. We are scheduled to stop in Cartoonville in Denmark and who knows if it will have been burned to the ground by then or, worse, be burned to the ground while we are there. So, hopefully, our bases are covered with this policy although we waited too long after booking the cruise to get it. Since we waited past the deadline to order it we are precluded from the bankruptcy and pre-existing medical parts of the policy.

We are really looking forward to the trip. Almost as much as we are to spending the summer at Brainard Lake. then hitting the road to see the USA.

Putting on the tow bar brackets

2006-02-23T21:28:00.000-08:00

Today I put on the Roadmaster tow bar brackets that came in yesterday. There are 3 main bars. Two of them attach to the frame then attach to a cross bar (receiver brace) that connects the two bars from the frame.

It is actually a pretty easy job to do but I ran into problems getting one bar attached to the frame and had to make some adjustments. I was instructed to install everything loose and I did. It just wasn't loose enough. There has to be enough play to pull the bars so that the holes line up. I did not torque them down yet because I still have some minor adjusting to do so that the tow bar will slip onto the plates. We have a Roadmaster 5000 Stowmaster towbar that we are going to use. The owner of our Jamboree gave it to us (we paid to ship it to AZ from Oregon).

I will have to get some locks because I heard that some people (kids probably) think that it is great fun to pull the pins on the tow bars.

Now we have to get a braking system. I am researching that pretty thoroughly because they are expensive.

Suncreens-R-Us

2006-02-19T17:11:00.000-08:00

We live in Arizona and have about 38.37% more UV than anyone else on the planet. Probably.

So we need sunsceens for our windows. We could put those folding silver screens on the inside against the windows and more than likely the UV would be thwarted, but the heat would be trapped inside the RV and eventually would bake everything inside the RV like a cookie that has been baked in an oven at 450 degrees for 2 hours. These shades are pretty cheap ($2.50 for small ones) in Wal-Mart and come in a variety of sizes and thicknesses. Our local RV store, Orangewood RV, sells large sheets, 4' wide, of the metallic material by the foot. About $3.75 per foot.

We could also put a film on the windows but that would not work on the biggest window we got, the windshield.

The best option we could come up after looking around our storage lot at other vehicles with is to put sunscreens on the outside, covering each of the coach's windows. To tell the truth only about 12.32% of the vehicles in our lot have any type of sunscreen other than their privacy curtain. On the 78.68% of the others you can almost hear the curtains rotting in the sun. We found custom made sunscreens for just about every kind of coach in several different places on the web. All of them are expensive.

I saw a post by sigthor (Bob Will) on RV.net about his D-Y-I sunscreen project and became convinced since Seven knows how to use a sewing machine (a vast understatement) that we could D-Y-I some ourselves. The key ingredient, the UV resistant fabric, sigthor told us could be bought at Home Depot. We found a 6'x12' piece precut peice there for around $18. They sell it precut and by the yard in 4 differenet colors. We bought a precut piece and found 3/8" snaps at Joann's Fabrics that would work. They were $4.50+tax for 7 of them and we had to buy a special tool to use on them for another $2.50. We held off on getting those because we were not sure of the size of the snaps already on our coach. After we found out that our snaps were 3/8" we went to Campers World and found that they had some snaps that included the tool for $4.50 (Lord and Hodge #1100 and #1110 (with screw studs). There were only six snaps in their packages however. We bought a couple of packages and today took them out to the lot and started making our front windshield sunscreen. CW had two different packages: one with screws and one without. These snaps can be ordered from Amazon and other places. They also sell refill packages (#1110A and #1100A) for these that do not include the tool. CW only had the ones with the tool.

I will tell you the proper way to make a sunscreen since we did make a boo-boo on ours that is almost inconsequential but is wrong nevertheless.

Preparation: Drill the 1/8" holes per the instructions on screw-in snaps package (#1110) into your RV (check to see if you will hit wood because the laminate is probably not thick enough to hold the sheet metal screw which is around 1/2"-5/8" long) and screw the male snap part into the holes. There are 4 parts to each snap - the female and male parts consists of two pieces (if you use the screw studs, there is only one piece for the male part). I will use 4 snaps for each of my side coach windows, 5 for the driver and passenger side windows, and 10 for the front windshield (5 on top, 2 side ones, and 3 on the bottom). I will drill, screw and make sunscreens for one window at a time.
Making the sunscreen: Do not sew the fabric at first - the fabric stretches and the windshield is not a perfect rectangle so if you try to do it all in one step there is a very good possibility you will mess it up no matter how careful you are. We did slightly. This is probably the best way to do it: Fold over one corner - horizontaly and vertically. A 2" hem is good for side windows. Use a 4" hem on the top of the windshield and on the sides and 2" on the bottom. Leave the fabric uncut until after you have the snaps in place in the fabric. Cut away some of the fabric in one of the 4 folded layers so that you are only inserting a snap post into 3 pieces of fabric. We cut a small circle in one layer of fabric where the snap was going to come through. Use a sharp object and poke a hole through the fabric about 1/2" - 3/4" away from the folded edge of the seam. Insert the button part of the snap through the hole. Put on the female part of the snap (the button and socket) over the button's post then use the tool to pound the post on the button so it connects the two parts together with the fabric in between them.
Snap the female snap you just created on the RV then stretch the fabric to next horizontal male snap - on a side window that will be just the other horizontal male snap. Mark the next snap's location with a safety pin or marker. Do not pull it too tight. Make sure that you have decent 4" hem for the top of windshield sunscreen. On the windshield sunscreen, snap the first snap in place on the top of the windshield then stretch the fabric all the way across to the male snap on the far side of the windshield. Make sure that you will have enough fabric in your hem to cover the middle and two intermediate snaps on the top of the windshield area because they may be higher than the two on the side. Ours were. Install the female snap. Snap the sunscreen into place using the two snaps you just made, then mark the location of the middle snap, install it and snap the suncreen into place. Mark the two intermediate snaps and, install them then snap the screen back into place. Do the same for the two side snaps and the bottom snaps. This takes two people and some ups and downs on the ladder.
Take it slow and easy and do it one step at a time. We tried measuring it and laying it out but when we tested it against the snaps that were in place before installing female snaps, nothing matched up for some reason. It is not a difficult job except if your windshield is, as the guy in the driveway says about Steve Buscemi in my favorite movie- Fargo, kind of funny looking - or curved. Ours was.
Once all the snaps are installed in the fabric, sew the hem with two rows of stitching - one close (1/2") to the outside edge and one close (1/2") to the inside.

The project will probably cost a bit over $85 by the time we are finished with it and it won't look half bad. Sigthor said his cost around $100. Custom made ones sell for over $200. We have have spent 2 hours not counting shopping and investigating on the project so far. Will spend probably another 3-4 hours on it. As my bro-in-law Mike says "We have the time. We are retired." We already had 20 male snaps in place on our RV so that saved us from buying 3-4 packs of the screw-in snap assemblies (#1100A). Seven is talking about embroidering our names in the windshield screen to make it even more fancy. Pictures to follow.

Out with the Old and in with the New

2006-02-13T07:13:00.000-08:00

Our Quartzsite trip turned out to be a fork in the road. We took the jobs with Thousand Trails at Brainard Lake and started thinking - will our Jamboree be adequate for 2, 2 1/2 months while we were working? The answer was a resounding 'no'. We could stand a couple of nights in the Jamboree but after just 2 trips and maybe 400 miles we were ready for something larger.

Next question was what to get? Fifth wheels work best for the long term camping we were going to do in June but we were also planning on being on the road for some time after our job ends in September and a Class A or large Class C is best for nomadic travel. So we had to decide and began looking around Quartzsite at motor homes and fifth wheels. No luck, but we did talk to some nice people and the usual sleezeballs that hang out at RV sales lots.

We left Quartzsite and headed back to Sun City West without a new(er) RV but with a pretty good idea that we wanted to get a Class A motorhome.

Our search for a motorhome began at the usual places: Sun City RV Storage Lot's collection of bulletin boards, the news papers, and Orangewood RV which is right down the street from the storage lot. We didn't find anything we liked. We went to another of our favorite places to look at RVs, Consignment Specialists on Grand Ave. We were shown a couple of models when one of the owners told his wife who was helping us to show us the 2000 Winnebago Chieftain they had just bought from an owner. Love at first sight. We bought it and traded in our Jamboree. The Winnebago has just 31,000 miles on it and is almost perfect condition.

The really big problem was driving it home from the consignment lot. Neither Seven or I had ever driven a big vehicle like this before. I went on to RVNet.com and asked the old timers in the Class A forum for some advice about driving one of these babies. Lots of good information came pouring in. All those tips and a quick around the block drive with the owner of consignment lot and we were good to go. I won't mention how I almost pulled out too far into traffic and scared the heck out of some poor lady. I drove it to the big parking lot in the front of the Sundome on Johnson Drive and let Seven have a go at it. She cruised around the parking lot and wanted to drive it home. That is the last time I drove our new RV. She loves driving it. It is a dream to drive and a lot of fun.

Quartzsite

2006-01-28T14:32:00.000-08:00

We took off for Quartzsite at about 11 am. We turned left on to US 60 (Grand Ave) and headed north to Wickenburg then over to Quartzsite on US 60 through Salome. It is a couple of miles shorter to go this way than south on US 60 to I-101 to I-10 then to Quartzsite. It isn't faster but RV travel shouldn't be about faster.

Wickenburg, Arizona is about 30 miles north of Sun City West on US 60. We have passed through there many times on the way to Laughlin, NV and have attended the Gold Rush Days parade and rodeo several times.

The bridge over the Hassayampa River was real interesting to me because of the funny signs on the east end of the bridge. The funny signs appear to have been removed. But luckily I took a picture of them on an earlier trip.

Here's picture of what the Hassayampa River normally looks like 99.7% of the time.

Wickenburg has many interesting sights to see including the Hassayampa River Preserve and Gold Rush Days in February but we did not stop.

We pulled into Salome and were going to pull over for lunch when Seven noticed an RV pulling out of a side road so we turned in. We went down to the end of it and found a bevy of RVs spread out over a large vacant lot. People were sitting in circles playing guitars and other instruments next to 3 or 4 of the RVs. We pulled up next to one and had lunch inside the RV then were going to go to listen to the music but the musicians broke for lunch too. I took some pictures of a water tower that was ready to collapse then went over to listen to some guys play. I asked them if this was where the American Idol tryouts were and they almost died laughing. They were really good. What could be better than playing music with a bunch of friends, beer, and salsa dip? I didn't get much information out of them because they were so intent on their playing.

Seven and I walked down the road next to the vacant lot to check out an interesting geocache that I had entered in my GPS unit earlier. The cache was located near the gravesite of Dick Wick Hall, the founder of Salome and a well-known humorist. The cache was super easy to find. There was no information at the gravesite about who Dick Wick Hall was so I had to look his story up when I got home.

His 11 year old daughter, Jane, had this beautiful line in her eulogy for her father:

"When the blossom graced the cactus and the fields were sweet with hay, when the birds were singing in the trees, a genius passed away."

Back on the way to Quartzsite we went through the small town of Hope. There is a big RV campground south of US 60 and on the outskirts of Hope that has a sign that says on the back of it: "You are now beyond Hope".

We turned up the speed when we left slow and leisurely US 60 and got onto the race track known as I-10. Go really fast or get out of the way. On stretch of I-10 from Phoenix to Quartzsite the posted speed limit is 75. The average speed is probably over 85. You don't miss much scenery doing 85 on this flat piece of road. So over Polomsa Pass and down into the valley where you can see 1,000s of RVs glistening in the sun.

We got off at Exit 19 in Quartzsite and then turned left onto Central Ave or AZ 95. From on top of the bridge over I-10 you could see most of Tyson Wells and the surrounding area. What a mess.

Someone at our RV storage facility told us about $5 spots to dry camp in at Rice Ranch. Rice Ranch is right across from Tyson Wells and the RV show and we could walk to all the action. We didn't use our RV (didn't pull a toad) for the 3 days we were there. Parking and traffic is a mess in Quartzsite.

Our main objective was to visit the RV Show and to look into getting work camping jobs for the summer. After we parked the Jamboree we hiked over the RV Show. Within 5 minutes of finding our first summer job booth outside the RV tent we had interviews lined up for the next morning. We took a brief look around and saved touring the RV tent for the next day.

The next morning we had our interview and were offered host positions in a campground in Utah. We had a problem finding one because we couldn't start until the middle of June. Most positions started in April or May. The ones starting in June were usually in high altitude places that were snowed in until then. No electricity. No sewage. The interviewer had to check with one more person in the area before he offered us the position and asked us to come back. He assured us the job would be ours if we wanted it. We left and quickly came across a 1000 Trails work camping recruitment booth. After chatting with some friendly folks, Howard and Marva Woodard, we were offered another position at Brainard Lake in Colorado as booth people. It even pays wages in addition to a free campsite. We happily signed on. Utah will have to wait.

Introduction

2006-01-21T16:11:00.000-08:00

We bought a 26 foot 1993 Jamboree Rallye last year. Seven (fullname: 7_Out) retired from working with the State of Arizona in July and with all that we (I am the Mad part of Seven and Mad. Fullname: MadJayhawk), were almost ready to hit the road after looking at RVs for almost 3 years and trying to figure out the best way to hit the road.

7_Out is what Seven uses as a nickname when she plays poker on Absolute Poker and bridge on Microsoft's game site. She was a craps supervisor for Harrah's some time ago and used 7_Out on a vanity license plate. It is somewhat a sarcastic remark only craps players could appreciate. MadJayhawk is a nickname Mad has used since he started playing internet games 7 years ago. He is a big Jayhawk basketball fan and Mad can mean 'angry' or 'crazy' depending on his mood or how the 'Hawks are playing. Either one or the other.

Before we could hit the road though we had to get our youngest settled in college, sell a house, and move. After all the garage sales, all the open houses (we used a sell-it-yourself service called Assist-to-Sell), packing what we could not convince someone to give us a quarter or buck for, and getting started in a our new community we are now finally ready to travel.

Tomorrow is the official starting date for us. We are heading to the mecca of RVdom - Quartzsite for the big RV Show and flea market. We have the data all punched into the DeLorme Street Atlas with Earthmate GPS on our Compaq laptop. We pulled the RV out of storage today, filled her propane tank($15 for 7 gallons), cleaned her inside and out, gassed her up (only $95.39 for 41.5 gallons), checked out allthe systems, and fired up the fridge. We have located all the close-in geocaches in the Quartzite area and those along the way and plan to do at least 10 of those while we are there. It could almost be said that we RV to geocache. In morning we pull out and head west.

We really did a lot of research on RVs before we bought then bought the Jamboree in a fever (right condition, right mileage, right price - you know the drill). We were going to originally go the full time in a motor home route. Then we thought a 5th wheel would be better because we had planned to settle in one spot for 2-4 weeks at a time. Then back to the motor home for reasons we can't recall. Then to a Class C. Then back to a 5th Wheel. Then back to a Class C because we decided not to go full time and just wanted to get something used and inexpensive that had been well-cared for so we could try out the RV life style before investing big bucks into a hunk of steel with a sink and bed on 4 wheels. We looked at a lot of RVs and talked to a lot of sales people who probably thought we were nuts. Every analysis we did caused us heartburn when we looked at the depreciation figures for RVs. RVs depreciate breathtakingly fast so we decided on something nice with low mileage that someone else had eaten the depreciation on yet could get us from point A to point B and let us sit for awhile to enjoy point B. We like our Jamboree but our real love is a Carriage 5th Wheel. If we like RVing perhaps there is one in our future.

Well, that is our first post. We will fill in the blanks, let you know about our successes and failures, tell some stories about who we meet and where we have been, and where we will go next. Hope to see you around the campfire.